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      Latin Grammys 2021: Complete Nominees List

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      Here are the nominees for the 22nd annual ceremony.The 22nd annual Latin Grammy Awards will take place Thursday in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. The ceremony, which honors Latin music released between June 1, 2020 and May 31, 2021, will air live on Univision beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern. (Many awards will be handed out starting at 4 p.m. at a separate event that will be webcast via the Latin Grammys’ Facebook Live and YouTube channel.)Roselyn Sánchez, Ana Brenda Contreras and Carlos Rivera are slated to host the main show. Gloria Estefan, Christina Aguilera, Bad Bunny, Ozuna, Rubén Blades and C. Tangana are scheduled to perform.The Colombian singer Camilo leads with 10 nominations including for record of the year, Aalbum of the year and song of the year.See the full list of nominees below.Record of the Year“Si Hubieras Querido,” Pablo Alborán“Todo De Ti,” Rauw Alejandro“Un Amor Eterno (Versión Balada),” Marc Anthony“A Tu Lado,” Paula Arenas“Bohemio,” Andrés Calamaro and Julio Iglesias“Vida De Rico,” Camilo“Suéltame, Bogotá,” Diamante Eléctrico“Amén,” Ricardo Montaner, Mau y Ricky, Camilo and Evaluna Montaner“Dios Así Lo Quiso,” Ricardo Montaner and Juan Luis Guerra“Te Olvidaste,” C. Tangana and Omar Apollo“Talvez,” Caetano Veloso and Tom VelosoAlbum of the Year“Vértigo,” Pablo Alborán“Mis Amores,” Paula Arenas“El Último Tour Del Mundo,” Bad Bunny“Salswing!,” Rubén Blades y Roberto Delgado & Orquesta“Mis Manos,” Camilo“Nana, Tom, Vinicius,” Nana Caymmi“Privé,” Juan Luis Guerra“Origen,” Juanes“Un Canto Por México, Vol. II,” Natalia Lafourcade“El Madrileño,” C. TanganaSong of the Year“A Tu Lado,” Paula Arenas and Maria Elisa Ayerbe, songwriters (Paula Arenas)“A Veces,” Diamante Eléctrico, songwriters (Diamante Eléctrico)“Agua,” J Balvin, Alejandro Borrero, Jhay Cortez, Kevyn Mauricio Cruz Moreno, Derek Drymon, Mark Harrison, Stephen Hillenburg, Alejandro Ramirez, Ivanni Rodríguez, Blaise Smith, Tainy and Juan Camilo Vargas, songwriters (Tainy and J Balvin)“Canción Bonita,” Rafa Arcaute, Ricky Martin, Mauricio Rengifo, Andrés Torres and Carlos Vives, songwriters (Carlos Vives and Ricky Martin)“Dios Así Lo Quiso,” Camilo, David Julca, Jonathan Julca, Yasmil Jesús Marrufo and Ricardo Montaner, songwriters (Ricardo Montaner and Juan Luis Guerra)“Hawái,” Édgar Barrera, René Cano, Kevyn Cruz, Johan Espinosa, Kevin Jiménez, Miky La Sensa, Bryan Lezcano, Maluma, Andrés Uribe and Juan Camilo Vargas, songwriters (Maluma)“Mi Guitarra,” Javier Limón, songwriter (Javier Limón, Juan Luis Guerra and Nella)“Patria y Vida,” Descemer Bueno, El Funky, Gente De Zona, Yadam González, Beatriz Luengo, Maykel Osorbo and Yotuel, songwriters (Yotuel, Gente De Zona, Descemer Bueno, Maykel Osorbo, El Funky)“Que Se Sepa Nuestro Amor,” El David Aguilar and Mon Laferte, songwriters (Mon Laferte and Alejandro Fernández)“Si Hubieras Querido,” Pablo Alborán, Nicolás “Na’vi” De La Espriella, Diana Fuentes and Julio Reyes Copello, songwriters (Pablo Alborán)“Todo De Ti,” Rauw Alejandro, José M. Collazo, Luis J. González, Rafael E. Pabón Navedo and Eric Pérez Rovira, songwriters (Rauw Alejandro)“Vida De Rico,” Édgar Barrera and Camilo, songwriters (Camilo)Best New ArtistGiulia BeMaría BecerraBizarrapBozaZoe GotussoHumbeRita IndianaLassoPaloma MamiMarco MaresJuliana VelásquezBest Pop Vocal Album“Dios Los Cría,” Andrés Calamaro“Mis Manos,” Camilo“Munay,” Pedro Capó“K.O.,” Danna Paola“De México,” ReikBest Traditional Pop Vocal Album“Vértigo,” Pablo Alborán“Mis Amores,” Paula Arenas“Privé,” Juan Luis