Browsing: Folk

Legendary Mexican guitarist Carlos Santana, who brought Latin fire to American rock with his group Santana, was born this day in music. Mixing American influences of B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix with Latin ones of Tito Puente and Mongo Santamaria, Santana continued to develop the genre of electric blues. With such classics as “Smooth,” “Black Magic Woman,” and “Oye Como Va,” Santana endures as a pioneer and legend of contemporary music. Santana – “Oye Como Va”

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Lila Downs performed last Saturday night at the Métropolis theatre for the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Close to 2,000 fans gathered to see the singer-songwriter and her band perform a repertoire of Mexican rhythms fused with jazz instruments and players. It was precisely because of this capacity for mixing styles, while remaining true to her cultural roots, that she received the 2016 Antonio Carlos Jobim award as “an artist distinguished in the field of world music whose influence on the evolution of jazz and cultural crossover is widely recognized.” These cultural and musical crossovers are an important part of Lila Downs’s…

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135 Years ago this day, March 25th 1881, Bela Bartok was born. Regarded as one of Hungary’s greatest composers, Bela had a musical curiosity that would change the way the West sees and understands music. He was in his early 30s when he decided to pack the most modern recording instrument of the time, the Edison Phonograph, and head to Algeria to research Arab Folk Music. Originally Bela was set to go alone, but it the last minute he suggested Marta (wife) to join him. And off they went. They traveled from Marseille to the port of Sakîkdah in Algeria…

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