My Best Latin Jazz Grammy 2014 Favorite
You know it was a great year for Latin Jazz when you have a field of Paquito D’Rivera, Concha Buika, Roberto Fonseca, Omar Sosa, and Wayne Wallace competing for the Best Latin Jazz Album Grammy.
I don’t mind Concha Buika competing in this category as her album has a heavy Jazz influence, but I don’t understand why it wasn’t nominated in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category! Is the reason that Buika is Hispanic, and therefore should be in the Latin Jazz category? I hope race is not the determining factor here!
My Favorite for Best Latin Jazz Album
I listened to all these Latin Jazz albums (with the exception of Paquito D’Rivera’s “Song for Maura”) and they are all excellent and different.
Wayne Wallace came with a strong recording in “Latin Jazz, Jazz Latin”, mixing it a bit more this time with other elements of Latin music like Cuban “Songo”! Roberto Fonseca also went deep to the well of Afro-Cuban roots in “Yo”.
As I have said more than once in other posts in this Latin music blog, I loved Buika’s “La Noche Mas Larga”. Her singing style, her passion, and her raspy voice mix perfectly with elements of jazz and flamenco to produce a wonderful listening experience. In this case, I think this album is in the wrong category as I said above.
And my favorite album in this category of Best Latin Jazz Album is Omar Sosa’s “Eggun”. I was able to enjoy Omar Sosa’s creativity and talent at the piano in this recording, which is musically smoother than some of his previous albums. This album, a tribute to the 50th anniversary of the classic Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” is amazingly creative, starting by paying this tribute without playing any of the Davis’ songs. All are originals created for the album. “Eggun” is an excellent concept, well-conceived, and masterfully performed by the Cuban pianist.
I encourage you to check out all albums in the Best Latin Jazz Album category as I found them all (except for Paquito’s which I haven’t listened to yet) to be great albums!
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