Guerra“Doce Margaritas,” Nella“Atlántico A Pie,” Diego TorresBest Pop Song“Adiós,” David Julca, Jonathan Julca, Pablo López and Sebastián Yatra, songwriters (Sebastián Yatra)“Ahí,” Javier Limón, songwriter (Nella)“Canción Bonita,” Rafa Arcaute, Ricky Martin, Mauricio Rengifo, Andrés Torres and Carlos Vives, songwriters (Carlos Vives and Ricky Martin)“La Mujer,” Mon Laferte, songwriter (Mon Laferte and Gloria Trevi)“Vida De Rico,” Édgar Barrera and Camilo, songwriters (Camilo)Best Urban Fusion/Performance“El Amor Es Una Moda,” Alcover, Juan Magan and Don Omar“Tattoo (Remix),” Rauw Alejandro and Camilo“Nathy Peluso: BZRP Music Sessions, Vol.36.,” Bizarrap and Nathy Peluso“Diplomatico,” Major Lazer featuring Guaynaa“Hawái (Remix),” Maluma and The WeekndBest Reggaeton Performance“Tu Veneno,” J. Balvin“La Tóxica,” Farruko“Bichota,” Karol G“Caramelo,” Ozuna“La Curiosidad,” Jay Wheeler, DJ Nelson and Myke TowersBest Urban Music Album“Goldo Funky,” Akapellah“El Último Tour Del Mundo,” Bad Bunny“Monarca,” Eladio Carrion“Enoc,” Ozuna“Lyke Mike,” Myke TowersBest Rap/Hip Hop Song“Booker T,” Bad Bunny and Marco Daniel Borrero, songwriters (Bad Bunny)“Condenados,” Akapellah and Pedro Querales, songwriters (Akapellah)“La Vendedora De Placer,” Lito MC Cassidy, songwriter (Lito MC Cassidy)“Sana Sana,” Rafa Arcaute, Gino Borri, Illmind, Ángel López, Nathy Peluso and Federico Vindver, songwriters (Nathy Peluso)“Snow Tha Product: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol.39,” Bizarrap and Snow Tha Product, songwriters (Bizarrap, Snow Tha Product)Best Urban Song“A Fuego,” Farina, Joshua Javier Méndez, Sech, Jonathan Emmanuel Tobar and Jorge Valdés Vásquez, songwriters (Farina)“Agua,” J Balvin, Alejandro Borrero, Jhay Cortez, Kevyn Mauricio Cruz Moreno, Derek Drymon, Mark Harrison, Stephen Hillenburg, Alejandro Ramírez, Ivanni Rodríguez, Blaise Smith, Tainy and Juan Camilo Vargas, songwriters (Tainy and J Balvin)“Dákiti,” Bad Bunny, Jhay Cortez, Nydia Laner, Gabriel Mora, Egbert Rosa and Tainy, songwriters (Bad Bunny and Jhay Cortez)“La Curiosidad,” Myke Towers and Jay Wheeler, songwriters (Jay Wheeler, DJ Nelson and Myke Towers)“Patria Y Vida,” Descemer Bueno, El Funky, Gente De Zona, Yadam González, Beatriz Luengo, Maykel Osorbo and Yotuel, songwriters (Yotuel, Gente De Zona, Descemer Bueno, Maykel Osorbo and El Funky)Best Rock Album“Curso De Levitación Intensivo,” Bunbury“Control,” Caramelos De Cianuro“Los Mesoneros Live Desde Pangea,” Los Mesoneros“Luz,” No Te Va Gustar“El Pozo Brillante,” VicenticoBest Rock Song“Ahora 1,” Vicentico, songwriter (Vicentico)“Distintos,” Andrés Giménez and Andreas Kisser, songwriters (De La Tierra)“El Sur,” Santi Balmes and Julián Saldarriaga, songwriters (Love Of Lesbian featuring Bunbury)“Hice Todo Mal,” Anabella Cartolano, songwriter (Las Ligas Menores)“Venganza,” Emiliano Brancciari and Nicki Nicole, songwriters (No Te Va Gustar y Nicki Nicole)Best Pop/Rock Album“Mira Lo Que Me Hiciste Hacer,” Diamante Eléctrico“Mis Grandes Éxitos,” Adan Jodorowsky and The French Kiss“Origen,” Juanes“V. E. H. N.,” Love of Lesbian“El Reflejo,” Rayos LaserBest Pop/Rock Song“A Veces,” Diamante Eléctrico, songwriters (Diamante Eléctrico)“Cosmos (Antisistema Solar),” Santi Balmes and Julián Saldarriaga, songwriters (Love Of Lesbian)“El Duelo,” Sergio Eduardo Acosta and León Larregui, songwriters (Zoé)“Ganas,” Zoe Gotusso, Nicolás Landa and Diego Mema, songwriters (Zoe Gotusso)“Hong Kong,” Alizzz, Andrés Calamaro, Jorge Drexler, Víctor Martínez and C. Tangana, songwriters (C. Tangana and Andrés Calamaro)Best Alternative Music Album“KiCk i,” Arca“Tropiplop,” Aterciopelados“Cabra,” Cabra“Un Segundo MTV Unplugged,” Café Tacvba“Calambre,” Nathy PelusoBest Alternative