¡Orquesta Akokán! Out 3/30/18 on Daptone Records

Orquesta Akokán at Areito studios, La Habana, Cuba.  (Photo: Joel Pront)

On March 30, Daptone Records will release the new album by Orquesta Akokán. It is among my favorite albums of the past few years--so much flavor, amazing arrangements and creative orchestration. Read more about them here at NPR program alt.Latino.

I was honored to have been asked to write the liner notes for the, which I'm including here:

Listening to the new LP by Orquesta Akokán, you can't help but feel the spirits of Cuba's musical giants radiating from the speakers.  But honoring and caring for these spirits is not easy work, nor is it a task to be left solely to one generation.  It is a collaboration of young and old; The elders know the traditions, the gestures, the incantations, but it is the younger generation that have the duty to learn, the strength to carry on, and the fire and soul to make new songs for new spirits.

In November of 2016, Michael Eckroth traveled to the hallowed Areito studios in Centro Habana with a stack of charts tucked under his arm. Arriving in the cavernous wood-paneled live room, he took stock of the players assembled by producer Jacob Plasse: a dozen or so of Cuba’s most ferocious and pedigreed wind and rhythm players from storied groups including Irakere and Los Van Van, the sensational veteran vocalist José “Pepito” Gómez, and a handful of seasoned young New York Latin music freaks. These musicians would transform his charts into the living, breathing document you’re holding in your hands.

An arpeggio tumbles sweetly down the keys of the piano, and the set bursts forth en masse with exclamatory trumpet blasts, introducing saxophones that immediately establish themselves as the center of a rhythm section. The arrangements carry the exquisite beauty, pathos, and playfulness of the renowned dance orchestras of the 1940s and 1950s who had recorded in this very room, evoking the ghosts of Arsenio Rodriguez, Perez Prado, and Beny Moré. And the robust, time-tested musical architectures of son cubano and mambo are present and skillfully honored through all nine of these original compositions. The melodious tres cubano, the swinging tumbao of the congas, the tight blend of vocal harmonies — they’re all there. Yet there’s something unequivocally fresh — saxophone sections playing montunos where you’d imagine a piano, an angelic, swinging flute you’d expect in a charanga recording, sones — vocal improvisations that have the seasoned flow and cadence of mid 1970s “salsa dura” singers, and of course, the appearance of the inimitable César “Pupy” Pedroso on piano. Somehow this synthesis of musical grammar and compositional styles, of Havana and New York, of old and new, makes perfect sense. 

Akokán is a Yoruba word used by Cubans to mean “from the heart” or “soul”, so it comes as no surprise that a recording like this would find its way back to Brooklyn’s Daptone Records. For nearly a generation, the venerable label has brought us soulful music in a myriad of styles, made in the present, but with all the craft and flavor of the classic recordings of the past. In doing so Daptone has enshrined both the genres it honors as well as artists creating new works in the universal canon of dance music. It’s a perfect kitchen from which to serve this captivating baile between old and new — una sopa levantamuertos (soup to raise the dead), prepared with rhythm, with care, and above all, con akokán.

-Martín Perna, Antibalas

On Tour with Antibalas: West Coast / Rockies Spring 2018

The year is off to a busy start. All this amidst the backdrop of total chaos. Cold days, hot days, snow in weird places, the threat of nuclear war and the daily erosion of democratic systems.

I digress. I'll be continuing the album tour for Antibalas's new album "Where the Gods Are In Peace." We're just back from Philly, DC, and Jamcruise 16, and our next stops are in Brooklyn followed by a West Coast run and dates in Boise! and Colorado. See upcoming dates below and check back for new additions or sign up to the Antibalas MAILING LIST.

I'm also teaching a semester-long undergraduate course titled AFAM 197 / MUSIC 297 "African Diaspora Music" at The Pennsylvania State University to 18 students. We're four weeks in. So far, so good.

Upcoming Performances

Happy 2018!

this year has gone by real fast. I feel like I haven’t done anything. What do I remember ?

new Antibalas management transition

the Anti Ball and Women’s March in Washington DC

Denver with Antibalas and Galactic and getting to visit Tia Susi and Tío Paco for the first time in 15 or so years

the Aretha Franklin tribute at Carnegie Hall with Antibalas

a working vacation to LA, visiting friends and recording with Jeff Bhasker for the Angelique Kidjo Remain in Light album

playing two shows with Antibalas in Seattle on my birthday

performing in Asheville at the LEaf festival, seeing Plena Libre and Lee Fields and visiting an old friend and eating enchiladas

the Billie Holiday tribute at the Apollo Theater

performing Remain in Light at Carnegie Hall with Angelique Kidjo

a friends wedding in Fort Lauderdale

having a pretty good tomato and pepper harvest and lots of wildflowers

playing in Salt Lake City with Antibalas and Kamasi Washington and eating some good mole

a writing retreat at my studio / home with the entire Antibalas band

seeing a bunch of family at my cousins wedding in Philadelphia

Visiting Bend Oregon and catching up with my uncle and swimming in the Deschutes River and then playing a rough and harrowing show at the Oregon Eclipse Festival

