When Rubén Blades edited
Salsa Big Band
in 2017
, he
expressed his intention not to tour as a salsero any more, a wish that he communicated out loud during the concerts held during that year and the next.
But, as fate is an early riser,
Salsa Big Band
won when a Latin Grammy was published and, already in 2018, the Grammy for best tropical Latin album.
And everything changed.
"If I did not participate in salsa again, all the music, positions and opinions that I have created through my compositions during these years would disappear," Blades explained in May to the Argentine newspaper
Página / 12
.
More information
Rubén Blades: "I don't get into trouble, people have had trouble with me"
'My name is not Rubén Blades', a review of the life of a versatile salsa singer
However, his interest in exploring the ways of jazz continued. The spark that lit the ultimate fire dates back to 2014, when he performed the show
Una noche con Rubén Blades,
with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra conducted by Wynton Marsalis. In that performance, in addition to the salsa pieces, she performed 'I Can't Give You Anything But Love', a standard popularized by Ella Fitzgerald; 'Too Close for Comfort', made by Frank Sinatra; 'They Can't Take That Any Way From Me', by George Gershwin; Cole Porter's 'Begin the Beguine' and Blackwell and Cooley's 'Fever'.
So, faced with the dichotomy between salsa and jazz, a Solomonic decision:
Salswing !, an
album recently released with the
big band
of the Panamanian Roberto Delgado. In it, the Latin, reformulated, shines in classics of his songbook such as 'Paula C'
(Bohemio y poeta,
1979); an adaptation of the bolero 'Ya no me duele', by the Puerto Rican Jeremy Bosch; 'Cobarde', by Ray Heredia, which he recorded on the tribute album to the Madrid musician; 'Contraband'
(Antecedent,
1988); a review of Tito Puente's instrumental 'Mambo Gil'; 'Tambó', by Pete 'El Conde' Rodríguez, and 'Canto Niché'. And the
swing
break the seams of salsa with 'Pennies from Heaven', sang by Bing Crosby;
'Watch What Happens', which Sinatra embroidered;
'Do I Hear Four?', By Tom Kubis, guest saxophonist and pianist in Roberto Delgado's orchestra, and 'The Way You Look Tonight', also from Sinatra's repertoire.
'Salswing!'
it is the meeting of a tradition and a heritage that have a common trunk on the African continent
The album cover is paradigmatic: Rubén, supported by a mosaic made up of the faces of some of the great Latin music and jazz luminaries: from Machito to Count Basie, from Tito Puente to Duke Ellington;
from Mongo Santamaría to Cab Calloway.
Salswing !,
in short, is the continuation of the meeting of jazz and Afro-Cuban music, a tradition and a heritage that have a common trunk on the African continent. Louis Armstrong, who had as a pianist the Panamanian Luis Russell, stirred up the tango; Charlie Parker was seduced by the Latin; Dizzy Gillespie had in Chano Pozo an inspired musician and composer; Mario Bauzá, director of the seminal Machito orchestra, worked with Chick Webb, Fletcher Henderson and Cab Calloway, and Ray Barretto, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaría and many more brought the Latin ember to the sardine of jazz.
But let's imagine for a moment that, as Blades says, there are those who get hives when listening to something other than salsa.
For those ears is
Salsa Plus !,
which collects the salsa songs contained in
Salswing!
plus the
swing
instrumental
'Do I Hear Four?'.
That one is more inclined to jazz than to salsa?
No problem:
Swing!
offers you eight of the
Salswing
pieces
!
(four in English and four in Spanish) in which they send the arrangements of the style.
Nothing escapes this Blades who follows, as he sang long ago, searching for America.
He has recently recorded with Carlos Vives, Omara Portuondo, Natalia Lafourcade and León Gieco.
And he has thrown the shuffleboard at Bad Bunny himself.
Sowing!
'
Salswing!', 'Salsa Plus!'
and 'Swing!'.
Ruben Blades.
Rubén Blades Productions.
'Salswing!'
'Salsa Plus!'
'Swing!'
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