Plena Libre

Plena Al Salsero (GM Musica, 2008)

Puerto Rican band Plena Libre specializes in contemporary Afro-Puerto Rican plena and bomba. Plena Libre's latest CD is a scorching live album titled Plena al Salsero, recorded in Monterrey, Mexico. On the live recording you can listen to what the band calls a Puerto Rican sofrito (sofrito is a popular sauce used in Puerto Rico, Spain and many Spanish-speaking countries), where the band combines tasty plena and bomba with salsa, Dominican merengue and Colombian cumbia.

El Barrio/East Harlem, New York - The Raices Latin Music Museum will present the 7th Annual Salsa Sunday festival celebrating Afro-Caribbean Latin Music and Dance on October 26, 2008 from 1:00 pm - 7:00 pm. The day long festival will be held at the Heckscher Building, One East 104th Street, off of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Admission is $7.
 
 The 7th Annual Salsa Sunday includes performances, lecture/demonstrations, dance classes, view an exhibition on the history of Salsa in New York City; hear Latin Music Pioneers Sammy Ayala and Armando “Chocolate” Armenteros in their own words speak about his music and career in “A Conversation with the Masters, “moderated by journalist/bandleader Aurora Flores and bring your dance shoes for a Palladium Dance Party featuring Louis Bauzo and the Harbor Latin Big Band, and much more.

Michalis Terzis, one of the foremost composers of contemporary Greek music, has a new CD titled Best Greek Songs (ARC Music EUCD2170, 2008). The CD features some of today’s most famous Greek singers. There are two brand new compositions featuring vocals by Glykeria, as well as some of Michalis Terzis’ most beautiful songs sung by George Dalaras, Dimitra Galani, Anna Vissi, and a new up-and-coming singer on the Greek music scene named Niki Valsami.

“In this album the music of the whole world meets and coexists within the deep spirit and the colours of Greek music, played by my orchestra and performed so beautifully by the singers," says Michalis Terzis.

The International Arts Festival (IAF) will celebrate 20 years of world music on a new date; from October 11th-12th in New Orleans. The music festival takes place at Scout Island, City Park from 12PM to 9PM and attracts musical acts and artists from all over the world, in an effort to fuse world music and heighten awareness of local community projects.

Despite Hurricane Gustav’s arrival and departure into the ‘Big Easy’, The International Arts Festival has decided to continue on and devote itself to remaining in the soulful and rich city of New Orleans and helping to economically and culturally rebuild one of the world’s most precious landmarks. “We will continue to keep the festival in New Orleans. New Orleans is the city we love and will continue to support and assist the rebuilding process”, says Ernest Kelly, founder of the International Arts Festival.

Vin Gordon - Gordon in de Garden Vol. 1 (Masaya Records, 2008)

David Hillyard and the Rocksteady 7 - Way Out East: Live at the Kassablanca (Brixton Records, 2007)

Some of Jamaica’s most renowned musicians are horn players. It’s a fact that stems from the days of ska, when a horn section was essential. As the (off) beat of Jamaican popular music slowed into rocksteady and eventually reggae, horns were marginalized or sometimes done away with entirely (particularly in live situations). Nonetheless, many of those great players continued playing, enjoying fruitful careers to this day.

One such is trombonist Vin Gordon. He was a pro at a very young age who earned the nickname “Don Drummond Junior” due to his expertise being on a par with the Skatalites’ legendary original trombonist Don Drummond. Through the course of more than 40 years in the business, Gordon played in the house bands at Clement Dodd’s Studio One as well as with a heap of reggae notables including Bob Marley and the Wailers, The Revolutionaries, Aswad, Justin Hinds and the reunited Skatalites.

Malian kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra will perform together Tuesday, 21 October 2008 at 7.30pm at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. Toumani Diabaté will play kora and Clark Rundell will conduct the orchestra. Toumani’s music will be specially arranged by Nico Muhly and Ian Gardiner.
 
 Toumani Diabaté is credited with bringing the beauty of the 21-stringed kora to a wider audience around the world. The kora is West Africa's harp. It’s made by sticking a thick pole through the side of a large gourd covered in a cow skin and then attaching 21 strings (traditionally fishing line) in two rows to both the pole and a bridge on the gourd. An astonishingly gifted impresario, Diabaté has recently been described as the 'Hendrix of the Kora'. He is not afraid to collaborate with other musical traditions and won a Grammy in 2006 for his album of delicate duets with Ali Farka Touré.

Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat

I Am Eve (Kirkelig Kulturverksted, 2008)

"I Am Eve" marks the second KKV recording by the Iranian Vahdat Sisters. On their first recording, Songs From A Persian Garden, the sisters broke the ban on women singing in public in Iran. They gave a concert at the Italian Embassy in Tehran and the live recording that resulted gave its listeners a glimpse of what is usually kept hidden behind closed doors.

But this is not an era in which women can or should remain silent. There is too much at stake for the future of themselves, their children, and respective countries, not to mention the entire global community. In the liner notes, Founder of KKV, Erik Hillestad laments, "Who can stop Eve from singing? Who can stop the water from running or the wind from blowing? Since the first woman of creation, women's voices have been heard wherever mankind (prefer "humankind"), has settled, singing songs of love and joy, sorrow and comfort…"
 

Hamburg, Germany - H2 media factory GmbH, the operating company of the large music download portal www.akuma.de "Digital store for music") situated in Hamburg, Germany, is now active as a music label. On akuma.de 1.5 million songs in mp3-format are ready for download. The portal represents close to 75,000 artists.
 
 With the new label "akuma Recordings" akuma.de pursues a new strategy of services for artists and of album release. The digital distribution of albums here stands at the center.