PLENA LIBRE: "Estamos Gozando!" (Times Square)

Plena, a high-energy, Afro-Puerto Rican folk music, came out of the island in the late 19th century. Played on three different-size hand drums with topical, news-based lyrics, the music was largely forgotten for many decades. But in 1994, bass player-bandleader Gary Nunez reignited plena fever by forming Plena Libre. He rearranged classics and modernized the music with timbales, congas and horns. On "Estamos Gozando!" ("We're Having Fun!"), the group's 10th album, Nunez and his sextet update classics that pay homage to such great plena and bomba masters as Angel Torruellas ("Olvidalo"), Cesar Concepcion ("Que Buena Son las Mujeres") and Rafael Cortijo ("Tributo a Rafael Cortijo y Su Combo").