NPR Music - Alt.Latino: New songs for New Year's resolutions

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Anamaria Sayre and Felix Contreras share their goals for 2025 and the new songs that reflect them.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

New Year's Resolution, 2025, you and I were going for controlled chaos this year. We're raining it in, keeping it organized, but keeping it exciting. So that's my resolution for us, and I wanted to hear what your hopes and dreams are for us this year, too. I am not prepared to even go that deep. I'm Felix Contreras. I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Let the Chisemate begin. The first episode, well, the first real episode of the year, Felix. We have to set our intentions.

I think, okay, so, my intentions are to continue to present amazing music every week. I'm going to give you an opportunity to re-answer that at the end of this episode. At the end. Yeah. Be thinking. Yeah. I get to start this show this week because I picked a track called first. step of the journey. So appropriately, it's the first. So you were thinking about it. I guess so.

This is a pianist by the name of Marina Alverro, and the name of the album is a nomad of sound. She is Barcelona-born, Seattle-based. She mixes jazz, Cuban, modern Spanish, improvised music, a lot of that stuff that we listen to from those people coming from Barcelona, and even classical. She recorded her new album in New Orleans. It's a cross-section of amazing. musicians that she's known over the years, including a lot of New Orleans musicians. I'm starting us out with jazz, 2025, okay? Felix, you're returning to what you know and what you love in this year, 2025. This is first step of the journey.

You know, it just occurred to me that maybe that is my intention for this year is to bring you closer to our jazz world. I think that's been your intention every year, Felix. But be more intentional. So you're trying to indoctrinate me. Brainwash me into loving jazz. Or appreciating it. Because as I'm listening to it, because I'm thinking about it,

what can I say about this record? Okay, oh, it's a great jazz record. She's a great pianist. But one of the things you need to understand is, like, when you listen to that melody, what she was doing, right? She writes that. She's a composer, of course.

But, like, where does that come from? What does an inspiration come from? What are all these other elements that she brings from being from Barcelona, from being a jazz musician, from studying Cuban music and classical? Where does that all come from? And how does it create this melody that she gives to the guys in her band and said, okay, here are the notes on the paper, but how are you going to interpret it? That's the essence of jazz.

Jazz musician is like, okay, it's up here in my head. It's a hearing my heart, it's in my soul. It's on paper. What are we going to do with it? This record is an amazing example. of doing just that. Jazz is like this mystical, musical land that I'm fascinated by,

and like the improvisational nature of it is really, really exciting to me. I just constantly, I'm trying to find my entry point. You just have to sell it to me. And I'm really intrigued specifically with Marina and this background. She has Barcelona Bore and Seattle-based, New Orleans recorded. And I'm curious, like, for you,

do you hear that in this? Yes and no. When you listen to the whole record, there's a lot of different things that pop up that will remind me that she's from Spain. She uses different melodies, different tonalities, the way the notes bend. When you mention this thing about jazz, over the past weekend, I went to go see the pianist, the Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez, and he does his duo with the percussionist Pedrito Martinez. They're both from Cuba. Alfredo, in addition to being an amazing pianist, has started this music program down in Miami that's in relation with the music. this big jazz festival in Europe, the Montro Jazz Festival.

They call it Montro Jazz Miami. But what he's doing is, like, he's eventually going to take the jazz out of it because he says jazz scares young people. The word jazz. He's maybe in his early 30s, but his experience is that his peers are afraid of that word. And when you bring them in, there's a way of bringing them into the fold without the terminology, I guess, the story. That's interesting to me, Felix, because in my head, jazz is sexy.

Like, jazz is cool. Jazz is like, oh, but if only I could understand and be as impressed and read in on the value of jazz as some people are. I think jazz also is the basis for a lot of, like, our most exciting contemporary sounds. I'm always ready to dip my toe into jazz. It's more just, like, straight ahead jazz that I still find it hard to find the entry point into. Just go for the emotion. Just listen to the emotion that's in this music. Introspection, meditation, joy, sadness.