Song“Agarrate,” Rafa Arcaute, Pedro Campos and Nathy Peluso, songwriters (Nathy Peluso)“Antidiva,” Andrea Echeverri, songwriter (Aterciopelados)“Confía,” Gepe, songwriter (Gepe and Vicentico)“Nominao,” Alizzz, Jorge Drexler and C. Tangana, songwriters (C. Tangana and Jorge Drexler)“Te Olvidaste,” Omar Apollo, Rafa Arcaute, C. Tangana and Federico Vindver, songwriters (C. Tangana and Omar Apollo)Best Salsa Album“Salsa Plus!,” Rubén Blades y Roberto Delgado and Orquesta“En Cuarentena,” El Gran Combo De Puerto Rico“El Día Es Hoy,” Willy García“Colegas,” Gilberto Santa Rosa“En Barranquilla Me Quedo, El Disco Homenaje A Joe Arroyo,” Various Artists, José Gaviria and Milton Salcedo, album producersBest Cumbia/Vallento Album“Las Locuras Mías,” Silvestre Dangond“Pa’ Que Se Esmigajen Los Parlantes,” Diego Daza and Carlos Rueda“De Buenos Aires Para El Mundo,” Los Ángeles Azules“Esencia,” Felipe Peláez“Noche De Serenata,” Osmar Pérez and Geño GamezBest Merengue/Bachata Album“Bachata Queen,” Alexandra“Love Dance Merengue,” Manny Cruz“El Papá De La Bachata, Su Legado (Añoñado I, II, III, IV),” Luis Segura“Es Merengue ¿Algún Problema?,” Sergio Vargas“Insensatez,” Fernando VillalonaBest Traditional Tropical Album“Gente Con Alma,” José Aguirre Cali Big Band“Chabuco En La Habana,” Chabuco“Cha Cha Chá: Homenaje A Lo Tradicional,” Alain Pérez, Issac Delgado y Orquesta Aragón“Solos,” Jon Secada and Gonzalo Rubalcaba“Alma Cubana,” Leoni TorresBest Contemporary Tropical Album“Legendarios,” Billos“Río Abajo,” Diana Burco“Brazil305,” Gloria Estefan“Acertijos,” Pedrito Martínez“La Música Del Carnaval – XX Aniversario,” Juventino Ojito y Su Son MocanáBest Tropical Song“Bolero A La Vida,” Santiago Larramendi and Gaby Moreno, songwriters (Omara Portuondo featuring Gaby Moreno)“Dios Así Lo Quiso,” Camilo, David Julca, Jonathan Julca, Yasmil Marrufo and Ricardo Montaner, songwriters (Ricardo Montaner and Juan Luis Guerra)“Mas Feliz Que Ayer,” Alfredo Nodarse, songwriter (Chabuco)“Pambiche De Novia,” Juan Luis Guerra, songwriter (Juan Luis Guerra)“Un Sueño Increíble (Homenaje A Jairo Varela),” Jorge Luis Piloto, songwriter (Dayhan Díaz and Charlie Cardona)Best Singer-Songwriter Album“Alemorología,” AleMor“Mendó,” Alex Cuba“Seis,” Mon Laferte“Mañana Te Escribo Otra Canción,” Covi Quintana“El Árbol y El Bosque,” RozalénBest Ranchero/Mariachi Album“Cuando Te Enamores,” El Bebeto“A Mis 80’s,” Vicente Fernández“#Charramillennial – Lady,” Nora González“Ayayay! (Súper Deluxe),” Christian Nodal“Soy México,” Pike RomeroBest Banda Album“Concierto Mundial Digital Live,” Banda El Recodo De Cruz Lizárraga“Vivir La Vida,” Banda Los Recoditos“Sin Miedo Al Éxito,” Banda Los Sebastianes“Llegando Al Rancho,” Joss Favela“Nos Divertimos Logrando Lo Imposible,” Grupo FirmeBest Tejano Album“Pa’ la Pista y Pa’l Pisto, Vol. 2,” El Plan“Back On Track,” Ram Herrera“Histórico,” La Fiebre“Incomparable,” Solido“Un Beso Es Suficiente,” VilaxBest Norteño Album“Vamos Bien,” Calibre 50“De Vieja Escuela,” Gera Demara“Diez,” La Energía Norteña“Al Estilo Rancherón,” Los Dos Carnales“Recordando A Una Leyenda,” Los Plebes Del Rancho De Ariel Camacho y Christian Nodal“Volando Alto,” PalomoBest Regional Song“Aquí Abajo,” Edgar Barrera, René Humberto Lau Ibarra and Christian Nodal, songwriters (Christian Nodal)“Cicatrices,” Pepe Portilla, songwriter (Nora González Con Lupita Infante)“40 y 21,” Erika Vidrio, songwriter (Beto Zapata)“Que Se Sepa Nuestro Amor,” El David Aguilar and Mon Laferte, songwriters (Mon Laferte & Alejandro Fernández)“Tuyo y Mío,” Édgar Barrera, Camilo and Alfonso De Jesús Quezada Mancha, songwriters (Camilo and Los Dos Carnales)Best Instrumental Album“Entretiempo y Tiempo,” Omar Acosta and Sergio Menem“Cristóvão