Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla Master Zakir Hussain, 73, Succumbs to Illness
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
This year’s Grand Événement General Motors at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal will feature the vibrant Venezuelan ensemble King Changó in a megashow entitled Fiesta Nuevo latino, which translates as “one gigantic dance party.” With their joyous ska and Latin rhythms stirred up in a sizzling reggae/funk/hip-hop/drum ‘n’ bass sauce, the seven members of this alternative Latin combo, coming to Montreal expressly to take part in the Festival, are determined to spread the festive spirit through
the crowd like a powder trail. This gigantic musical happening with a decidedly latino feel will take place midway through the Festival, on Tuesday, July 2, starting at 9:30 p.m. on the General Motors stage.
A joint creation of programming vice-president Laurent Saulnier and artistic consultant Michel G. Barrette, Fiesta Nuevo latino is designed as a bubbling show in which the celebrated energetic performers of King Changó will perform a string of fiery songs with a sizzling, infectious beat.
King Changó, whose members evoke the exuberance of La Mano Negra, will serve up a cocktail comprised of such traditional musical forms as mariachi, mambo and cumbia combined with pulsating roots, rock and trip-hop sounds.
“You’ve got to come up with something really special to keep the entire audience - people of all ages - in a state of euphoria for an hour and a half!” exclaims group leader Andrew (Blanquito Man) Blanco.
With its spotlights playing upon the nearby skyscrapers, its 125,000-watt loudspeakers, its delayed-sound tricks, its giant screens and its stupendous visual effects, including maximum use of video technology (on a larger scale than at any previous Grand Événement), this urban extravaganza is without compare. Le Grand Événement General Motors will be broadcast live on both TV5 and Global. In addition, TV5 Monde plans to show it on a delayed basis across Canada and, days later, worldwide.
“Watching people like Max Roach or Elvin Jones and seeing how they utilize the whole drum kit in a very rhythmic and melodic way and how they stretched time — that was a huge inspiration to me,” Hussain said in DownBeat.
Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
“I love doing ballads,” Mike Stern says. “It’s just a part of me, some part of emotionally how I feel sometimes.”
Dec 3, 2024 12:52 PM
Stories of major shifts and rebirths among musicians during the past five years are common, from weathering the…
Queen Latifah extols Harlem and the Apollo Theater at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.
Dec 12, 2024 1:58 AM
Cuban-American jazz trumpet legend Arturo Sandoval and Harlem’s Apollo Theater were among the honorees at the 2024…
“With jazz I thought it must be OK to be Black, for the first time,” says singer Sofia Jernberg.
Jan 2, 2025 10:50 AM
On Musho (Intakt), her recent duo album with pianist Alexander Hawkins, singer Sofia Jernberg interprets traditional…
Robertson had a penetrating, pliant sound with a remarkable softness at its center.
Dec 11, 2024 10:34 AM
Herb Robertson, a trumpeter and flugelhornist known for his wide-lens explorations of the avant-garde, died Dec. 10. He…
