Los Hermanos Arango

La familia Arango really brought it to Kuumbwa tonight. It's an entirely different repertoire from what we heard at Ashkenaz two years ago and it's easily the farthest anyone has come towards integrating the full array of Afro-Cuban folkloric rhythms and singing into Cuban popular music. Cuban shows are often a smorgasbord - a little danzón, a little guaguancó, a little bolero, a little of everything.

This is not that.

Everything is seamlessly fused together into a powerful and original musical identity. Every song is a throbbingly danceable, hook-filled, harmonically interesting creation. The differences between songs--and there are plenty--are provided by shifting from arará to palo or from abakuá to batá, but nothing is derivative, nothing is gratuitous, and everything sounds like Los Hermanos Arango and nobody else. It has the harmonic interest of jazz, the rhythmic interest of folkloric music, and the raw drive of NG La Banda and North American R&B, but it's not any of these things. It's something new, and something that's been a long time coming. Don't miss it. Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, tonight, August 2. [Kevin Moore]  [photos by Tom Ehrlich]

permalink | Share