Bastos e Rogério Caetano,” Cristovão Bastos and Rogério Caetano“Canto Da Praya – Ao Vivo,” Hamilton De Holanda and Mestrinho“Le Petit Garage (Live),” Ara Malikian“Toquinho e Yamandu Costa – Bachianinha – (Live at Rio Montreux Jazz Festival),” Toquinho and Yamandu CostaBest Folk Album“Amor Pasado,” Leonel García“Jemas,” Tato Marenco“Ancestras,” Petrona Martinez“Renacer,” Nahuel Pennisi“Vocal,” Alejandro ZavalaBest Tango Album“Tango Of The Americas,” Pan American Symphony Orchestra“348,” Federico Pereiro“100 Años,” Quinteto Revolucionario“Tanghetto Plays Piazzolla,” Tanghetto“Tinto Tango Plays Piazzolla,” Tinto TangoBest Flamenco Album“Alma De Pura Raza,” Paco Candela“Un Nuevo Universo,” Pepe De Lucía“Amor,” Israel Fernández and Diego Del Morao“Herencia,” Rafael Riqueni“El Rey,” María ToledoBest Latin Jazz/Jazz Album“Bruma: Celebrating Milton Nascimento,” Antonio Adolfo“Ontology,” Roxana Amed“Family,” Edmar Castaneda“Voyager,” Iván Melon Lewis“El Arte Del Bolero,” Miguel Zenón and Luis PerdomoBest Christian Album (Spanish Language)“Hora Dorada,” Anagrace“Ya Me Vi,” Aroddy“Redención,” Aline Barros“Vida Encontré,” Majo y Dan“Milagro De Amar,” William PerdomoBest Portuguese Language Christian Album“Catarse: Lado B,” Daniela Araújo“Sarah Farias (Ao Vivo),” Sarah Farias“Seguir Teu Coração,” Anderson Freire“Sentido,” Leonardo Gonçalves“Elis Soares 10 Anos,” Eli SoaresBest Portuguese Language Contemporary Pop Album“Cor,” Anavitória“A Bolha,” Vitor Kley“Duda Beat & Nando Reis,” Nando Reis and Duda Beat“Será Que Você Vai Acreditar?,” Fernanda Takai“Chegamos Sozinhos Em Casa Vol1,” TuyoBest Portuguese Language Rock or Alternative Album“Álbum Rosa,” A Cor Do Som“Emidoinã,” André Abujamra“Oxeaxeexu,” BaianaSystem“Assim Tocam Meus Tambores,” Marcelo D2“Fôlego,” Scalene“O Bar Me Chama,” Velhas VirgensBest Samba/Pagode Album“Rio: Só Vendo A Vista,” Martinho Da Vila“Sempre Se Pode Sonhar,” Paulinho Da Viola“Nei Lopes, Projeto Coisa Fina e Guga Stroeter No Pagode Black Tie,” Nei Lopes, Projeto Coisa Fina e Guga Stroeter“Samba De Verão,” Diogo Nogueira“Onze (Músicas Inéditas De Adoniran Barbosa),” Various ArtistsBest MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira) Album“Canções d’Além Mar,” Zeca Baleiro“H.O.J.E,” Delia Fischer“Tempo de Viver,” Thiago Holanda“Bom Mesmo é Estar Debaixo D´água,” Luedji Luna“Do Meu Coração Nu,” Zé ManoelBest Sertaneja Music Album“Tempo de Romance,” Chitãozinho e Xororó“Daniel em Casa,” Daniel“Patroas,” Marília Mendonça, Maiara & Maraísa“Conquistas,” Os Barões da Pisadinha“Pra Ouvir no Fone,” Michel TelóBest Portuguese Language Roots Album“Sambadeiras,” Luiz Caldas“Do Coração,” Sara Correia“Orin A Língua Dos Anjos,” Orquestra Afrosinfônica“Eu e Vocês,” Elba Ramalho“Arraiá Da Veveta,” Ivete SangaloBest Portuguese Language Song“A Cidade,” Francisco Ribeiro Eller and Lucas Veneu Videla, songwriters (Chico Chico e João Mantuano)“Amores e Flores,” Diogo Melim and Rodrigo Melim, songwriters (Melim)“Espera a Primavera,” Nando Reis, songwriter (Nando Reis)“Lágrimas De Alegria,” Tales De Polli and Deko, songwriters (Maneva and Natiruts)“Lisboa,” Ana Caetano & Paulo Novaes, songwriters (Anavitória e Lenine)“Mulheres Não Têm Que Chorar,” Tiê Castro, Emicida and Guga Fernandes, songwriters (Ivete Sangalo and Emicida)Best Latin Children’s Album“Otra Vuelta Al Sol,” Edith Derdyk, Daniel Escobar, Luis Fernando Franco, Jesús David Garcés, Fito Hernández, Paulo Tatit and José Julián Villa, album producers“Danilo & Chapis, Vol. 1,” Danilo & Chapis“Canciones De Cuna,” Mi Casa Es Tu Casa“Nanas Consentidoras,” Victoria Sur“Tu Rockcito Filarmónico,” Tu Rockcito y Orquesta Filarmónica De MedellínBest Classical Album“Beethoven: Révolution, Symphonies 1 à 