NPR Music - The songs we can't stop playing on repeat

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Alt.Latino is usually all about sharing new music across Latin America, but what about the older cuts Ana and Felix are obsessed with?On this episode, Anamaria Sayre and Felix Contreras share the music they've been playing on repeat, from beloved classics by greats like Ella Fitzgerald to surprising new discoveries out of Mexico like Paloma Morphy.Songs featured in this episode:•Paloma Morphy, "me faltas tú"•George Shearing Quintet, "Juana Palangana"•Carin León and Bolela, "Aviso importante"•Chick Corea Trio, "Spain"•Alex Ferreira, "Un Cariñito"•Alex Ferreira, "Un Cariñito (Versión Acústica)"•Ella Fitzgerald, "Angel Eyes"Audio for this episode of Alt.Latino was edited and mixed by Taylor Haney. Editorial support from Hazel Cills. 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

So, Felix, I don't know if you remember this. That's when you know. When I say, I don't know if you remember this and I start laughing. That's when I'm putting on blast. It's happening. So you called me the other day. Out of nowhere, you call me and you go, Anna, I think that breathing is actually just inviting the universe to enter into your body and fill your soul with thoughts and then leave. and I was like, oh, okay, yeah, okay, I could see that.

And then you go, and I think your heartbeat, that's the universe just entering your body too and just, and filling you with the soul of the universe and then leaving. And I was like, oh, yeah, I mean, I don't really get how that works, but sure. And then you go, okay, I'm in a parking garage, I got to go. You hung up the phone. And that was the whole conversation. But my thought when you hung up the phone besides this man is insane is I was like, Like, what was he listening to before he called me that brought on such profound thoughts for you?

Because you weren't just driving in silence. You had to have been listening to something. I honestly don't remember what I was listening to. I've told like 20 people that story. Everyone says that I need to have an account on Instagram that is exclusively your phone calls and text messages to me because they are. Literally, I could write a novel. Oh, my God. Very quickly, it goes back to something I read that, you know,

I have this daily Zen calendar where every day there's a different. I've seen this. I've seen this, actually. This is true. So, and there was, I forget, and I should have saved it, but I lost it. But it was basically this person saying that when, you know, when you're intentional about your breathing, you know, as a form of meditation, what if your breathing was actually the life force of the universe

coming through your body. So then you're a witness to that life force. You're a witness to the breathing and to the heartbeat. That's what I was trying to say. In the parking garage. Before, I think you were going to a jazz show is what was happening. You were mentally preparing yourself for the spiritual experience. Yeah, exactly.

But I don't have no idea what I was listening because I always have a lot of stuff on repeat. I don't know what's going on. So that's why today, Felix, I thought to myself, I didn't really think to myself. Saraya, our producer, thought to herself, but, you know, I liked the idea. I think, why not? Give the people an opportunity to enter Felix's brain and have such esoteric, profound thoughts as well by hearing what it is that you're listening to on repeat. And what you're listening to on repeat? We're doing something really special this week.

We're going to let everyone know what we have been listening to on repeat lately. It's kind of like a new music show, except some of it's, like, from the 60s. new music, but probably new to me and maybe new to a lot of people listening. So we want to give people a sense of what it is that we love to hear. I'm going to start us off today because I'm DJ today. From MPR Music, this is all Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Anna Maria Sayer.

Let the Chisme begin. Okay, so this one I'm really excited about. She's an artist named Paloma Morfi. She's from Mexico. I wasn't even sure where she was from. I had to do a lot of Instagram stalking because she's that new. And this track that I've been listening to all the time, it's like my end of summer track, is called Me Faltes You.

Yeah, I've got to fumar, to start out of place in place. Yeah, no, come to be that mal, and in the morning I'll go to come to. So if you were never So if you weren't doing the show So if you weren't doing the show, This is the music you would be listening to anyway, right? Oh, absolutely. I mean, the funny thing about this job

is like music becomes work. Like all music becomes work. It's like I'm listening to music all the time and in a way I'm always listening for work. But at the same time, music is my life. There's always music playing. So this music would have made its way into my life, whether I need it to talk about it or not.

