“This is perhaps my most personal album because there is no place to hide musically speaking. This is that much more apparent when I’m playing bass, chords, and melodies simultaneously in real time on the Warr guitar or singing original songs of love and loss. These duets with Willie Martínez, Mauricio Herrera, and Ray Díaz allowed me to bring the touchstyle/tapping technique and sound to a wide range of Spanish Caribbean music that has been so important to me since my teenage years.” – Benjamin Lapidus
Latin music’s cutting-edge musician/scholar returns with Blues for Ochún, a grooving and ear-pleasing recording rooted in Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Dominican music traditions as well as jazz. The result is a deep listening experience that offers a truly unique take on Latin jazz featuring touchstyle/tapping guitar, Cuban tres, electric guitar, English, Spanish, and Yoruba vocals, a heavy helping of Afro-Caribbean percussion, and the Hammond organ he explored on his last record, Ochosi Blues. The recording’s focus on the Warr guitar, a touchstyle/tapping instrument created by Mark Warr that allows the player to perform melody, harmony, and bass simultaneously, marks the first time that a Latin jazz album has ever been made featuring this instrument. When asked to label Benjamin Lapidus’ music, critics and fans agree that it is Latin Jazz in the truest sense of the term, as Lapidus continues to explore different ways of mixing Jazz and Spanish-Caribbean music, while making the music accessible, organic, and logical. This is the direct result of Lapidus and the New York musicians involved, who are completely bi-and even tri-cultural, a benefit of being residents of the largest Caribbean city in the United States. Active in the New York Latin scene since 1995, Lapidus has made a name for himself among the elders as the go to player for long-established bands and new live and recording projects such as The Buena Vista Social Club, Jerry and Andy González, Típica 73, Larry Harlow, and many more.
Critics and fans agree that Benjamin Lapidus’ music is unique in its cutting-edge approach without sacrificing accessibility or the traditions of Spanish-Caribbean music. With Blues for Ochún, Lapidus continues his dynamic vision of bringing Spanish-Caribbean music and jazz together as equals while charting new ground and creatively altering the musical conventions of both worlds. He started on this path in his previous five releases of original compositions (1998-2005) as the leader of the world-renowned Latin jazz phenomenon Sonido Isleño, and continued with his pan-Latin jazz interpretation of the Brazilian songbook with Kaori Fujii on Garota de Ipanema for RCA-Victor Japan (2007). In 2008, he released Herencia Judía a critically acclaimed Afro-Latin Jewish recording project. And in 2014, he released the Hammond organ-based Ochosi Blues to wide critical acclaim performing the title track and other originals at Havana’s Jazzplaza Festival in 2019.
For his 9th release Blues for Ochún, Lapidus assembled an A-list of performers and friends with whom he has frequently toured and recorded: Mauricio Herrera (Nicholas Payton, Yerba Buena) Cuban master drummer; Willie Martínez (Johnny Colón) veteran Latin jazz drummer and bandleader; Jadele McPherson Afrocuban ritual music vocalist and scholar; Hector Torres (Sonido Isleño, Chico Álvarez) veteran percussionist and long-time collaborator; Ray “Chino” Díaz Dominican percussionist with Milly y Los Vecinos; Manuel Alejandro Carro Cuban percussionist with David Broza; bassist Jorge Bringas former musical director for Albita, and Paul Carlon (Sonido Isleño) the in-demand NYC-based tenor saxophonist and bandleader. Lapidus joins them on Warr guitar, organ, guitar, Cuban tres, and vocals.
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