Latin Jazz Con Gusto!

A recent batch of great jazz from today’s most caliente Latin artists, clockwise from top left: Zaccai Curtis, Salsa de la Bahia, Melfis Santa, Leiba Trio, Duduka Da Fonseca Trio, Hamilton De Holanda & Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Diego Figueiredo and The John Santos Sextet & Friends.

(Photo: DownBeat)

The year 2024 brought an abundant feast of amazing music in jazz from a Latin perspective. We’re catching up with some of our favorite releases from last year as well as several exciting upcoming albums. Enjoy!

Diego Figueiredo

I Love Samba

(Arbors Records)

Brazilian guitarist Diego Figueiredo is as prolific as he is virtuosic, having released almost 30 recordings. I Love Samba, his sixth album on Arbors Records, presents 13 original tunes, a delightful set of tracks with a delicious, unmistakably Brazilian cadence. On most, Figueiredo is accompanied most ably by luminaries Nilson Matta on bass and Duduka da Fonseca on drums as well as flutist Itai Kriss from Israel, who adds a floating shimmer to the title track and others.

Highlights include “Brazilian Batucada,” in which a light, flowing percussion frames but never overtakes the melodic compáses of Figueiredo’s fluid, seemingless effortless playing. “Nanina” is a lilting tune, waltzing gently in luminous beauty. In contrast, on “Echoes Of Manhattan,” Figueiredo’s austere, elegant solo playing evokes Billie Holiday ballads echoing in canyons of steel. I Love Samba is an accomplished recording by a musician who simultaneously respects the past, refreshes the present and extends to future horizons.

Duduka da Fonseca Trio

Rio Fantasia

(Sunnyside)

In 2009, multiple Grammy nominee Duduka da Fonseca formed his Rio de Janeiro-based trio featuring pianist David Feldman and bassist Guto Wirtti. Over the years, the trio would unite to play and record during Da Fonseca’s trips to Brazil. This fifth album for the trio shares a mix of originals and Brazilian classics, and was recorded during da Fonseca’s trip in early 2024. Most of the tracks chosen for this recording were first takes played with total freedom; they capture the vital energy of a live performance.

Some favorites to note: Jobim and Buarque’s “Retrato em Branco e Preto” features guest vocalist Maucha Adnet, a 10-year member of Jobim’s band. Adnet’s voice, laden with patina, is perfect for expressing a heartbroken lament that sings of sad days and sleepless nights; “Santa Maria,” composed by Wirtti and named for his hometown in southern Brazil, is a buoyant, enchanting, waltzing tune. In contrast, Da Fonseca’s “Manhattan Style” is an edgy, sharply paced samba with northeastern Brazilian baiao rhythms, dramatically punctuated by Paulo Levi’s saxophone. All in all, a stellar set of musicians have recorded and gifted us an electric, sparkling performance.

Various Artists

Salsa de la Bahia Vol. 3: Renegade Queens

(Patois Records)

Scheduled for release on Wallace’s Patois label, the double album Salsa de la Bahia Vol. 3: Renegade Queens showcases the musical prowess of women from Venezuela, Cuba, Chile and Colombia who have impacted Latin jazz and its related idioms in the San Francisco Bay Area. Along the way, Vol. 3 continues the story from the first two volumes of Salsa de la Bahia in which arranger and trombone maestro Wayne Wallace and filmmaker Rita Hargrave shared a detailed history of the region’s Latin jazz scene.

Given that recordings from that scene and before the turn of the century with women as leaders are sparse, the two discs bridge past and present by opening each with original new recordings arranged by Wallace that also highlight many of the players featured in the anthology. Disc 1 opens with “We Were Born To Drum,” a bold big band mambo featuring vocals by Christelle Durandy. Durandy chants lyrics celebrated Bay Area cultural icon and poet Avotcja that encapsulate the compilation’s themes: “Conceived in rhythm, with clave in the soul, we were born to drum.” The track also highlights saxophonist/flutist Mary Fettig, percussionist Michaelle Goerlitz, vocalist Sandy Cressman and vocalist/trombonist Natalie Cressman. Similarly, the second disc opens with “La Mensajera,” a new Wallace salsa piece that showcases violinist Sandi Poindexter, tenor saxophonist Jean Fineberg and trumpeter Marina Garza, who led Orquesta D’Soul, a seminal 1990s all-woman band.

Each piece on Renegade Queens illuminates a different facet of an extraordinary and lesser-known musical history. Some distinctly revelatory pieces include “La Lagrima” (The Tear), a traditional song from Venezuela’s Caribbean Margarita Island sung by Caracas-born Maria Marquez. The tune also incorportates Venezuela’s coastal beats thanks to percussion master Gustavo Ovalles as well as the country’s folkloric rhythms, with Jackeline Rago playing the cuatro, Venezuela’s national instrument. Another highlight, “Cosmo,” is the earliest recording in the project by The Blazing Redheads, an all-female septet from the late ’80s. The Blazing Redheads created an early fusion of jazz, funk and Latin beats, and this samba-tinged tune was composed and arranged by one of the ensemble’s founding members, percussionist and trap drummer Michealle Goerlitz. Renegade Queens is a welcome and necessary record of the indispensable contribution of highly talented women to the Bay Area’s rich jazz and salsa scenes.

Santiago Leibson/Leiba Trio

Prohibido Andar en Sulky

(ears & eyes)

Argentinian-born jazz pianist and composer Santiago Leibson has been based in Brooklyn for more than a decade following studies at Buenos Aires’ Conservatorio Manuel de Falla and then a master’s in jazz interpretation from New York University. This recording takes an approach similar to his first records, Amon (2014) and Pendular (2015), which were also recorded in Argentina as a trio formed in 2010 with bassist Maximiliano Kirszner and drummer Nicolás Politzer.