I just, you know, happen to be talking about it today with you and a lot of other people. But what I love about this song, first of all, this artist is so representative of what is like a really lovely, contemporary indie pop artist. The thing about these really cool young artist, Felix, is they don't like to say anything about themselves.

Literally her Spotify description is, Tengu Unzomio, and a collection of lentes baratos. Okay. What am I supposed to do with that? So then I have to actually put in the work and start investigating this thing. A lot of her monthly listeners are in Mexico, so I figured maybe she's Mexican.

She sounds kind of Mexican. Figured out that she is, but she's so new. I mean, she only started releasing music. music in 2022. But every single thing she's released has been so diverse and yet effective and interesting and fun to listen to. I mean, a lot of her music I would say is characterized by these kind of cool poppy bass lines that are kind of characteristic of early 2000s pop, but she keeps it so fresh with sparkly scint and then has some like tropical moments on some of the tracks. This song in particular, it's a very sweet, honest representation of a young person in a moment.

I mean, she literally says, basically, like, I don't feel like I lack anything. I just feel like I lack you. And it's this very sweet kind of ode to the confusion, right, of where we all sit in love in our 20s or maybe, you know, in our 60s. But the point is, I think there's something really, really. dynamic about what she's doing, honest about what she's doing. And I'm just really excited to see where she goes because she's so experimental already. So it'll be interesting to hear an actual album and how she kind of defines her sound, ultimately in this first release.

Okay, so when you say the title of the song is Me Falta's Too, and it's the idea that I have a lot of, what did you say that she has? She goes, yeah no me falta nothing, but I'm already with, not without anything. but I just feel like I'm without you. So every now and then I scroll to TikTok, every now and then. And I found this woman, I have no idea where she's from because she speaks Spanish and Portuguese. And she has these different quotes. And she says, you know, such and such author never says, I'm in love.

And then she'll recite a line from a poem or a novel or something or a lyric. This is what this song reminds me of. That's a profound way of saying that I'm in love with you. you. I don't lack for anything, but I lack you when you're not here. Well, and the translation, like, the wording would never quite work in English because I was playing, I was on a road trip with my friends and I was playing the song and they're all like, oh, no, this is such a cool song because, you know, I always bring it on the ox, right? And none of them speak Spanish. And I was trying to explain the ingenuity of this chorus because I was like,

Falta can mean multiple things, right? So it can mean, like, like, like, like I don't miss anything, but I feel like I'm missing you. But that's like a little bit too intense of an emotion for how she's intentionally, I think, trying to be casual about it, right? Like to be like, I don't miss anything, but I miss you is one thing. But to be like, no, I'm not lacking anything. I'm not without anything. But I also feel like I'm lacking you.

It could be, you know, I've never met you, but I feel like I should know you. Or it could be you broke my heart and I'm in love with you, but I don't want to say it. Clever. Very. She's smart. I like it. And you really have to listen to the rest of what she has out, Felix, because I think you actually might enjoy it. I probably would. I like this track a lot.

Okay, so again, that was Paloma Morphy, and the track is Me Faltes You. Thank you, Paloma. I'm looking forward to hearing more, man. All right. I brought in a track by the George Shearing Quintet. He was a British pianist and had a long, long, productive career in jazz. In the late 1950s, early 60s, he put out three or four albums that were Afro-Cuban.

And among the band members, he had dispercussionist Armando Peraza, playing Conga, who's Cuban. Long history, he played with a bunch of people in New York, eventually played with Santana. So I was listening to this music, because a few weeks ago I got invited out to Austin to play music with Carrie Rodriguez and Gina Chavez.

It was a lot of fun, very musical. But I had to really focus on playing conga within a small group. And so I started listening to this record, and I'm getting all geeky here on the drum, but when you listen to the conga and where he fits in with all the other Latin percussion and the bass and everything, it's like studying for an exam. This is the way it's supposed to sound.

So we're going to hear a track called Juana Palangana from the George Shearing Quintet featuring Armando Peraza. The album's called Latin Affair, and it's from 1959. So you see why I say it's like all the fingers, like if you put your hands together like you're going to pray, right? You fold your hands together and all the fingers interlocked. that's what it should sound like. It should sound like everybody fits in its own place. That moment, I mean, you heard me like that moment with the piano and then it all picks up together.