It's always emotion. And I think that that might help you. Okay. That sold me, Felix. 2025, that's my resolution. I'll be, end of the year, you won't even recognize me. I'll be full jazz head, like, alt jazz Tino, 2025. That's the rebrand.

Okay. that inspired this conversation is called First Step of the Journey, which is appropriate, your first step. Exactly. The pianist is Marina Albreiro, and the name of the record is a nomad of sound. So speaking of Barcelona, Felix, as you know, I just returned from the glorious city

itself. And the soundtrack to my summer that wasn't a summer, my winter in Barcelona, was this new Bele song called My Refe. Okay, So, I'm to be

To be To be To keep To keep To I was To You and

To To To To put together To To Okay

As I was previewing the music And To the songs and stuff. I really like that the beginning of the song sort of segues nicely from Marina Albrero. It kind of does. Right? This song also is just such a bot, Felix.

I got these dweeby swimming headphones recently. They look really, really weird. I'm going to send you a picture. And changed my life because now I can listen to music while underwater. And I play this song over and over and over again while I'm swimming and I'm like gliding through the water like ta, ta, ta, ta, ta. Anyways, 22-year-old Bele from Barranquilla, where Shakira's from, has been releasing music since 2019, but just singles, no album yet, but has managed to absolutely explode in the Spanish-speaking world, the three rising genres in Latin America right now.

Afrobeats is one of them that's really important coming out of Colombia. And it's this really cool to me, Felix, thing that is kind of including this caribeno spirit with sounds out of Nigeria and Ghana that are billed as African diasporic derivative sounds. And it's fascinating to me that what we're seeing a lot of in Latin America is the fusion of reggaeton, which is obviously, as we very well know, an African rhythm-based derivative sound, blending with Afrobeats. And that to me is like this really beautiful, powerful return to Africa, to these roots, but also in a very kind of, in a way that gives these young Afro-Latino artists a lot of agency in choosing how to fuse these sounds.

And it also makes sense that they blend well together. So I love this guy. I think he's so innovative. He sounds amazing. And this song is just, moi. Okay. So when you were first telling me about this, I said Afro beats. I do remember this.

Isn't that like from the 70s and this guy named Fela Kuti from Nigeria and all this? And what Fela did in the 70s, what he created was a mixture of Nigerian music, of funk, of jazz from the 1970s.

Fala, by the way, was like a musical activist. He was jailed a number of times. He was imprisoned. He was beaten. But he always, his music, he didn't want to early on, he says, I'm not going to sing him love songs. I'm here to wake up. my people. And apparently the difference is that this, the newer stuff

is sort of what we just heard, sort of computer generated. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to play a little bit of phala for you. So you hear an idea, you get an idea of just, you know, what Afro beats from the 70s sounded like. You see, enough you do nothing. And Shakara Lodje.

We got the song for them. We just sing them like this. So it starts to build. He sets this groove. This drummer, Tony Allen. and oh, he's like famous for bridging Nigeria and funk and James Brown, all of that in one, right? So they start building this stuff.

Eventually they come in little by little. These are songs that would live would last like 20, 25 minutes. Oh, my mean, you. Why jeepa ban laia? That's a very short lesson, primer on Afro beat, Prima, that's a very short lesson, primer on Afro beat from the 1970s. But you can hear some of that, right? It doesn't really feel honestly that disparate to me. like whether you're creating these beats on a synthesizer or obviously with live instrumentation,

the core of it is the same. And what it is to me, it's this infectious rhythm that is like layers and layers and layers of beats. Like you can just keep going and building and morphing things. And I saw this amazing video online of this song. Someone took it and merengue fight it. It's really, really cool to listen to. But it's like you can, it's so dynamic.

You can do so many things with it. And that's what a lot of these young guys, they're doing it within a single song. So it's another example of how you and I are almost thinking with the same mind. Little did you know that one of the tracks I brought in is from a band called the Bongo Hop. And it is also based in Colombia. This is a French trumpeter. His name is Etienne Cervet. He grew up in France in the neighborhood with Ghanaian, Senegalese, and Colombian music.

