Tom's latest gallery features Roberto Fonseca's killer Latin jazz band at Monterey Jazz.

In other news, prepare for Revé! Saturday, Oct. 12 at Café Cócomo, San Francisco ($30 in advance for the whole night) and Tuesday, Oct. 15 at Moe's Alley in Santa Cruz - $20 in advance for the whole night.

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Nelson González, Marco Díaz, Josiel Pérez, José Mangual, Jr., Carlos Caro - photos: Tom Ehlrich

The Arsenio Rodríguez Project plays two shows at Yoshi's SF tonight, Saturday. Tom Ehrlich and I were on hand for their rehearsal today and Tom's gallery will be up soon. This is an all-star band at the top of its game. Nelson González and José Mangual, Jr. are living legends, but every musician is a master: musical director Josiel Pérez and bassist Yosmel Montejo are familiar from their tours with Maraca; Carlos Caro (ex-Paulito, ex-Opus 13), Marco Díaz and Eduardo Herrera all hail from Vissión Latina; Niche Romero was in Manolín's incredible Cuban band of the 90s, Roberto Morris played with Sur Caribe in Santiago de Cuba and on lead vocals and clave is the amazing Perico Hernández, who captured the authentic flavor of Arsenio's masterpiece compositions. Both Perico and Eduardo channeled René Scull several times and gave me chills. Their all-Arsenio set list includes the drop-dead masterpieces Me boté de guaño, Dile a Catalina, La vida es un sueño, Kila Quiqui y Chocolate and many more. Don't miss this one. If you're not familiar with Arsenio - trust me, you'lll be addicted. Here's an article to get you up to speed.

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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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