performing at a Hollywood wedding in Ibiza

Playing four shows in Tokyo, waking up at 5 am to go to a fish market

recording some new music in Austin with Adrian Quesada and the Ocote Soul Sounds squad

driving all over North America with Antibalas performing songs from our new album Where The Gods Are in Peace

driving to Utopia Festival and swimming and jumping off a rope swing with the band in a creek outside the house we stayed in

being stuck in traffic outside Austin in a van with the band when we got the news of Charles Bradley’s death

seeing some old friends and mentors in Oakland and performing two shows at the Parish

perfoming a duo doing improvised music and TVOTR songs with Tunde Adebimpe at a beautiful home overlooking the Los Angeles skyline

an artist retreat with the Come to Life collective on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia

spending Thanksgiving with good friends and hanging big acoustic curtains in the studio

a trip to Houston to perform at the Menil Collection with Angelique and Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads, DJing at the Flat with DJ Sun, visiting old friends

another trip to Salt Spring to record a record with Arouna Diarra and Biko Casini

a trip to Costa Rica to visit family and friends and do an impromptu salon show with Masauko Chipembere and Roberto Roque in San Jose

spending Christmas Eve and day with my Dad, stepmom, brothers sisters nieces nephews aunts uncles and cousins in Philadelphia and watching the little kids overdose on sugar, fun and gifts while the grown ups catch up and turn up

this is was a very full, fast year with a lot of blessings and a lot of tribulations which I’ll spare you. when I look, back it is the visits with family, friends and good meals (mostly involving tortillas)  and making good music that I most treasure. I am grateful for all the kind, charming, hilarious, talented and visionary people in my life. 2018 - more of all that!

Fall 2017

via GIPHY

Fall 2017

The fall leg of the Antibalas tour is over. It was exhilarating and exhausting. We ran through the midwest, Texas, Japan, California. After that I went up to British Columbia for a retreat with fellow musicians and folks from Guayaki to brainstorm and collaborate.

I'm on my way to Houston this weekend for another Remain in Light performance with Angelique Kidjo and company at the Menil Collection, one of my favorite art museums in the world.

I'm also doing DJ sets at the Flat on Friday and again on Sunday afternoon.

What else...lots of work building out a studio, writing new songs, home improvement, Thanksgiving cooking, spending time with family, learning some new tricks...

Thanks for dropping in.

Antibalas Fall Tour Begins! Friday 9/8/2017

New collaboration with Kologbo (Fela's Afrika 70) & Pat Thomas

A while back in Paris one thing led to another and I found myself in the studio with my elder and old friend Oghene Kologbo, guitarist of Fela Anikulapo Kuti's Afrika 70 band and performer on so many of the classic recordings.

Kologbo's solo album "Africa is the Future" is finally out via the ParisDJs label. They've just revealed the fourth track from the album "You No Lie" featuring Ghanaian funk/highlife legend Pat Thomas and me on flute.

Preview/preorder/support the album below:

Misc Projects and Collaborations Summer 2017

Besides Antibalas stuff I have been doing a lot of writing and recording for the next Ocote Soul Sounds album.

In June I went to perform at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee with Angelique Kidjo's Remain in Light project. It was hot, muggy, and intense. U2's bassist Adam Clayton was there on the side of the stage digging the show. This was a big nerd moment for me as the first concert I attended was the U2 Joshua Tree Tour at JFK Stadium, Philly in 1987. (That's Adam of U2 front left, Angélique Kidjo center stage and me on the far right with the big saxophone).

Last week I was at Studio G in Brooklyn with Lyrics Born, the Antibalas horns, and Grammy nominated producer Joel Hamilton recording a Lyrics Born's "Don't Change," for a special livestreamed session using the amazing gear that Universal Audio makes. You can watch the whole session below:

A few weeks before that I was at Good Child Studios in Brooklyn working with producer Lawson White and Balún, an amazing electro-acoustic band from Puerto Rico. They wrote a beautiful song that featured the Antibalas horns.

When I'm not driving or sitting in a van on the highway, I have been doing lots of vegetable gardening--tomatos, kale, peppers, salad greens, eggplant, herbs, flowers, apples) (pics forthcoming) and building out my studio on the side of a mountain in Appalachian Pennsylvania.

New Antibalas Album out 9/15 on Daptone - PREORDER & Tour Dates

That's right. We've made another album, our sixth full-length record in 19 (!) years.

This one is called "Where the Gods Are In Peace." Daptone will be releasing it 9/15/2017. Click HERE or on the cover image below to pre-order the album.

We'll be on tour in the fall throughout the US and beyond. Confirmed tour dates below:

5/5 Carnegie Hall with Angelique Kidjo: Remain in Light

I'm honored to play at Carnegie Hall for the sixth time in my career, this Friday with Angelique Kidjo, her band, and the Antibalas horns, doing a radical reinterpretation of the classic Talking Heads "Remain In Light" album.

I will be playing flute and baritone saxophone and did a lot of the writing/arranging of the horn parts that you'll hear onstage and on the album of the same name.

Tickets: https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2017/5/5/0800/PM/Angelique-Kidjo-and-Friends/