Best Latin Jazz Album: Grammy 2019

The Latin Jazz category nominees for the 2019 Grammy Awards are a great field of albums. I’ll briefly share my thoughts on the two albums I’ve listened.

By the way, I can bet the other three albums I haven’t listened must be good Latin Jazz albums as well. Therefore, I encourage you to check them out when you can.

Bobby Sanabria’s “West Side Story Revisited”

I blogged about “West Side Story Revisited” when it came out and highly recommended it. What the maestro Sanabria did with Leonard Bernstein’s original score was nothing short of extraordinary. It’s a piece of Latin music history.

Here’s an interview with the maestro Sanabria with Bernstein’s daughter Jamie.

BTW, I think that both Bobby and Dafnis Prieto should have been also nominated for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album category. But, this is the Academy and its ways.

Miguel Zenon miss-Classified (again)

It’s unusual to have Latin Jazz albums that highlight a string section. It’s even more unusual to have two of those nominated for a Grammy in the same year. We have that situation this year!

Puerto Rican saxophonist Miguel Zenon and American clarinetist Eddie Daniels both released albums that feature string quartets. And both were nominated as Best Latin Jazz album.

In Miguel Zenon’s “Yo Soy La Tradicion” he basically becomes one more member of the Spektral Quartet string ensemble. No other instruments are used.

Why do they keep classifying the Puerto Rican saxophonist’s music as Latin Jazz beats me! Miguel does infuse his jazz with the Latin tinge, but his group lacks the percussion (in most of his recordings) to make it really Latin Jazz. “Yo Soy La Tradicion” has no percussion at all, but it’s still classified as Latin Jazz! Wow!

From my point of view, Miguel’s music is Straight Ahead Jazz that happens to be played by a Latin musician.

I even find the “Yo Soy La Tradicion” title a bit of a stretch. I don’t doubt that Miguel used some of the Puerto Rican’s folk music as inspiration for the music in this album. However, I tried and failed to find a link between the music in “Yo Soy La Tradicion” and any sort of Puerto Rican music.

That said, I believe the album succeeds as a Jazz experiment.

This is not the first time Miguel Zenon collaborates with the Chicago-based string quartet. Miguel participated in the 2nd release of the Spektral Quartet back in 2013, the same year they made their recording debut.

Great Latin Jazz Albums in 2019 Grammy Awards

In case you’re curious about the other three Latin Jazz nominees, they are the veteran Eddie Daniels’ “Heart of Brazil”, Dafnis Prieto’s Big Band with “Back to the Sunset”, and Elio Villafanca’s “CINQUE”.

As Elio explains in his website, “CINQUE” is a double album…”five movement suite inspired by the story of Joseph Cinque, who in 1839 led a successful revolt aboard the slave ship La Amistad, days after being sold and transported to a sugar plantation in Cuba.”

As I said, I believe all of the above Latin Jazz albums are great ones. So, although I feel Bobby Sanabria’s great album should win him his first Grammy this year, it really doesn’t matter who wins.

I’ll finish this blog with the 7-min promo video of “Heart of Brazil”.