(disco) Son De La Frontera

Son De La Frontera | World Village
By Chris May


Son De La Frontera's radical ambition on this album is simultaneously to look forwards and backwards—forward to Andalusian retentions in modern Latin American music, back to flamenco's own birth in Moorish music (”Moorish” in a flamenco context being a description as approximate as Jelly Roll Morton's “Spanish tinge,” encompassing a diversity of North African and Levantine styles). The roots flamenco quintet succeeds brilliantly and thrillingly, particularly in its rediscovery of flamenco's deepest Gypsy roots in ancient North Indian and Afghani musics.

Blood-related melodic and rhythmic infusions from Cuban, Mexican, Colombian, Moroccan, Egyptian, and Lebanese folk styles help fuel the band's internationalism, but what really delivers the Latin American and Moorish double whammy is leader Raul Rodriguez's use of a Cuban tres instead of a flamenco guitar.

(leer +) [vía allaboutjazz]