It's like, oh, this is what was Fartarro. Right? Yeah. That is exactly, like, that was what the song needed to pick me up in that exact moment. It's really nice. I mean, first of all, I love that you can hear the texture of the time that it was made. I always love listening to an older recording and being able to really feel placed in that time just baseline by,

how it sounds. But it just moves really nicely, Felix. Yeah, especially when you consider that this was the antithesis of Afro-Cubian music at that time. It was all about big bands, Tito Pente, Machito, everybody. Even Woody, Herman, Dizzy Gillespie, was all about big bands. And there were two small groups, the Cal Jader group out in San Francisco, with Mungo Santa Maria and Willie Bobo and then George Shearing with Armando Peraza. These were small groups. So it seemed to burn a little bit more intensely, I think, and in a different way.

How did these small groups land, Felix? I mean, if the big bands was what was kind of like the thing that people were listening to, who was listening to the small groups? You know, the small groups, when we talk about crossover, this is one of those examples. They were much more popular with jazz fans. Okay, because you had the Afro-Cuban dance group, you had the Latinos and the folks who were dancing Big Band Mambo. These bands were getting gigs in small jazz clubs because they were smaller.

So they were able to play these different places and expose more people to this music and to the music. these rhythms. One was not better than the other. It was just different. Well, isn't that amazing, though, how oftentimes it's not the big pop artist that kind of get you to shift genre or to yag out in a different place. It's like you have to go with a small, more mobile kind of sound to be able to transcend genre boundaries. That's really cool. Yeah, I think that's the lesson that we see over and over again. And that's certainly the case with this record. I could go on and on and on, but let's just leave it here. That was Juana Palangay.

from the George Shearing Quintet from the album Latin Affair, 1959, Jack. Okay, we're shifting energy a lot, Felix. So we just talked about the Latin Grammys last week. Lots of really exciting things. And I have to admit, it made me get re-excited about Carine Leon. I have been obsessed with this man's voice. I think he has one of the most exceptional voices just out there in the world at this moment, point-blank period. Every time I hear him live, I'm like, this can't be.

real. So, his album, which we actually talked about a lot before it came out, and then we never really talked about it after it came out, Bocatueca, Volume 1, is incredible. And I'm going to play you a song off of it, and then we can talk more about it. This song is called Aviso Important. Okay, so there were a million different tracks that I was trying to decide between on the this album because he really does it all. I mean, this is his foray into country and Americana and like playing with all of these sounds that are not characteristically what he has built himself as as a regional Mexican artist.

I mean, if you look alone at the collaborators on this, we talked about this before it came out, but he has Leon Bridges on this. This song has Bolela, who's an artist from Argentina. I mean, he really brought in people from all across the map because I, I've said this before. Garine Leon is very much a musician's musician. He has always been in my head unrestricted by the genre that other people see him in, and he talks about that a lot. He just likes to make really authentic sound play with things a lot. I just really liked this one because I just love that electric guitar and that energy, and it's so soulful and passionate in this really simple way.

I actually, when I heard this song the other day, Felix, I was on the bike, and I literally was like, I need to text Felix, this song goes crazy. And then I didn't, but I'm telling you now. Well, I'm glad you're at least paying attention to your bicycle safety there in New York, okay? Thank you. That's good to know. This guy, the more I hear, the more I like, for all the reasons that you said. I really, really admire and respect the fact that these musicians are ignoring genre, ignoring boundary,

ignoring everything. Like, you know what? Bring it on. Bring it all on. these kids these days, right? It's the highlight, man. It's the power of what they bring. It keeps bringing me back to listen to this stuff over and over

because they're going to come up with something new and it's going to blow my mind again. But you know what, Felix? What I've learned from you, it's not actually that new, right? Like, you always talk about the way that Miles used to Ben genre, like crazy. Maybe it's the acceptance. That's the difference, right? Like people being really ready to be like,

oh, Carin Leone is doing this now. Okay. But Miles Davis was an exception. He really was an exception by opening his mind up and his vision up to a lot of different things. It just seems to happen more and more these days. It seems to be the norm rather than the exception. And as the kids say these days, I'm here for that. I'm not mad at it.

