UNITED WE SWING - SPANISH HARLEM ORCHESTRA
In the late ’60s and early ’70s, before there were a half-dozen Latin charts and twice as many subgenres, the essence of Latin music, at least on the East Coast, was salsa. With musicians and ideas traveling back and forth on a kind of San Juan/New York shuttle, the heart of salsa was Spanish Harlem, where Afro-Caribbean rhythms blended with the beat of the streets and the call of the dancehall. Oscar Fernandez brings that sound and spirit back without kneeling to nostalgia or compromising with current trends. The fundamentals are all here: clearly enunciated piano vamps, chant-and-response vocals, trumpets and trombones blazing upfront and the rhythms of congas, bongos, timbales and maracas. The SHO’s elegant yet muscular ensemble playing makes this classic style sound as vivid and magnetic as ever. Billboard
