|
Mas Mamones: Aguacero y Parranda |
E-mail |
|
New Orleans
|
|
Sunday, 22 January 2006 09:30 |
Mas Mamones
Aguacero Y Parranda
By John Sinclair
There's more to the New Orleans musical renaissance of the nineties than comes immediately to the eye and ear. Traditional jazz is flourishing like never before, and the current generation of brass band musicians has brought bebop, swing, hip-hop and funk into the mix to extend the ancestral forms into the future on the firm framework of the past.
Blues, rhythm & blues, modern jazz, gospel and contemporary funk are everywhere in evidence, and the city's hard-core rap community is taking over the national pop charts. But there's lots of action outside the mainstream as well: African drum and dance ensembles, samba schools, salsa and meringue outfits, space jazz, Tex-Mex, klezmer music, and just about everything you can think of can be heard in the streets, nightspots and dancehalls of the Crescent City today.
Mas Mamones, a nine-man dance band that takes its inspiration from the Afro-Cuban music of the 1940s and 50s, has grown into one of the city's most popular attractions since its inception in the fall of 1994.
Featuring an all-star cast and a dynamic repertoire of original compositions and tightly arranged mambos, cha-chas, boogaloos, comparsas, and boleros adapted from the works of Tito Puente, Dimension Latina, Tito Rodriguez, and the great Cuban bassist and composer Israel "Cachao" Lopez, Mas Mamones fills the floor with frenzied dancers from its stronghold at the Cafe Brasil to the Dream Palace, the Maple Leaf, Tipitina's, Jimmy's, the House of Blues, and venues all over town.
Recognized as New Orleans' "best Latin band" in the 1996 and 1997 OffBeat Reader's Polls, Mas Mamones has been spotlighted at the 1996 and 1997 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festivals and has played Carnaval Latino, the Honduran Festival, the Mirliton Festival, The Great New Orleans Veg-Out, and the Algiers Armed Forces Festival to thousands of ecstatic dancers and listeners. The band was featured in an episode of the Cox Cable TV show Ecos Latinos and has been heard on the soundtrack of the USA Network show The Big Easy.
Now Mas Mamones proudly presents its first recording, Aguacero y Parranda, an exhilarating collection of Afro-Cuban dance grooves played to sizzling perfection by a delightfully tight ensemble well-seasoned by countless nights on the bandstand. The evidence is overwhelming: Mas Mamones has added its distinctive voice to the sound of New Orleans today, brightening the present and helping to illuminate the future of the music in this most musical of cities.
* * * * *
Afro-Caribbean sounds and rhythms have been central to the New Orleans musical experience since the city's earliest beginnings. What Jelly Roll Morton termed "the Spanish tinge" was brought in by African slaves transshipped from Cuba and other Caribbean stops, where they had intermingled blood lines and cultural forms with the Caribs, Tainos, and other native peoples. The influx of thousands of Haitians during the first decade of the nineteenth century cemented the city's Afro-Caribbean underpinnings.
Like their forebears, the members of Mas Mamones have brought their musical visions from points far and wide to re-root them in New Orleans' rich cultural soil. They came together on the fertile ground of the Frenchmen Street music scene in the Faubourg Marigny, just below the French Quarters, where Ade's Cafe Brasil provides a warm, comfortable haven for Latin bands and music lovers of every stripe.
Singer Manuel Lander was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela and attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston before coming to New Orleans, where he first surfaced with the group Banda Logun and as "DJ Ademi" with a Latin-jazz program on WWOZ radio.
Hector Gallardo, a native of Cuba, has been in New Orleans since the 60's and has built a devoted following for his own popular Latin jazz ensembles, Santiago and the Songo All-Stars. Hector has recorded with guitarist Steve Masakowski for Blue Note Records and is beautifully showcased here as leader of the driving Mas Mamones rhythm section.
Bassist (and bandleader) Andy Wolf played with two big Latin bands in Michigan and recorded for the Valencia label in Detroit before emigrating to New Orleans in the early 90s. Andy toured Europe with the UNO jazz quintet in 1995-96 and works with a wide variety of bands in the Crescent City, including TVT recording artists Royal Fingerbowl and Michael Ray's Cosmic Krewe.
Michael Skinkus (timbales), originally from Pennsylvania, is one of the city's busiest percussionists. He was a founding member of Smilin' Myron and performs regularly with Steve Masakowski, Larry Seiberth, Michael Ray and the Cosmic Krewe, Elegant Gypsy, and Acoustic Swiftness.
Guitarist Jonathan Freilich, most recently from Los Angeles, was raised in England and has become a fixture on the Crescent City scene by virtue of his masterful command of the instrument and his boundless musical imagination. Jonathan is a founding member and principal songwriter of the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars and the avant-jazz group Naked on the Floor.
Antonio Gambrell (trumpet), a South Carolina native, is enrolled in the Jazz Studies department at UNO and leads his own jazz ensemble with saxophonist Derek Douget. Antonio was a member of the UNO jazz quintet which toured Europe in the summers of 1996 and '97.
Derek Douget (alto saxophone), another Jazz Studies student at the University of New Orleans, is from Gonzalez, LA. Derek also toured with the UNO jazz quintet and has performed with Nicholas Payton.
Robert Wagner (tenor saxophone), also known as clarinetist for the N.O. Klezmer All-Stars, completed his B.A. in composition at DePaul University in Chicago before moving to New Orleans.
Hart McNee (baritone saxophone, flute) is a Chicago native who spent many years in San Francisco before settling in the Crescent City. Hart is a member of the Storyville Stompers Brass Band and Elegant Gypsy who also performs with a variety of old-school R&B acts and was featured on Coco Robicheaux's Spiritland album for Orleans Record
--New Orleans
January 5, 1998
(c) 1997, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
Mas Mamones
Aguacero y Parranda
1 Buenas (0:09)
2 Cimarron (3:41)
3 Manana Es Domingo (2:55)
4 Mamb0 Lob0 (2:57)
5 El Tema (0:24)
6 El Songo De Hector (4:16)
7 Hey B00galoo (6:17)
8 Malanga Amarilla (5:06)
9 No (0:05)
10 Mas Mamones Cha Cha Cha (4:53)
11 Yayabo (3:34)
12 Quiero Ser Como Tu (3:41)
13 Caprichosa (2:48)
14 El Tema (0:19)
15 Aguacero y Parranda (5:03)
Produced by Manuel Lander, Andrew Wolf & Richard Bird
Manuel Lander, vocales, clave, guiro, campana
Andrew Wolf, bajo, vocales
Hector Gallardo, tumbadores, campara
Michael Skinkus, timbales, clave, guiro
Hart McNee, flauta, bariton saxifona, vocales
Robert Wagner, tenor saxifona, vocales
Derek Douget, alto saxifona
Joe Cabral, tenor saxifona [2][3][7]
Antonio Gambrell, tompeta (all but [2][3][7][13])
Jonathan Freilich, guitars
Recorded at Audiophile Studio, NOLA
Mastered by Parker Dinkins, December 18, 1997
3.1.6117 |
|
Share Link: 