5,” Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations; Jordi Savall, conductor; Manuel Mohino, album producer“Claudio Santoro: a Obra Integral para Violoncelo e Piano,” Ney Fialkow and Hugo Pilger; Maria de Fátima Nunes Pilger and Hugo Pilger, album producers“Latin American Classics,” Kristhyan Benitez; Jon Feidner, album producer“Music From Cuba And Spain, Sierra: Sonata Para Guitarra,” Manuel Barrueco; Asgerdur Sigurdardottir, album producer“Tres Historias Concertantes,” Héctor Infanzón; Konstantin Dobroykov, conductor; Héctor Infanzón, album producerBest Classical Contemporary Composition“Concierto Para Violín y Orquesta-Remembranzas,” Héctor Infanzón, composer (Héctor Infanzón and William Harvey)“Cuatro,” Orlando Jacinto García, composer (Orlando Jacinto García featuring Amernet String Quartet)“Desde La Tierra Que Habito,” Eddie Mora, composer (Ensamble Contemporáneo Universitario (ECU) and Banda de Conciertos de Cartago (BCC))“Falling Out Of Time,” Osvaldo Golijov, composer (Osvaldo Golijov)“Music From Cuba And Spain, Sierra: Sonata Para Guitarra,” Roberto Sierra, composer (Manuel Barrueco)Best Arrangement“Blue In Green (Sky And Sea),” Kendall Moore, arranger (Roxana Amed)“Tierra Mestiza,” César Orozco, arranger (America Viva Band)“Adiós Nonino,” Jorge Calandrelli, arranger (Jorge Calandrelli)“Um Beijo,” Vince Mendoza, arranger (Melody Gardot)“Ojalá Que Llueva Café (Versión Privé),” Juan Luis Guerra, arranger (Juan Luis Guerra)Best Recording Package“Colegas,” Ana Gonzalez, art director (Gilberto Santa Rosa)“Lo Que Me Dé La Gana,” Boa Mistura, art directors (Dani Martín)“Madrid Nuclear,” Emilio Lorente, art director (Leiva)“Puta,” Emilio Lorente, art director (Zahara)“Tragas O Escupes,” Marc Donés, art director (Jarabe De Palo)Best Engineered Album“Bpm,” Nelson Carvalho, engineer; Leo Aldrey and Rafael Giner, mixers; Tiago De Sousa, mastering engineer (Salvador Sobral)“Bruma: Celebrating Milton Nascimento,” Roger Freret, engineer; Claudio Spiewak, mixer; André Dias, mastering engineer (Antonio Adolfo)“El Madrileño,” Orlando Aispuro Meneses, Daniel Alanís, Alizzz, Rafa Arcaute, Josdán Luis Cohimbra Acosta, Miguel De La Vega, Máximo Espinosa Rosell, Alex Ferrer, Luis Garcié, Billy Garedella, Patrick Liotard, Ed Maverick, Beto Mendonça, Jaime Navarro, Alberto Pérez, Nathan Phillips, Harto Rodríguez, Jason Staniulis and Federico Vindver, engineers; Delbert Bowers, Alex Ferrer, Jaycen Joshua, Nineteen85, Lewis Pickett, Alex Psaroudakis and Raül Refree, mixers; Chris Athens, mastering engineer (C. Tangana)“Iceberg,” Mauro Araújo, Tó Brandileone, Kassin, Luciano Scalercio and Alê Siqueira, engineers; Kassin and Arthur Luna, mixers; Carlos de Freitas, mastering engineer (Priscila Tossan)“Un Canto Por México, Vol. II,” Pepe Aguilar, Rodrigo Cuevas, José Luis Fernández, Camilo Froideval, Edson R. Heredia, Manu Jalil, Rubén López Arista, Nacho Molino, David Montuy, Lucas Nunes, Alan Ortiz Grande and Alan Saucedo, engineers; Rubén López Arista, mixer; Michael Fuller, mastering engineer (Natalia Lafourcade)Producer of the YearAlizzzEdgar BarreraMarcos SánchezBizarrapDan WarnerBest Short Form Music Video“Un Amor Eterno,” Marc Anthony“Reza Forte,” BaianaSystem featuring BNegão“Mi Huella,” Fuel Fandango featuring Maria Jose Llergo“Visceral,” Fran, Carlos Do Complexo & Bibi Caetano“De Una Vez,” Selena GomezBest Long Form Music Video“Un Segundo MTV Unplugged,” Café Tacvba“Mulher,” Carolina Deslandes“Entre Mar Y Palmeras,” Juan Luis Guerra“Origen (Documental),” Juanes“Quien Me Tañe Escucha Mis Voces (Documental),” Gastón Lafourcade More

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      Morat, la banda colombiana que conquista el mundo al ritmo del banjo