Fire. What else do they say? That's pretty much the gist. I think that's all they say. No, oh, oh, Bet. Wachin says that. Yeah, my son, Wachin always said, Bet, Dad, bet, fire.

That was him saying, thanks, Dad. I had a really wonderful time, and the dinner was amazing. Okay, but you know what, Felix? You do the same thing. No, because you know what you do? Thanks, period.

That's, oh, I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. We have our ways, man. Okay, Felix, it's your turn. Okay, I do have some more music, but we're going to take a break first. you are listening to Alt Latino, and we're playing songs that are on repeat.

We'll be right back. And we're back. We're playing music that's on our personal repeat. And let's see, whose turn is it? Oh, it's my turn. Is there a difference, Felix, between songs on personal repeat and songs on repeat?

Yes. Because as you mentioned before, we both listen to music for work. Because we want to find the absolute most interesting artists that we can find to share with our listeners, right? Because there's a whole bunch. If we listen to 10, we've got to select it down to two. And the other eight are just as worthy, but we do have to make a decision. Personal repeat is just stuff. I like to say that I listen to certain things to remind me how to listen. Okay? And that's usually some form of jazz and Grateful Dead,

of course. These artists, these genres, some of these musicians, They just remind me of just to clear the mind, let it be a blank canvas, and just listen and absorb everything that's out there and what they're doing. And this next artist is someone that I go back too often. This is Chick Korea. He was a pianist, a jazz pianist, who was prolific in a number of different ways that a person can express themselves musically. He did classical.

He did jazz. He did chamber music. He did electric music. He did acoustic jazz. One of the things that he always returned to was the piano trio, bass, drums, and piano. The trio he had back in 2013 and around that era was featured the bassist Christian McBride, who's an NPR jazz host, best jazz voice and radio, and the drummer Brian Blade. What always fascinates me about listening to them is the way they listen to each other.

And it's a musical conversation happening simultaneously. At the same time, they're all saying something, but they're also not saying something at the same time. The one track that I go back to over and over again is a song called Spain. and if Chick-Correa had a top 10 hit in the jazz world, this would be it. It was so popular. It's from an early, early version of his band Return to Forever. But this one, he returned to over and over and over again. It's like an old friend.

And every time he played it in concert, people embraced it. They loved it. This is from their 2013 album trilogy. And on this track, I'm going to cheat a little bit, okay? Because he does bring in the flamenco guitarist, Nino Joselle, just to lay down the idea that Chikria was influenced by Spanish music, especially flamenco and Paco de Lucia and all that. But he introduces it, he gets some guitar going, and then the trio comes in. Check it out. Felix, we have to sit here for all 18 minutes. It's like cutting it off. It's a movie. The song is a

movie. I need to know what happens. I love that. You got the guitars, they're chatting with each other. Like, what's going to happen? I don't know. was of Italian background. He actually played with Mungo Santa Maria for a while, learning the Afro-Cuban style. And then, of course, he was a straight-haired jazz player that avant-garde.

But at one point, he heard the music that the flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia was playing and the way they mixed jazz and flamenco music. And that started a long friendship and mutual admiration society between those two artists. And so this is a nod toward the influence said Paco de Lucia had on the music by bringing in a flamenco guitars to play with this incredible piano trail.

So I think the top two questions I get asked about my job are, what's your favorite tiny desk? Which the answer is I don't have one. And the other question is, what's your favorite music or artist or type of music to listen to? Which my answer is also always, well, what minute of the day are we in? Because it's constantly shifting based on where I'm at, where. what I need, what I don't need, like what I'm, what for you, these songs that are like happening in your life that you have on repeat, where are you when you're listening to these and why? Let's see.

Well, the first song, the George Shearion song, it was very deliberate because I wanted to use it as a steady board for this gig that I had. This song, I have to play Chick-Korea every now and then just to make sure that the earth is still on its axis and everything is fine in the universe. you know, his music, his energy. Again, he's one of these artists that the music is out there in the universe, always, constantly, his creative energy.

