I’m beginning to suspect that I’m on the wrong continent. The joy I felt on a recent trip to Chile and at a concert by a cumbia band on Friday has me rethinking my place on the planet.
My Spanish may be atrocious, but most everything else feels right about a potential move to the south.
I didn’t understand what a member of the dynamic show band Tropicalísimo Apache said when he pointed me out during Friday’s free concert at Barney Allis Plaza. If he was encouraging a brave woman to dance with me, his request went unheeded.
No matter. I was so enthralled with the expertise with which the Mexican band played the music of Columbia that I’m ”Una Copita de Ron” away from buying a one-way ticket to Bogotá or Santiago.
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Here are my most recent weekly music picks for The Kansas City Star and Ink.
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I previewed the Crossroads Music Fest for Ink and contributed to a review of the event for The Kansas City Star.
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An item about Second Hand King is among my recent contributions to KCUR.
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I caught a portion of the Prairie Village Jazz Festival at Plastic Sax. Here are my notes.
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A vibrant mix of Afrobeat, soukous, rock and electronica, Mbongwana Star’s From Kinshasa is stunning. Here’s ”Malukayi” (Tip via Big Steve.)
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I’m unable to resist the Go! Team’s charms. Listening to The Scene Between gives me the same feeling I had when I was seven years old and watching a new episode of my favorite Saturday morning cartoon. RIYL: the Magnetic Fields, Sid and Marty Krofft, the Crystals. Here’s the title track.
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I didn’t catch last year’s Chick Corea/Bela Fleck tour. The concert document Two indicates that you had to be there.
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Live in Cuba, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s new 137-minute album, alternately thrilled and bored me. RIYL: certain Grammy winners, Wynton, big bands.
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Anne-Sophie Mutter gets it. The Club Album is everything it’s meant to be. RIYL: populism (of a sort), Vivaldi, marketing genius.
(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)
