NPR Music - Alt.Latino: A Latin Jazz survey, plus Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Alt.Latino hosts share six songs that they've had on repeat over the past month.Featured artists and songs:• Edison Machado & Boa Nova, "Naquela Base"• Michi, "Memmy (Recuerdo)" (feat. Gabriel da Rosa)• Adam O'Farrill, "Nocturno, 1932"• Vivir Quintana, "Más Libre Que En Casa"• Lucia Sarmiento, "Look Up"• Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso, "#T****"Audio for this episode of Alt.Latino was edited and mixed by Simon Rentner. Our project manager is Grace Chung. NPR Music's executive producer is Suraya Mohamed. Our VP of Music and Visuals is Keith Jenkins.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

I went all jazz this week. Okay? The three tracks I have are part of this ongoing jazz appreciation thing that we have going, you and I. I didn't know. I just know I wasn't consulted on this thing we have going, but sure. And there are three very, very distinct styles. I feel like you're trying to like, what's that? What do they say?

Is it Trojan horsing? You're trying to Trojan horse jazz into my life. From MPR music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Ana Maria Ser. Let the Chis May begin. This is an album coming out later this month on March 28. It's a lost album recorded in 1978 by the Brazilian drummer Edison Machado, who was one of those kinds of musicians, musician.

His career began in Rio in the 1950s, and he had a winding path of a career from Brazil to Europe and then the U.S. This album was recorded again in 1978, and it's an amazing mixture of jazz and Basanova and Samba. but told through the jazz perspective. This is a track called Nakela Basset, Brazilian drummer Edison Machado. He kind of single-handedly invented this way of playing samba in the 50s when his snare drum broke and then he played the samba on the symbols.

Created a whole new way of playing the music. This three-horn front line reminds me of like blue note recordings from the 1960s. The history is fascinated. He sort of traversed his way through, leaving Brazil because of the military dictatorship in 1964. living in Europe as an exile, but still playing jazz, is another example of these musicians from Latin America, from that era, Gato Babieri and Argentina, as an example, where they take the jazz and they interpret it through their own home countries,

but add their own thing to it. Just one album as a leader was never released for a lot of legal reasons and health reasons on his part. But it's like finding a time capsule under a building or a bridge or something, and you open it up, and you hear this fire. vibrant music from 1978. The album's called Edison Machalo and Boa Nova, The Lost Tapes from 1978.

The whole album is just spectacular like this. Why jazz, Felix? I love this concept of jazz being this kind of like interpretable, movable, switchable type of sound that everyone could adopt and use for their own respective battles or whatever it may be, but why is jazz that thing? When jazz musicians have to try to make a living or express themselves under dictatorships as they did in Brazil and 64, Portugal, even Franco, the Soviets for sure. It takes on a different kind of urgency.

It literally becomes life or death. And so that the messaging, everything about it is so strident and so important, full of joy, but also full of challenges and reflecting the time. So jazz has always been the vehicle for that kind of expression of fighting back resisting. jazz means freedom. Jazz means total freedom of expression. Some have said that jazz represents democracy because when you're playing,

you have to listen to each other. And every instrument has an equal part. In the vein of Bosa, Bosa Nova, I have a track that I've brought in. I'm going to switch up my order. And this is from an artist called Michi. And this track is called Memi, Parentheses, like, Weibo.

All right, look at you. All right, I see you. So I was really struggling about what song to bring on from the debut album of this artist Mishi. She's one of those that, like, people have been really excited about. She's been releasing a lot of singles. She's from L.A. She's kind of very much part of this L.A. Latino indie kid scene, right? Like you think of an Omar Apollo or a cucko or you name it. This album, which just came out February 28th, it's called Dirty Tot.

And I was really impressed. Like, she took herself from doing this kind of cool, fun indie pop thing to having a really distinct style and energy about her. It's kind of soulful, but very progressive. She hits this one track that has this really cool, like, Bossa undertone to it, that I was really excited, surprised, interested. to hear. I mean, this is a really impressive debut album. That was

Memi, parentheses Recuerdo by Michi. Okay. More jazz. I really debated about this one. But I'm going to do it anyway. Okay. Thanks for letting us know.

We're going to dip our toes into the avant-garde, the improvisational. And to give us some context, think Mabefrati. Okay, our favorite Guatemalan cellist who does experimental stuff with electronics and all this other stuff. This is an album from Adam O'Farrell. And if his name sounds familiar, he's Arturo. His son is trumpet player. He also has a son named Zach, who's also an amazing drummer, trapset drummer.

Adam O'Farrell has been making records for a while on his own now. This is an album he has coming out again, March 28th. It's called For These Streets. There's a single out now. It's a glimpse into a record with many layers of sounds and ideas. And this is a concept album from the 1930s. This is a track called Nocturno 1932. Hold on to your hat.

This is so trippy, Felix. It's really a great, great record. This first single, I'm so glad they put this one out, because it's indicative of the whole thing. There's no tin, tin, teteen jazz, and there's no, you know, Bukukukuk, Buk, Buk, you know, Afro-Cuban-Cla-Based Mambo style. even though his family roots go back to both, right?

His grandfather was Chico O'Ferro, who's one of the architects of African Cuban Jazz in the 1940s and 50s in New York. To me, it's a logical progression of the sound of jazz, especially when you've got a family that's been steeped in all of these other things. You can either follow in the family business

or you make a name for yourself. This record, this newest record, is something that's got all of these different avant-garde layers. I was a freak for this stuff in the in like in the 80s when I discovered I believe that. This jazz band called the Art Ensemble Chicago and then discovered Anthony Braxton, all of these really avant-garde things.