He moved to Colombia. He started recording stuff. He's made four albums since 2016. his music has a lot of folkloric influence, not so many pop sensibilities. And with a lot of the records, he's recorded with this vocalist named Nidia Gongora, and she's from Timbiki, Colombia,

and that's on the Pacific side of the country, which has a whole different rhythm tradition and instrumentation tradition than on the other side, Baranquilla, on the Caribbean side. This is something completely different, and this is, again, it just reminded me of the Afrobeat from the 70s,

but with this amazing vocalist, Nidio Congora, this track is the title track of their new record called La Pata Coja. I love this track, Felix. Like, really? This is the kind of stuff that, oh, I can just imagine myself in La Playa. And you know, you know I love a good horn. Like, I love horns like that when they just sprinkle them in so perfectly. This is really, I'm so glad actually you brought this in.

I had not heard them before. But it is important. And it kind of makes me think of what some of these other Colombian artists are doing, like Como Chimbi, kind of a little more folkloric stuff. But in this kind of way that moves, that fits in with the contemporary, is really cool. You know, if you go back to when we first started doing the show, I was turned on to this band called Side Stepper, which is based in Colombia. And this British guy pulled all of these different influences from all over, from both coast,

and put it in this band that was a mixture, again, of Afro beats, a funk, of all that stuff. And I did a deep dive last night into Nidia Gongora's stuff on Spotify. And man, there's just so, there's a lot of marima. There's a lot of folkloric stuff. She has this great voice.

Big fan of this band. I didn't know them before. The band is called The Bongo Hop. The album's called La Patacoja. You are listening to Alt Latino from NPR Music. We're talking about new music. We're going to take a break and we'll be right back. And we're back to Alt Latino with all new.

music. Now, Felix, speaking of a good horn, this song that I brought on, I am so excited. This is for Mexican artist Nesquick off his new album, ATP, and this track is called Bo-o-Mensotanto, in all caps. Can we just, we'll talk about the name later. I'm going to hear the track first. I know, Anna, nah, nah. I'm sure that I'm not sure that I'm never

and I'm tallow. Casito this night and no lovre. But for her is a game don't know

to go. No, it's for a way. That's a know- know- I'm not

difficult in the morning that can't get and so they pretend that functions You know, I'm gonna

say the one of a bina you know you're to get to get bobo

men's to and he want to just for to do for the choino

if not you're going to be to be to sit in my car me

I'm I'm we're we're and we we're we're moving to Texas

Just so people will know The non-Spanish speakers Or maybe even the non-Mexican Spanish speakers Bobo and Menzo and Tonto Are like different variations of Like, estuido Nucklehead You know

More like knucklehead It's kind of Nucklehead Stupid, silly but silly stupid All variants Lovingly. It's something your mother would say, oh, that, mental, a little bit.

A little bit, loving me. Yeah, a little bit, right. A little bit of anger to that. It sounds like she's talking to me and my brothers at the same time. Bobo menzo-toto. That was maybe the more accurate pronunciation feelings. Got a little, put a little more force behind the delivery there. Oh, my God.

That's so funny. Oh, my God. So this is, like I mentioned, from Mexican artist Nesquick, off of his album. that came out late 2024, I was kicking myself, Felix, when I finally listened to this album because I'd heard a lot of buzz around it. I don't know what happened, what was in my brain, late 2024 where I didn't hear it. And I heard it for the first time and I was like, wow, this is really something special, innovative, imaginative. It's called ATP because it stands for Aumte Pienso, which translates to I Still Think About You. So the whole album is kind of structured

around this idea of talking about a lover you still think about, right? But in this very silly, unique kind of making fun of itself way, he calls it Radio 8DB at different points. He creates it almost in this style of like DJing a night radio show. It comes out really cool. It's like a 40-minute start-to-finish tight, cool listening experience. It's very much him doing a lot of this silly kind of. of, I don't know, if you're Mexican, it really hits different.