So I just have to reach out every now and then and tap into it, sort of write it like a surfboard or a little boat or something, and then get off at the next stop. And I do have to add that, you know, he came and did an amazing tiny desk concert in 2016 with the vibraphotist Gary Burton. They revisited some albums they had made

that were very, very well received and are everybody's favorites. And then unfortunately, Chick-Korea passed unexpectedly way too soon in 2021. I think the whole jazz world, the music world in general, is just still not over that. He's not here physically, but we're just getting by on his musical energy. So there, that's what I'm listening to. All right. Again, whiplash time.

What are you going to? You don't even know. Maybe I have something quite similar. Energetically, maybe a little bit similar. I mean, so I brought that track Telescopio from Solo Fernandez a couple weeks ago. Love those guys. Which you loved. I loved that you loved it.

And the other artist on that track was Alex Ferrera, who I listened to a lot, but I haven't really talked about on the show. He's another artist from the Dominican Republic doing an indie alternative thing, which it seemed like there were virtually no indie artists whose music was making it off the island for a number of years before, Solo Fernandez and Alex Ferrera. So because I brought that track, it kind of got me to re-listen to this record. And I had it on repeat all the time. This is a track called Un Carinito.

All of Alex's music is just kind of sweet and lovely. It's light. It has this really nice kind of tropical percussion that is thread throughout the album. The backing vocals, specifically on it, sound very much of the island. This song is from his 2021 album Tanda, and he released an album this year in April that included an acoustic version of this song. And I also love this version because you get rid of all the percussion, and you get rid of the backing vocals, which are so much the character and the quality and the personality of this song.

And it becomes a little more serious. I mean, it's called Uncaninito, literally like a little love. It's about a crush is what it's about. He's like, I would fight lions and do all these things just to kind of get your attention and impress you. And it kind of takes a slightly more serious tone in the acoustic version. I want you to listen to a second of this. I did a trick. That really lovely vocal just shines so much brighter to me in this version.

I'm really enjoying the fact that there are so many different musicians doing things that are what people wouldn't expect from the Dominican Republic. There are a lot of incredibly talented people there doing things that fit other places, but you know what I'm saying. I think I know what you're saying, Felix. Okay, so I brought in a track that I think works nicely with what you just played, and I had no idea you were going to bring it. This is Ella Fitzgerald, and this is from 1960, so she had already been performing for decades by this time. This is from a soundtrack to a film called Let No Man Write My Epitaph.

And my understanding of the story is that she was at a career crossroads. She's 43 years old at this point. She's no longer the young ingenuism. that she was when she started. This opportunity to perform on a soundtrack for a film came up, so she did it was just her and a piano. But it just gets to the essence of this amazing artist and this incredible instrument that she had with her voice.

Just self-reflection. You could almost hear her thinking, doubting herself, finding confidence in herself. The whole album is just drop dead, gorgeous, and profound in ways that can help you when you're having your own moments of self-doubt. and trying to find inspiration to keep going. This is a track called Angel Eyes, and I think it works with the track you brought in by Alex Fredado, because I don't know, I would put it on the same playlist,

just because I like the way they sound together. This is Angel Eyes from Ella Fitzgerne. I love that my love's misspent with Angel Eyes. I love that you brought this, Felix, because to me there's always a depth in lightness a little bit, Like even to bring that energy of like what you said, how they pair well together. And they're both kind of light. They're both lovely.

But there's really something actually quite profound to be said about keeping things at this level. And I love, I mean, Ella's voice is forever and always just so resonant. You know, 43. That's a pivotal year for a lot of people. And it's a point where people get reflective. You know, you realize and you're looking at some point you're going to have more yesterdays than tomorrow's. And at that point, you're at that point. It's almost like a midway point.

When an artist reaches that age and you take on some of these thoughts, the art can be incredibly moving and profound. I love that. This is fun. We've got to do it again. Let's do it again. Maybe. I'll let you know. Oh, that's right.

You're in control this week. Okay, we're going to take another short break and then we'll be right back. Okay, we're back. And at this point of the show, we have been sharing a new segment that we call Songs That Move You. This week, we have a really special story about a Chicano anthem and old. mixtape and a memory from the past. And to tell that story, here's Justana Rosales. I just think of sitting on the ground, cross-legged, just as close to the speakers as I could, just listening. I know that song. I know that song so well. Oh, my God. I know you do. Right?