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      Una de las bandas con mayor proyección de América Latina le habla a una generación con ansiedades y problemas que, a menudo, vive en un contexto de gran agitación social.El momento decisivo para una de las bandas de más rápido crecimiento en América Latina llegó gracias a un instrumento poco probable: un banjo robado.En 2014, la banda colombiana Morat tuvo una sesión de grabación en Bogotá. Sus cuatro miembros todavía estudiaban en la universidad, eran amigos de la infancia que tocaban en eventos informales y, algunas noches de la semana, se presentaban en bares. Mientras buscaba inspiración, el guitarrista Juan Pablo Villamil tomó un instrumento que no sabía exactamente cómo tocar.“En ese entonces todos sabíamos que queríamos sonar distinto, explorar cosas”, recordó Villamil en una reciente llamada de Zoom cuando sus compañeros de banda Juan Pablo Isaza, Simón Vargas y Martín Vargas se unieron para agregar sus propios aportes. Grabaron una guitarra de 12 cuerdas y una mandolina, luego alguien vio un banjo colgado en la pared. Lo tomaron prestado y nunca lo devolvieron.“En cuanto al proceso de aprendizaje, yo diría que fue principalmente en YouTube”, agregó Villamil. “Porque no hay muchos profesores de banjo en Colombia”.“Mi nuevo vicio”, la canción que estaban escribiendo en ese momento, terminó con un sencillo pero prominente riff de banjo y llamó la atención de Paulina Rubio, la estrella pop mexicana, quien rápidamente la grabó con la banda. El tema se convirtió en una sensación en España y llegó a las listas de éxitos en América Latina y Estados Unidos. Los músicos fueron invitados a Europa para que grabaran más música, y se llevaron el banjo.“No podíamos ser una banda de un solo hit, la canción con Paulina y eso es todo”, dijo Villamil. La canción que llevaban como su “as bajo la manga” era “Cómo te atreves”, que ahora tiene más de 200 millones de vistas en YouTube. Con su banjo acelerado, letras llenas de imágenes y un ambiente alegre de “road trip pop” que se ha convertido en el sonido de Morat, la canción marcó la llegada fulgurante del grupo a la escena de la música latina en 2015. Desde entonces, no han parado de crecer.En julio, el grupo lanzó su tercer álbum, ¿A dónde vamos?, y la semana pasada comenzó la etapa estadounidense de su gira que los llevará a teatros y estadios en California y Texas, con paradas en Chicago, Nueva York, Atlanta y Miami. Con canciones que abordan la angustia, la nostalgia y el enamoramiento, la banda ha forjado conexiones poderosas a través de fronteras y océanos al hablarle a una generación de jóvenes cuyas ansiedades y preocupaciones personales, grandes o pequeñas, a menudo se desarrollan en un contexto de agitación social.“Lo que intenta hacer Morat es usar palabras simples para explicar sentimientos complicados”, dijo Pedro Malaver, el manager de la banda. “No estamos tratando de ser Neruda. Solo tratamos de decirle a la gente: no estás solo”.Las características de lo que Villamil definió como la “firma sonora” de la banda incluyen letras dolidas y nostálgicas sobre el amor no correspondido que recuerdan a los boleros clásicos; coros cantados al unísono; y el uso de instrumentos (como el banjo, el piano eléctrico o la guitarra de acero) que rara vez se escuchan en el pop latino. Han lanzado poderosas baladas, melodías funky de R&B y canciones de rock que se inspiran en el country. “Podemos llegar hasta donde nos permitan los instrumentos”, dijo Martín Vargas, el baterista de la banda.Musicalmente, la banda es un poco atípica en un ambiente donde el reguetón recibe la mayor atención. Las influencias de Morat incluyen Coldplay, Bacilos, Mac Miller, el poeta y cantante español Joaquín Sabina, Dave Matthews Band, la banda de rock colombiana Ekhymosis y, por supuesto, los Beatles. Villamil e Isaza también son fanáticos del country (escriben y graban a menudo en Nashville), y los hermanos Vargas eran metaleros antes de incursionar en el folk-rock.