It goes across all kinds of genres, rap, trap, electronic, corridos, regitone. It's really representative of what I've been talking about, too, of like, this kind of off-center, innovative stuff that's happening. This track in particular, I just am obsessed with. It's explosive. It's colorful. It's sparkly. Those horns.

Speaking of my geeky headphones, Felix, I got so mad because this one made it on my swim playlist also. I always try to have a clear lane when the horn's coming because I'm like, oh, I'm going to go so fast. And these guys are in my way, and I was like, you don't understand. The horns are hitting. I need to go fast. You said the name of the band is Nesquick.

Yes. The spelling is N-S-Q-K. He actually started as a producer, so very much all of the production is his creative genius. I brought in a track from somebody that I've been. listening to for a while. Again, this one goes back almost to the beginning of the show. This is a vocalist from Buenos Aires. His name is Federico Albele. His first album from 2005, long before we started the show, was called Gran Hotel Buenos Aires. And I've heard him described as like the Leonard Cohen of Argentina, just because of the sound of his voice and

the literate nature of his writing. I'm going to play this track called Tequero Ati. It's from an upcoming album that he has coming out in April. The album is called Fantasma and it's just him and an acoustic guitar and this voice and this amazing, amazing writing and lyrics. This is called Tequero A T'Hare-Aubele. To me, To me, To me, he's always had the same vocal quality, that deep baritone, as the iconic vocalist from Argentina, Carlos Garde.

For me, his music's always been like a modern take on the sentimentality of those vocals from tango. It's just beautiful from beginning to end. This is a guy who deserves more fans. He deserves to be better known. He's put out an album almost every two years since 2005. He has a really hardcore dedicated following. This is Federico Albele. The track is called Tequero At Tis.

It's got an album coming out in April 4. Speaking of Buenos Aires, Felix, because apparently we're literally telepathic this week. People would think we spend way more time planning this. So here's some people know. Like we start a little Google Doc and we put our little songs in. And then we never really know what we're going to talk about. We don't put our notes in until much later.

I have no idea what she's going to say. And we're thinking like we brought the same stuff. It's so funny. I'm like, oh, you're going to bring someone from Buenos Aires? Okay, well, let me do it too. A little bit different. Juanna Aguierre, she's a singer-songwriter from Buenos Aires. very much in that space again of doing a really beautiful kind of vocal, slow singer-songwriter

thing, but a bit more experimental, a bit avant-garde. It's hard to encapsulate a lot of the sound that she does, but I brought this particular track that actually came out in 2023, but I just recently discovered, so you're discovering it too. The track is called Lo Divino. for Argentina. Oh, interesting. Yeah. The stunning acoustic vocal mixed in with electronics the way

Juan and Molina does it, I'd really like this a lot. What she's doing here, it's unassuming, it's simple, but it's very intentional. Everything from the lyricism, which is really beautiful and poetic, down to just how she arranges it, there is some justification for why I'm playing this

because her second album is set to come very soon. So this is just a sneak preview of all. of what that's going to be. Again, the artist is Juana Aguirre, and the song is Lo Dimino. That brings us to the end. The end. There you go. Felix, what's your resolution?

The resolution. The resolution is I'm going to try to use the word Bobo Menzo Tonto as often as I can this year. That's my resolution. You have been listening to All Latino from NPR Music. You really got me today, Felix. That was really good. Our audio producer is Simon Rentner,

and we get editorial support from Hazel Sills. Saraya Mohamed is the executive producer of Empire Music, and Grace Chung is our project manager. Our hefe and chief, as always, Keith Jenkins. O'allelay, keep on, keeping on. Bobo men's a tonto. No, no, no, no, no, don't call her fault. It's okay, he doesn't speak Spanish.

He won't know. It's a compliment, Keith. I don't know her, man. I don't know her, man. Oh, my God. I'm Felix Contreras. I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Thank you for listening.

Paul Menzatata.