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Neko Case
I think it was around 13 years ago that I saw Neko Case perform in a narrow, smoke-filled dive in downtown Albuquerque. The sound system was bad, the drinks were worse, the bar food even more so. I squeezed up the stairway to nab a stool with a good sightline, and brushed shoulders with a…
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Kaas Chante Piaf
There is something triumphal about pop at its best, when it seems that talent has conquered all, and it passes, to accept its laurels, under arches erected, if only for a day, by a public seized with desire and eager already for another victory. That is, if you think about it, the structure of most…
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Nellie McKay
Let us now praise Nellie McKay, the walking definition of one-of-a-kind, defier of genres and categories, contemporizer of the old-fashioned, nostalgizer of the new, wittifier of the tragic, and profundizer of the trivial. There is no one cleverer, or more likable, words like “talented” were invented in the vain hope that they might describe her.…
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Prisma
I waited a few days to listen to Camila Meza’s PRISMA, the release of which she celebrated last week at the Kitano. The recording is more than representative of her great talent, exceeding my expectations, which were high to begin with. She has transported the ethereal vibe of her earlier work, which always seemed to…
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Por el agua de Granada
Before time overcomes the memory, I should say something about the presentation last Thursday by Lara Bello and Erik Kurimski of their new CD of folk songs collected by the Spanish poet García Lorca. What I knew going in was that Bello is the ideal interpreter of the material. I have heard her before in…
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Tangolandó
I have said so much about Sofía Tosello as a tango singer, and about the Afro-Peruvian fusion project, Tangolandó, of which she is half, that I assumed last Sunday at the Blue Note that I would snap a picture for social media, promulgate a caption, and let it go at that. But it remains true…
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Willie Colón
I assumed that seeing Willie Colón: La Historia last Saturday at the Lehman Center in the Bronx would be entirely new territory for me, and I was uncertain whether I would be able to follow my usual practice of publishing a few notes when I see a performer that I enjoy, find interesting, or otherwise…
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La Chicana
Last week was my second time seeing La Chicana at the Buenos Aires tango spot called Torquato Tasso. This innovative band was founded by Dolores Solá, Acho Estol and Juan Valverde in 1995, but what defines them for me is the metallic resonance of Solá’s voice and the acerbic wit of her interpretations. That wit…
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La ruta de Lorca
On June 5, the birthday of the great Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, I joined LA RUTA DE LORCA EN NUEVA YORK, a walking tour of some of the poet’s haunts in the vicinity of Columbia University. We gathered at the university gate, bearing as our standard a rendering of Lorca’s face, composed,…
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Pedro Giraudo
It is not just his “big” band. Everything about the music of Pedro Giraudo is vast, enlarged in space, time and ambition, extended to the far-off horizons that the sounds he makes compel us to visualize. His compositions feel as though they traverse landscapes, squeezing whole journeys into musical adventures that set out as from…