“En 2021, no hay un sonido único que defina el pop en América Latina”, escribió Kevin Meenan, gerente de tendencias musicales de YouTube, en un correo electrónico. “En cierto modo, Morat es un microcosmos de esta tendencia que incorpora una amplia gama de sonidos y géneros en su música, y en su caso, suelen usar influencias distintas a la movida más popular del reguetón y el trap latino”.Leila Cobo, vicepresidenta y líder de la industria latina en Billboard, dijo: “Hay muchas suposiciones sobre lo que es la música latina en este momento, pero es un territorio muy amplio”.Y añadió: “Morat demuestra que la música latina no es necesariamente lo que ves en las listas de éxitos en un momento determinado. Escriben grandes canciones pop con buenas letras. Son fieles a sí mismos, y constantemente amplían su base de fans”.MORAT COMENZÓ cuando tocaban en la escuela primaria; sus miembros se conocen desde los cinco años. A medida que se acercaban al final de la escuela secundaria, Isaza, Villamil, Simón Vargas y Alejandro Posada, el baterista original del grupo, formaron una banda. Después del lanzamiento de su primer álbum en 2016, Posada se salió para concentrarse en sus estudios y el hermano menor de Vargas se incorporó.Al principio, los miembros de Morat (que en ese entonces se llamaba Malta) repartían sus discos en los bares de Bogotá hasta que lograron presentarse de manera regular en un local llamado La Tea, donde los fanáticos del grupo eran el personal de seguridad y los mismos músicos mezclaban y hacían los arreglos en las presentaciones en vivo. Pronto, comenzó a surgir su público. “Recuerdo que teníamos un juego: cada vez que tocábamos en La Tea tratábamos de adivinar cuánta gente iba a vernos”, dijo Simón Vargas. “Y, por lo general, llegaban más personas de las que esperábamos”.“Podemos llegar hasta donde nos permitan los instrumentos”, dijo Martín Vargas, el baterista de la banda.Gianfranco Tripodo para The New York TimesPero no todos veían el potencial del grupo. Villamil recuerda que en la primera reunión que tuvieron con Malaver, que en ese entonces empezaba su carrera como un joven representante artístico, los rechazó después de escuchar una de sus primeras canciones. “Nos dijo: ‘Creo que ustedes son talentosos, pero nunca tendrán una canción en la radio. Deberían haber nacido en Argentina a fines de los setenta, porque su música no es adecuada para lo que está sucediendo en este momento’”.Después de verlos actuar en vivo en La Tea unos días después, Malaver rápidamente cambió de opinión. “Fui con la peor actitud de la historia a ese concierto ¡Pero luego empezaron a tocar!”, recuerda. Esa misma noche decidió representar a la banda.Ya llevan casi una década trabajando juntos, y las colaboraciones de Morat se han extendido por todo el espectro de la música en español: han hecho canciones con la actriz mexicana Danna Paola, con el cantaor de flamenco Antonio Carmona, con el rockero Juanes y con estrellas del pop como Sebastián Yatra y Aitana, entre muchos otros.