Tag Archives: mel minter

Baracutanga: Dance-Worthy and Ear-Worthy

Baracutanga coverBaracutanga, Importados
A Review

You don’t need to know a cumbia from a
festejo from a candombe to dig Importados, the first full-length album from Albuquerque’s rhythm wizards, Baracutanga. A seven-piece band whose members come from as far north as Kansas and as far south as Bolivia, Baracutanga mixes South American rhythms in innovative ways, making unusual rhythmic combinations that might also include Middle Eastern and Cuban forms. They incorporate folkloric instruments, such as the quena, an Andean flute, and top it off with modern North American harmonies and instruments—electric guitar, vibes—to create a unique and highly danceable fusion.

The album’s sheer musicality might come as a surprise to those who know the band only as a high-energy live act that fills the dance floor. Yes, you can play the album at high volume and dance till you drop, but you can also settle back in your easy chair and appreciate the
craftsmanship of the writing and arranging, the attention to detail, and the sonic textures. Recorded in four different studios in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Cadiz, Spain, the album
features more than 50 instruments and 25 musical styles, and just about every one of those
instruments and styles finds just the right place. Continue reading →

Finding the Real in the Weird

FABIO_ALBUM_COVERFloozy, His Name Is Fabio (Flophouse Records)
A Review

On their second release, His Name Is Fabio (Flophouse Records), the trio Floozy—
Bronson Elliot (acoustic guitar, accordion,
vocals), Tanya Nuñez (bass, background
vocals), and Lauren Addario (drums)—
continues their exploration of the truly weird corners of the human heart. The subjects of most of their tightly focused songs—a bird on a wire; a murderer; a desperado; unfulfilled obsessives, one knee-deep in baby diapers and another armed with plastic cups and a highway overpass; an uncertain lover, a long-suffering friend—are warped, and so are the songs. Lyrics are crammed into tight spaces. Line breaks fall midword. Odd rhythmic patterns and chord
progressions and a complete disregard for genre—you’ll find rock, folk, classical, punk, tango, and pop—defy a listener’s expectations.

In short, these songs break the rules, and that’s why they work. With broken rules and minimal instrumentation—made possible by Nuñez’s edgy, expressive bass—Floozy has developed a compelling signature sound, creating evocative musical settings. What’s more, their warped, wounded, and weird subjects open real insights into the human heart that apply, sometimes uncomfortably, to all of us normal people. Continue reading →

What The What: a Small Gem

What the What_coverAlbums like the eponymously titled What The What serve to remind us, if we needed
reminding, that we needn’t travel to New York, Los Angeles, or Wherever The Wherever to hear top-drawer music—not if we live in Santa Fe or Albuquerque anyway. What The What—a trio featuring J.Q. Whitcomb
(trumpet), Jon Gagan (bass), and Robby
Rothschild (percussion)—could play
anywhere, and each of them has, in one
aggregation or another.

The album includes five compositions from Gagan and one from Whitcomb. They are all straightforward, easily accessible tunes, and they all have quirks that hook pleasantly into the ear. The performances ride on Gagan’s rhythmic horse, propelled by Rothschild’s unobtrusive percussion, and against that rhythmic foundation, Whitcomb’s long, lyrical lines create a nice musical tension. Continue reading →

Bev Rogoff: Song and Schtick Woman

Bev Rogoff swings.

If Fanny Brice were alive today, she might have some serious competition from Albuquerque’s Bev Rogoff. Of course, if Brice were alive, she’d be 123 years old, so how hard could it be for a mere octogenarian like Bev Rogoff to give her a run for her money?

Rogoff has certainly had plenty of practice vocalizing: she started at age six, putting on shows under her older brother’s direction in the basement of the family home in Denver. “The first song my brother had me singing was—you probably haven’t heard it before, and I don’t even know that I remember all the lyrics—but it was”—and she breaks into song—‘Oh, Johnny, oh, Johnny, how you can love/Oh, Johnny, oh, Johnny, heavens above.’ And I didn’t know this was a sex-rated song,” she says, laughing.

Her 25-minute set at the Outpost this Thursday, where her quartet will include Sid Fendley on piano, Michael Olivola on bass, and John Bartlit on drums, may or may not be sex rated, but it will include some tunes from her two CDs, Songs and Schtick and Treasures, and plenty of
chutzpah. She’ll be followed by the Jazz Brasileiro Duo, with vocalist Debo Orlovsky and guitarist Tony Cesarano, and by the Cesarano’s quartet, with pianist Rick Bowman, bassist John
Blackburn, and percussionist John Bartlit. Continue reading →

Doug Lawrence Introduces a Deep-Fried Organ Trio

DL in RedFat and juicy. Such a big and palpable presence that you could almost settle into it like an easy chair. Doug Lawrence’s instantly recognizable sound on the tenor saxophone—at once
romantic and hip—conjures a state of grace that many of today’s young players speed
heedlessly by, leaving a blizzard of notes in their wake. For Lawrence, lead tenor saxophonist in the Count Basie Orchestra, it is all about the sound and the story, and in the intimate, funky
setting of the organ trio, he can stretch both out in a way that the big band does not permit.

This Sunday, he and Hammond B-3 specialist Bobby Floyd and drummer David Gibson will all play hooky from the big band and turn up the funk factor at the Outpost in the final
Albuquerque concert of the 2015 New Mexico Jazz Festival. Continue reading →