By Jim Parisi
When he passed away unexpectedly on August 29, Fidel Gamboa shocked music fans all over the world and left a void that can never really be mended. The founder, songwriter, guitarist and lead singer of the highly popular Costa Rican band Malpais was honored on November 18 at the National Stadium in west San Jose with a concert by the remaining members of his band and guest musicians such as Bernardo Quesada, Adrian Goizueta, Humberto Vargas, Max Goldenberg, Walter Flores, Cantoamerica, Peregrino Gris, the Nicaraguan rock band Perrozompopo, and the Costa Rica Philharmonic Orchestra throughout the night, including an incredible version of “Historia de Nadie” with Maria Pretiz. The real surprise was the appearance of Ruben Blades, a three-time Grammy Award winning Panamanian musician who was loudly received by the sold-out audience in the stadium. The show continued well past the scheduled two and a half hours, with Fidel’s guitar standing upright in its stand onstage, alone, all night.
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Filed under: Jim Parisi, Music Review on January 16th, 2012
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By Jim Parisi
Writing a soundtrack is tricky business. The music needs to compliment the action and images of the movie of the film without being pervasive. It needs to follow the storyline so in this way it is almost like an assignment. And all good musicians want to put their own personal stamp on their music, so it needs to fall into the category of artistic expression as well: no musician wants their work to become wallpaper. This article is a review of the soundtrack of the new Costa Rica movie “El Regreso”; it is not a review of the film, which is wildly popular right now.
Federico Miranda picked up his first guitar with serious intentions at the age of twelve and taught himself to play. In 1993, he formed the popular Costa Rican rock band Gandhi, one of the first of this genre in this country. They have since released four albums and in 2005, Miranda also teamed up with pianist Walter Flores to work on the Baula Project, a fusion quartet who dedicated this album to the preservation of the leatherback turtle.
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Filed under: Jim Parisi, Music Review on December 26th, 2011
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By Jim Parisi
What do you get when you combine eleven musicians from Costa Rica, Cuba, Colombia and El Salvador who create a fusion sound of reggae, cumbia and funk, then let them tour Europe? If you ask the musicians of Sonambulo, they will tell you that the result is a new style of music that they call “psicotropical”, a catchy phrase for their very infectious music. The band’s first album, “A Puro Peluche”, was released in January 2009 with a lot of positive acclaim and little distribution. It was reissued in 2010 and promptly won the ACAM Best Tropical Album award.
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Filed under: Jim Parisi, Music Review on November 25th, 2011
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By Jim Parisi
Putumayo Music recently took a step away from its customary formula of regional and stylistic compilation albums to give us a tribute to the music of one man, the great reggae progenitor Bob Marley. Few people have made the kind of lasting, universal impact that Bob Marley has made with his music. In his short 36 years, Marley managed not only to introduce hundreds of millions to reggae but also spread powerful messages of peace, love, human rights and acceptance. It’s no surprise that almost 30 years after his death, one can travel to any part of the globe and witness his far-reaching musical legacy. A number of the twelve tracks were recorded specifically for this disc. But it opens strongly with something that already existed: Three Plus’s convincing “Jahwaiian” fusion version of “Is This Love.” And it remains inHawaiifor singer Robi Kahakalau’s cool, smooth take on the seldom heard “Do It Twice.”
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Filed under: Jim Parisi, Music Review on November 2nd, 2011
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By Jim Parisi
Nearly all music is a melting pot, a new image of its influences and predecessors. In Central America, Garifuna music is unique in that it is a blend of African and indigenous music without any influence from the European cultures that became dominant in all the Americas. The offspring of the indigenous Awarak tribe and African slaves who survived from two sinking slave ships, the Garifuna have always preferred an isolated existence. As these people enter the Twenty-first Century and near extinction, Ivan Duran and Stonetree Records in Belize have undergone painstaking labors to at least preserve the music by recording it. Likewise, a spin-off of Garifuna music came into existence around the middle of the seventeenth century when Spanish guitar and musical styles lent themselves as a variation on Garifuna music, and a style called Paranda was born.
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Filed under: Jim Parisi, Music Review on August 29th, 2011
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By Jim Parisi
Since its inception eighteen years ago, Putumayo Music has blazed a reputation for being outside the box. These are the guys who invented the term “World Music”, offering compilation discs of music by musicians from the same country or region or from all over the globe, playing a similar style of music. With more than one hundred albums under their belt, Putumayo has now endeavored into a new genre (for them), entitled simply “Rhythm and Blues”. The album is a collection of classic R&B songs performed alternately by legends and by novices, rising stars of the current R&B revival. And the formula works like a charm.
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Filed under: Jim Parisi, Music Review on July 18th, 2011
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Romulo Castro, Herencia
By Jim Parisi
Although he was born in Mexico, Romulo Castro’s parents are Panamanian and he was raised in Cuba. He “came home” to Panama in the late Seventies but his collage of musical tastes had already been firmly put into place, both in his ears and in his soul. That multi-cultural embrace comes across strongly in his album “Herencia”, which he recorded with his nine piece band, Tuira. The CD is a blend of bossa nova, samba, rock and Panamanian folkloric music, all with a pronounced Caribbean backbone. His band is comprised of guitars and bass, keyboards and horns and an array of indigenous percussion. If this sounds like a potpourri, it is, but it is also anything but garbled. “Herencia” is Castro’s fourth CD and the twelve selections arrive like individual entrees rather than a mixed stew.
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Filed under: Jim Parisi, Music Review on June 30th, 2011
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The Quepos Bridge Club plays at 12 noon every Tuesday at Dos Locos Restaurant.
When he passed away unexpectedly on August 29, Fidel Gamboa shocked music fans all over the world and left a void that can never really be mended. The founder, songwriter, guitarist and lead singer of the highly popular Costa Rican band Malpais was honored on November 18 at the National Stadium in west San Jose with a concert by the remaining members of his band and guest musicians such as Bernardo Quesada, Adrian Goizueta, Humberto Vargas, Max Goldenberg, Walter Flores, Cantoamerica, Peregrino Gris, the Nicaraguan rock band Perrozompopo, and the Costa Rica Philharmonic Orchestra throughout the night, including an incredible version of “Historia de Nadie” with Maria Pretiz. The real surprise was the appearance of Ruben Blades, a three-time Grammy Award winning Panamanian musician who was loudly received by the sold-out audience in the stadium. The show continued well past the scheduled two and a half hours, with Fidel’s guitar standing upright in its stand onstage, alone, all night.
visitors since December 2009
