|
|
 |
CD Review
|
| Click Here to go back. |
Global Rhythm, CD Review >>
In Puerto Rico, plena and bomba were early 20th-century creations of country folk incorporated into an urbanizing economy after the U.S. invasion of 1898. As with the emergence of Cuban rumba, Dominican bachata, Jamaican mento and Trinidadian calypso, Puerto Rico's newly urbanized workers created a locally unique synthesis of European song forms and African percussion. Today, in every island and nuyorqueño barrio, impromptu street-corner revels feature plena and bomba as popular, participatory expressions of Puerto Rican cultural identity. Founded a decade ago, Plena Libre remains a popular musical presence at home, and among Puerto Ricans on the U.S. mainland. Founder Gary Nuñez (acoustic bass) heads a group also comprising requinto, piano, trombone and a robust battery of seven percussionists, as well as three singers. Estamos Gozando, their tenth release, presents a suave, straight-ahead sound, paying superb tribute to the originators with interpretation of compositions by legendary folk innovators Rafael Cepeda, Rafael Cortijo and Ismael Rivera, César Concepción, Manuel Jimenez "Canario," Los Pleneros de Quinto Olivo, Mon Rivera, Toñin Rivera and Ángel Torruellas.
-Michael Stone 09/01/04
|
| Click Here to go back. |
|
 |
|
|
|
