Cumbia All-Stars, Tigres en Fuga

So today we travel a span of aural distance for some infectious contemporary cumbia music, a venerable Latin dance style with vibrant rhythm. The Cumbia All-Stars give us a contemporary slant on Cumbia Peruana sounds in their album Tigres en Fuga (World Village 450028).

It has the rhythmic vibrancy you expect, solid lead and call-and-response vocals, tunes that hit home, and perhaps most interestingly, a very guitar-centric approach. The lead and rhythm guitars are very outfront in a kind of Afro-meets-Santana hipness, meaning that the guitar work reminds slightly of the highlife-and-beyond African electric guitar tradition, is within the Latin tradition, yet has at times an almost rock feel as well.

Mind you this is not some kind of cumbia metal. The cumbia feel is always at the forefront. Yet the band sounds both magnetic and of today.

Guitar lovers will find this album most interesting, for the lead guitarist is good and very fluent. Yet the groove will grab you at the same time.

Bravo! Listen and enjoy!

Dino Saluzzi Group, El Valle de la Infancia

What is typical of an ECM album these days is not necessarily what was typical, say, 30 years ago. But there is a family resemblance, surely. Eicher and company come up with music that you don't expect, still. Today we come upon one like that. It is the Dino Saluzzi Group. Dino is a talented bandoneon player and composer of jazz-meets-the-world music. The album is called El Valle de la Infancia (ECM B0020544-02).

This is Argentinian music in its roots and in its expansion. And it hits you as you listen carefully that such is not such a pat thing, because Dino Saluzzi makes much of the possibilities that fit in an ECM mode, that fit in an Argentinian mode, yet not in any "typical" way.

The band is very good. Dino has much to say on the bandoneon. Jose Maria Saluzzi plays the classical guitar and requinto guitar; Nicholas "Colacho" Brizuela also plays classical guitar; and they both sound very finessed, beautiful. Matias Saluzzi will surprise you on electric bass and give the grounding to the band on double bass. Felix "Cuchara" Saluzzi plays effectively on tenor and clarinet, and Quintino Cinalli does yeoman's work on drums and percussion.

The music haunts you after a while. The interplay between guitars and bandoneon has a special feel to it that is partly traditional but also very distinctive and improvisational.

It satisfies the ears and heart when you want to hear something rooted yet ahead. I am very glad to have a copy!