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CD review
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The Boston Phoenix, CD review >>
Peru Negro, Jologorio (Times Square)
If you love the sultry jazz-tinged work of Afro-Peruvian diva Susana Baca, you owe yourself this excursion into the roots of her world-renowned sound. After 35 years of reviving and reinventing the African-derived music and dance of Peru, this group, who played the Berklee Performance center this past Sunday, are enjoying renaissance, one that's fully evident in the 13 tracks on this elegant and well documented CD. Peru Negro's stock and trade is tghe rollicking festejo, a celebratory genre featuring the crack and snap of the wooden cajon, the pop of congas, jangling Spanish guitar, and mostly female call-and-response vocals. Most of the pieces accompany dances, such as the loping, 6/8 alcatraz, which involves love play reminiscent if the Cuban rumba. The revelry here is broken by a few slower pieces, including a sensuous lando - the genre that put Baca on the map - in which notes and beats seem to hang in suspended animation between contrasting, conversing rhythms. These performances reimagine a long past, but really coluld hardly have ben more rich and spirited.
- Banning Eyre 02/27/04
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