My song that brings me to tears would be the song Angel Baby by Rosie and the Originals. Three years ago, a 29-year-old Drissano Rosales was digging through some old boxes when she came across a little mixtape buried at the bottom of one in the garage that she hadn't thought of in years. It's just me and him. I just zero in on us sitting together.

As she goes back in time, she's in her childhood living room sitting next to her dad, Paul Rosales. She's six years old and experiencing something of a Rosales family right of passage. Drissana's earliest memories of her dad always involve his mixed tapes. That is so awesome because it speaks to a certain generation that I can relate to, okay? It kind of reminds me of those old school Chicano radio dedications.

Yeah, like when they would call in to the oldest shows and say, hey, I want to dedicate angel baby to my cousin Chui or something like that. Exactly. And this was Drasana's dad's version of that. And Drasana spent the early years of her life knowing that. So finally, one day, she holds a perfect little yellow and pink cassette. And on top, Felix, there it is, in glistening, bold black Sharpie, Dressana's mix. And they pop it into the player. It's got Britney.

Hit me, baby, one more time. Backstreet boys. All the 90s hits. That is one cool dad. Oh, and a six-year-old Drasana is bopping. She's grooving. I can totally see it. But then all of a sudden, the most special song.

Angel Baby is like a Chicano low-rider anthem, and I say is, not was, because it's still very popular in the lowrider scene these days. It's something about the time machine essence of that song. It was everywhere in that world. And it was everywhere because it spoke to something culturally significant happening in the 60s. Mexican-Americans were being loud and proud about their dual identity.

It's a simple track sung in English. I mean, Drissana actually thought the last. lyrics were about a literal baby. And Drissana's dad, a Chicano who loved skateboarding, grew up not quite fitting in anywhere, and he had to have felt the significance of the song. And that moment, and years later, he's seeing his daughter connect with it. There was something about the song he noticed she loved. There was no not putting it on that mixtape for me.

It was already my song. He definitely threw that in there, I think, to help mold the person I would become. And as she grew up, Felix, the definition of Drasana's life literally became this song. I've just kind of based my personality around it, I guess. Possibly it's the melody that really just hits me. It's possibly those chords, you know, just that feeling that you get from that intro. I can only imagine a slow dance happening when I hear that song, you know, arms wrapped around each other, middle school dance style. I'm going to go ahead and say, I do remember those middle school dances.

Subject matter expert in the house. But the power of a song like that, the emotions of the song, the slow groove, like, I totally get it. Drasana was growing up alongside this song, learning about who she was, who her family was, where they fit into this larger Chicano story. Her dad grew up half in the Chicano world and half in the white Americans. American world, feeling insecure. And he wanted his kids to continue to exist in all of their cultures without that same insecurity.

And he wasn't afraid to experiment, I think, with his children, because he knew it would be a struggle, even more generations down the line. Growing up here, you know, are you this or are you that? Felix, what he ended up focusing on was dismantling machismo. He was making space for his kids to freely be who they are. being the kind of dad who could just love. I think that's where I get emotional. Is the reflection on how early he gave this gift to me of this song.

I think that I was his angel baby. I think he wanted to kind of transform those lyrics into what he wanted to express to me without outwardly smothering me in love. He's not going to tell me, oh, I love you, love you, love you. Like, it's just, it came from his dedications to me. You know, Anna, as a dad and as a music freak, I totally get that. I totally get what he was doing. This one was specifically labeled Driesana's mix, so I could dig that up later in the garage, put it on and realize, oh, this is the one. And so it has to be much deeper for him, even than I can understand. And I could understand, aim.

Angel Baby being like perfection, you know, being nothing but love. It's just, it kind of leaves me speechless. We'll have another song and another story next week. And a reminder, if you have a song and a story that moved you, please send an email to alt.latino at npr.org. You have been listening to Alt Latino from NPR Music. Our audio producer for this episode is Taylor Haney with editorial support from Hazel And the woman who helps us keep it together is Grace Chong.

Saraya Mohamed is the executive producer of NPR Music. And our heffin chief is Keith Jenkins, VP of Music and Visuals. I'm Anna Maria Sayer and I'm Felix Contreras. Thank you for listening.