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Latin Roots
Latin Roots: The King of Calypso, The Mighty Sparrow Our Latin Roots segment today with Ernesto Lechner of the syndicated radio show The Latin Alternative. He joins us to talk about The Mighty Sparrow, a musical giant who has been a defining force in Calypso and Soca music for more than five decades. Ernesto brings his personal passion to this musician he loves, discussing Sparrow’s music that was at first both familiar and exotic to…
Latin Roots – Venezuela’s Salsa Star Oscar D'León Continues To Improvise Every Show April 24, 2014 It is a very personal Latin Roots today with The Latin Alternative's Ernesto Lechner here to tell about one of his very favorite artists, the Venezuelan salsa singer Oscar D'León. D'León is in his 70s and still going strong with a demanding style of improvisational salsa. As Ernesto will tell us, D'León directs the band using hand gestures and…
Latin Roots: Nueva Trova from Cuba Transcends It’s State-Supported Origins April 10, 2014 - Producer Aaron Levinson is back with a new Latin Roots segment on Nueva Trova, a style of music that started in Castro's Cuba in the 1960's but continues today. It started as a political music celebrating the ideals of the revolution but the music lives on, not just in Cuba but abroad.
Latin Roots –Rachael Faro on Uruguay’s Candombe On Thursday's installment of World Cafe's Latin Roots series, music producer and singer-songwriter Rachel Faro discusses an Afro-Uruguayan style of Latin music called Candombe. Separated by a river from Argentina and nestled next to southern Brazil, Uruguay experienced the same influx of African slaves as Brazil, which resulted in a similar but often overlooked musical impact. Played on sets of three drums, Candombe is highly rhythmic; it's been…
Fortunately there was a great choice for our Sense of Place: Austin Latin Roots segment. It is Grupo Fantasma a 9 piece Latin band that formed in 2000.
Our very popular Latin Roots series continues today as producer Aaron Levinson joins us to talk about what he says is often referred to as "Puerto Rican Hillbilly Music." It's called jibaro and it is music that originated in the Puerto Rican countryside. Although the island is getting more and more urbanized, Aaron says jibaro still has its proponents. We will hear a couple of songs.
Josh begins by talking about how the first South American rock bands of the 50s and 60s were all cover bands, often singing in English. The covers that come out now are more Latinized and musically interesting in his opinion. The first song he plays is his favorite cover from last year by a Mexican band called Los Master Plus. They first broke out with a cumbia version of Kings of Leon's "Sex on Fire",…
Josh Norek talks about bilingual Latin rock tracks. Starting off, Josh plays the Santana track "No One To Depend On" and discusses its call and response nature, both musically and lyrically. Moving into the present, Josh spotlights the American pop punk band Los Abandoned.
It's time once again for Latin Roots, our ongoing series highlighting different genres of Latin music. Today Catalina Maria Johnson from Chicago Public Radio's Beat Latino joins us to discuss Judeo-Iberian music or Ladino. This music goes back over 500 years and represents a dying tradition and a dying language. As Catalina tells us in many way it's the music that is keeping the language alive, often in the form of lullabies.
Latin Roots is made possible by a grant from the Wyncote Foundation.
