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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By Jim Parisi

Lucho Calavera and his band La Canalla recorded their entire debut album “Ni Pa’ Que Te Cuento” in the Papaya Music Studio in Alajuela in just two and a half months, an incredible, very efficient accomplishment. Then they spent nearly a year crafting and polishing their model. A band that has a reputation for enjoying themselves onstage, including live dancers as part of their entourage, became very serious in the studio, expanding the band from five players to nine, to include more percussion and a horn section, further indication of the scope of their vision. That vision is initiated by singer/songwriter Lucho Calavera, the altered ego of Luis Arena, who has been in the Costa Rica music scene for some time. He recorded two albums in the late Nineties with El Parque, the second CD on the Sony Music Label. They were the first Costa Rican band to air a video on MTV Latino. He then went solo, working on projects with other local bands, most notably Evolucion. He also sat in with Soda Stereo, a popular band from Argentina. Arena then relocated to Madrid, evolving musical influences and his pseudonym, with gypsy bravado wrapped around it.

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Filed under: Jim Parisi, Music Review on May 21st, 2011
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By Jim Parisi

Reggae music has become a global phenomenon, cast into public awareness forty years ago by musicians like Johnny Nash, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. But the music remains Caribbean in temperament.

In 1995, the young Costa Rican music label Papaya Music released “Costa Rica Reggae Night”, an excellent compilation of authentic Reggae music from the Caribbean coast of this country. It is a compilation of thirteen songs from well known Costa Rican bands, both past and present; it was a kind of history of notable reggae bands from this area. The album has been a big hit, selling more than fifteen thousand copies in just ten years, a remarkable feat for an independent Central American label.

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Filed under: Jim Parisi, Music Review on April 9th, 2011
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By Jim Parisi

Max Urso is a busy guy, a tireless visionary. He started his recording studio and label, Costa Norte Records, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras in 1998, after hearing a rough cassette tape of Honduran singer/songwriter Guillermo Anderson performing and perceived a real need for a recording studio in the country. Both Guillermo and Garifuna singer Aurelio Martinez were recently included in the Central American Music Box CD, a compilation album demonstrating the musical diversity of this region. It is an accomplishment that all three of them are very proud about and happy to be a part of.

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Filed under: Jim Parisi, Music Review on March 11th, 2011
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