That's why this record really, really hit me. The artist is Adam O'Ferro. The track is called Nocturno, 1932, and the album's called For These Streets, and it's out March 28th. For These Streets. Right? We're going to take a break, and we'll be right. back with some of your music next.

Okay, my turn. We're back from break. Let's go. Okay, we're back from break. So this track I decided to go with, once again, I'm switching up our order because I felt like it was a really beautiful connecting point from what you just played. Something about it, the evocative nature of what you had leads me to bring this song from Mexican artist Vivit Quintana, and the song is called Mast Libre than Casa. Let's go.

Let's go. Woo, here we go. Okay. Okay. Oh my God. Okay. So Felix, obviously sonically, there's nothing, nada to be there with a similarity with what you just played.

But there is a connection in terms of the power, because if we want to talk about the popularity, and the power of Corridos. To me, no one is doing it like Vivir Quintana. She is one of the few artists in Mexico who is actually very overtly speaking about women's issues, femicide, abuse, all of these things in her music. Actually, her song, Canson Sin Miedo is literally one of the anthems

of the women's movement in Mexico. So she has a new album coming out, her second album. It's coming out in April, and it's literally dedicated to platforming and telling the stories of women who are fighting against abuse and femicide in Mexico. So this song, in particular, pretty insane, but it's the story of a woman, that line, the chorus line says it all, me siento more libri than in casa.

It's the story of a woman who basically tells about defending herself against her husband, calling the police on herself, turning herself in, and says in the end that she feels freer being in jail than she did in Casa. She takes Corridos, which is an art form about telling stories. And she's telling these stories of Mexican women. And that's me. There's like so much open potential, you know, for the growth around this movement and a shared power there.

So she's really amazing. It sounds like it could be 100 years old. Totally. Okay? When she says in the year 2024, that it starts like Corrido about the Mexican. Mexican Revolution where they say in the year 1865, whatever, right? I mean, it's exactly the same. I love that she's drawing on that history and making it like over 100 years later.

The other thing about it is we just lost in Mexico, the performer Paquita La Del Barrio, who also made her career singing about similar things, and she was revered in a country from multiple generations. I love this track. This is so cool. I'm so excited. I'm glad you liked this one, Felix. That's a win for me.

That was More Libre than In Casa by Vivir Quintana. So my next track, I guess the theme right now is female musicians. Okay. This is a saxophonist named Lucia Sarmian. She's Peruvian American. She's toured with Pitbull and Carol G. So she's heard in a wide variety of styles.

And so now she's finally kind of stepping out with her own record. This is a style commonly referred to as contemporary jazz. The album she has out is called Escape. This track is called Lookup. Lucia Zarmiento was born in Lima, Peru. She started playing music by playing rock guitar, but then she heard jazz, and she just immediately fell in love with the saxophone.

Unlike most musicians from Latin America who head to the Berkeley School of Music in Boston, she got a scholarship at the McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul. And who else is famously from Minneapolis? Prince. So that that city's identity is wrapped around funk. It's wrapped around funk. It's wrapped around all of this contemporary R&B music.

And she dove into it. Prince's presence there really influenced a lot of the music that was made there. I really like the way it's expressed by Lucia Sarmiento. Again, the name of the album is Escape. And the track we just heard is called Look Up. There's no segue. So I got a song that y'all are going to love. That's what I got to say.

So our beloved Katya Lipako, you maybe know about them by now. Last time I actually talked about them on the show, Felix, was before they came and played Tiny Desk. I wanted to bring on a song from their new album that is a mix of the live recordings from the Tiny Desk as well as some new songs. The track is called a word that I cannot say. So y'all can look it up, but the album is called Papota.

You're like glow up, vibe check. Trust Jimbolein, I'll make you a star. You can't do a blow up. You're my vibe check. I'm going to beck to beza-tock. Look at my body. Senta my buttocks. No, even now I need a need, I need a filter a photo.

If you want to do, how do I do, give me the man, and I present to do my surgeon. You pay those injections, for you make me mozioning, and you feel that It is so essentially effortlessly beautifully, Katre Lipako, to do a song like this in the way that they're doing, right?

It's just their most essential, silly, ridiculous, out-of-the-box style. And what was really exciting to me is clearly the direction of their music is going a lot more in this line, in this vein, of what they stylistically did with the tiny dust. I think it did the way that they had drawn. the sensuality of their music, let's just say that.

Okay, is incredibly creative. To me it's not vulgar. It doesn't put me off as much as some of the other stuff I've heard in the past. And it's funny in a way that, you know, everybody's in on a joke. They did that pivot from after the tiny desk, and this track here just really shows. If my mom heard it, right?

She wouldn't be offended. She'd kind of go, oh, oh. She's just kind of funny that way, right? It's not going to completely offend Aweilitas. They're going to like, oh. They're like, oh, we know what you're talking about. Yeah, we know what you're talking about. You didn't invent this.

Okay. Sorry, Mom. That's the PG version of this conversation. Sorry, Mom. I hope you didn't mind me bringing you into this that way. Nice mix of music, man. That was cool. That was a thread, I think.

It was good. It was good. I felt it. Yeah. Someone else can. write in and tell us what the theme was for today's show. You have been listening to Latino from NPR Music, our sound editor who has to make sense of all this stuff and keep us on the radio is Simon Ritner.

And the person who also makes sense of us and keeps us on track is Grace Chung. She tries her best. She really does, but we do our best to try to keep up. Sarah Mohamed is right there for us, executive producer of NPR music. And Hefein-Chief, VP of Music and visuals, Keith Jenkins. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Thank you for listening.