Prohibido Andar en Sulky deconstructs melodies and rhythms inherent to Argentina’s musical panorama within an experimental jazz structure: taking on the tango in “Salgán al sol,” in homage to renowned Afro-Argentine tango composer and pianist Horacio Salgán, whereas “Algo verde” shines with the sashayed, graceful compáses of the Argentine folk dance rhythms such as the zamba. This is an intriguing, nuanced set of original compositions that bear and will reward repeat listening.

Hamilton de Holanda and Gonzalo Rubalcaba

Collab

(Sony Music Entertainment)

Collab, the duo album from Cuban jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Brazilian choro mandolinist Hamilton de Holanda, is a sparkling collaboration between two absolute maestros of rhythm and improvisation. Nominated for a 2025 Grammy (Best Latin Jazz Album), Collab presents 11 selections. Many of these are drawn from the individual maestros’ repertoires, but they shine in this truly balanced collaboration.

Interestingly, two versions (totaling 12 minutes of the recording) of Joao Bosco’s “Incompatibilidade de Gênios” were created. The instrumental interpretation features Holanda’s improvised solo; Joao Bosco adds vocals on the briefer take. The title means “incompatibility of temperaments,” but the recording evidences exactly the contrary: Both masters seem to revel in each other’s talents and create endlessly surprising and vibrant textures for each tune.

Melvis Santa

Jazz Orishas

(Independent Release)

Jazz Orishas is Melvis Santa’s second album as a bandleader, but her first in that capacity after living for 10 years in Brooklyn. From Havana, Cuba, Santa is a singer, composer, pianist, dancer and educator, and a graduate of the prestigious Amadeo Roldan Conservatory. Santa’s art and compositions focus on a spiritually centered Afro-Cuban jazz in fusions combining rhythm and blues and soul. The quintet for Jazz Orishas brings together stellar musicians: drummer Marcus Gilmore, bassist Rashaan Carter, guitarist Vinicius Gomes and trumpeter Josh Evans as well as Afro-Cuban master percussionist Rafael Monteagudo playing batá drums on two tracks. Drawing inspiration from her culture and the artists who influenced her, Santa weaves layered vocals and poetry into 11 original compositions. These include poems that Santa herself penned, enhanced by her velvety, potent vocals, nimble, inventive scatting and propulsive piano playing. Some standouts include the first two tracks: “Swing Poem I: My Music Is Mine,” which leads seamlessly into “Todo lo que soy.” The lyrics explore Santa’s spiritual Afro-Cuban perspectives and share the vision of an audacious artist: “My music is mine, it is mine to sing. As such, it’s my story, mine to tell. ... My music is everything I am.”

Zaccai Curtis

Cubop Lives!

(Truth Revolution Recording Collective)

Zaccai Curtis’ first Grammy-nominated album (2025 Best Latin Jazz Album), the joyous Cubop Lives! is created within a space infused in the jazz and bebop traditions — and, in doing so, illuminates both. “Cubop” celebrates the cultural and musical fusion of Cuban music with bebop, and Cubop Lives! draws upon the influences of greats such as Machito and his Afro-Cubans, Dizzy Gillespie, Mario Bauzá and Chano Pozo, as well as Charlie Parker, with its title echoing the famed phrase “Bird Lives!”

Curtis is accompanied by four supremely talented musicians: bassist and brother Luques Curtis, drummer Willie Martinez III, conguero Camilo Molina and Reinaldo de Jesus on bongos. The 17 tracks include Curtis originals, bebop classics and American Songbook standards, plus homages to two titans: A suite of four pieces pays tribute to Puerto Rican maestro pianist-composer-bandleader Noro Morales, and the album’s closing track is a rendition Charlie Parker’s “Moose The Mooche.” Indeed, Zaccai Curtis and this album give ample evidence that Cubop is alive and well.

John Santos Sextet & Friends

Horizontes

(Machete Records)

John Santos’ latest recording, Horizontes (Horizons), is an eight-track manifesto celebrating 40 years of his Machete Records label. The tunes cry out for social justice and musically reaffirm the power of love. In Santos’ words, Horizontes aligns with “movements to transform the violence of bigotry, slavery, colonialism, berzerk capitalism and war into the as of yet unrealized unity and brotherhood of the human race.” In addition to the foundation laid by Santos’ sextet (Santos on congas and percussion, Saul Sierra on bass, Marco Diaz on piano, John Calloway on flute and percussion, Charlie Gurke on saxophone and David Flores on drums), Horizontes boasts a series of luminaries and Latin jazz innovators as guests (over a dozen, including Puerto Rican maestro vocalist, bandleader and trumpet player Jerry Medina) and along the way pays homage to many Bay Area musical greats past and present.

Santos’ virtuosity is deployed throughout the tunes as he plays dozens of instruments including the glockenspiel, cymbals, bongo, congas, dundun, tama, sleigh bells, batás, claves, balafon, güicharo, panderetas, bongó, triangle, woodblocks, caxixí, coquíses, cajon, rebola, surdo, djembe, udu, shaker, snare drums, reco reco, tambourine, agogó, cymbal and more: a percussion lesson in and of itself from the Afro-Caribbean region and beyond. One highlight (in an album that is truly all highlights) is the anthemic “Un Levantamiento.” As the notes explain, the word “levantamiento” can be translated to uprising, lifting up or arising; all three meanings correctly apply in this song.

Horizontes offers a profoundly rooted and deeply activist vision of an indomitable spirit — nurtured by music’s possibilities for preserving cultural traditions from generation to generation as a tool for resistance, resilience and arising. DB

from https://downbeat.com