The 2013 Latin Grammy nominees have been announced! Four (4) out of the five (5) nominees for the Best Traditional Tropical Album category are Cuban music artists (Sentimentales by Lucy Fabery and Humberto Ramírez is a release from Puerto Rico). Here they are:

Un Siglo De Pasión     Arturo Sandoval   Label: E35		La Canción Cubana Ernán Lopez-Nussa y Rolando Luna Label: Producciones Colibri/Cinquillo (read our review)
La Habana Tiene Su Son Septeto Nacional Ignacio Piñeiro Label: Bis Music (read our review)		Vamos Pa' La Fiesta Septeto Santiaguero Label: Picap, S.L.  (read our review)

In the LATIN JAZZ category, the both Valdés father and son recieved nominations. I would put my money on Border Free as our executive summary says it all. Read our review here. La resenà del disco de Chucho Valdés padre aquí. 

Another highight is a Lifetime Achievement Award for the leader of Los Van Van... Juan Formell. read below...

From LARAS - "Oscar D'León, Juan Formell, Roberto Menescal, Totó La Momposina, Palito Ortega, Eddie Palmieri, and Miguel Ríos will be honored with The Latin Recording Academy®'s Lifetime Achievement Award, and Mario Kreutzberger aka "Don Francisco" and Pedro Ramírez Velázquez are the recipients of the prestigious Trustees Award. These honorees will be acknowledged at a special invitation-only ceremony on Wednesday, Nov. 20, at the Four Seasons Hotel Las Vegas as part of the weeklong 14th Annual Latin GRAMMY Awards® celebration."

FELICIDADES JUAN!

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The Latin GRAMMY awards are getting most of the industry's attention right now, but the Lotus Festival in Bloomington Indiana will be presenting Cubadisco winner Roberto Fonseca on Friday, Sept. 27 at 10:30pm. Roberto's recording Yo won the Cubadisco 2013 awards (Cuba's equivalent of a GRAMMY)  for  Fusion and Recording, and it was also nominated in Jazz and Design.   Bill Tilford spoke with Roberto on the telephone Tuesday night, and you can hear that conversation (in English) here (audio quality is mediocre but listenable, and Roberto is interesting). 

Roberto is also opening for the Buena Vista Social Club concert at Orchestra Hall in Chicago on Sunday the 29th (if you haven't bought your ticket yet, that one is already sold out.) 

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Friday October 25th Lily and Calixto Oviedo (Mi nuevo sabor) will perform in San Francisco at Café Cocomo , uniting some of the great Bay Area musicians. Surprisingly this will actually be Calixto's first time performing at Café Cocomo, and is at the initiative of organizer Corey Raynor. Performing with Lily and Calixto will be Best Timba Bongocero Carlos Caro, legendary Peruvian bassist David Pinto, who Calixto remarks is one of the greatest bass players he has had the pleasure of seeing both on baby and electric bass, and completing the rhythm section is Peruvian pianist Mario Arseno Jr. The brass will consist of two trombones and one trumpet, El Niche Romero (ex-Manolín El Médico de la Salsa). Guest vocalist for the evening is Edgardo Cambon. This will be a night for all dancers so don't miss it! They will be performing a repertoire including timba cubana, son montuno, Puerto Rican salsa and even bachata.

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The Arsenio Rodríguez Project will be playing Yoshi's SF this Saturday night. This is an all-star group with New York legends Nelson González on tres and José Mangual, Jr. on bongó, plus Josiel Pérez on trumpet from Maraca's band and the Bay Area's own Carlos Caro on congas.

On Sunday, they fly to LA to play the Grenada in Alhambra.

Here's our new section on the band. 

In other Arsenio news, Beyond Salsa Bass, Vol. 2: Arsenio, Cachao and The Golden Age, will be out in a day or two. It has 120 pages on Arsenio. [Kevin Moore]

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