“El catálogo del grupo realmente habla del poder de la colaboración en la región”, dijo Meenan. “Este éxito no ha estado ligado a un solo país. En YouTube, hemos visto su música en más de 15 países, obteniendo lugares en el Top 40 en lugares como España, México, Bolivia, Argentina, Italia y Ecuador, además de su Colombia natal”. Dijo que Morat ha logrado tener más de 950 millones de visitas en YouTube, solo en los últimos 12 meses.MORAT ESTABA de gira por España cuando hablamos por Zoom, y el grupo se juntó en un sofá frente a la cámara como cuatro hermanos. Se movían cómodamente entre el inglés y el español cuando querían expresar más claramente un punto, hacían bromas y, a menudo, uno terminaba las oraciones del otro. Tampoco dudaron en debatir en voz alta algunas de las preguntas más complejas.Dos temas surgen a menudo en las letras de Morat: el amor y la guerra, que es un tema delicado en un país que ha soportado décadas de conflicto armado.“El contexto en el que hemos crecido y en el que vivimos, tiene esa imagen todos los días, todo el tiempo”, dijo Simón Vargas. “Y creo que, aunque no quieras, se nota y te influye”.Aunque la imagen global de Colombia se ha visto afectada por descripciones generales que la ubican como un lugar violento, la realidad, por supuesto, es mucho más compleja. “Bogotá tiene estas montañas enormes y el sol sale detrás de las montañas. Entonces durante gran parte de la mañana el sol no ha salido de las montañas, pero el cielo está azul”, agrega Simón Vargas. “Eso es muy colombiano, en cierto modo es como si estuvieras viviendo al límite. Puedes ver la oscuridad, pero también sabes que hay algo más allí. Y, al mismo tiempo, estás al lado de la luz y justo al lado de una cultura muy hermosa y de gente muy hermosa”.En 2020, Simón Vargas, quien también es escritor y actualmente está terminando su licenciatura en historia en la Universidad de Los Andes, publicó un libro de cuentos sobre Bogotá inspirado en el realismo mágico. “Tal vez fue una forma de tocar temas más intensos y oscuros que los que hablamos en nuestra música”. Lo tituló, apropiadamente, A la orilla de la luz.El último álbum de Morat se compuso casi en su totalidad durante la pandemia de COVID-19 en una de las regiones más afectadas del mundo. “No hay un solo ser humano en este planeta que no haya pensado, ¿a dónde vamos después de esto?”, dijo Simón Vargas. “Decidimos que se llamaría ¿A dónde vamos? literalmente porque pensamos que era una excelente manera de hablar sobre lo que está sucediendo en todos los aspectos. No sabíamos cuándo volveríamos a tener conciertos. No sabíamos cómo es que la pandemia iba a cambiar el panorama social”.Martín Vargas dijo que el título también se refiere al proceso creativo de la banda. “Con la exploración musical que tratamos de hacer, ¿a dónde vamos con nuestros instrumentos?”, añadió. “Es muy evidente durante el álbum: las canciones son diferentes. Hay mucho rock. Y también hay claras referencias a países. Baladas, boleros”.Ninguna de sus letras habla explícitamente sobre la pandemia, pero casi todas las canciones están marcadas por temas de angustia personal, incertidumbre e inquietud que contrastan con melodías optimistas y, a menudo, muy bailables. Juntas, las composiciones muestran la versatilidad de Morat: la eléctrica “En coma” trata sobre una relación atrapada en el limbo; la balada “Mi pesadilla”, con el cantante colombiano Andrés Cepeda, trata sobre la ansiosa espera por la llegada de la persona adecuada; la acústica “Date la vuelta” es una sentida carta a un amigo que vive una relación tóxica.Aunque las canciones representan una variedad de estados de ánimo, todas tienen la estética de la banda que continúa sumando nuevos oyentes. “Siento que lo que hemos hecho hasta ahora ha sido un milagro”, dijo Isaza. “No sé por qué a la gente le gusta un banjo con letra en español. Lo considero un milagro, y el hecho de que todavía lo estemos haciendo, es asombroso para mí”..Aunque el disco comienza con la pregunta “¿A dónde vamos?”, termina con el mensaje esperanzador de “Simplemente pasan”: “Ya quiero decirle que bailemos / Que lo peor que puede pasar es que nos gustemos”, dice la banda. Y remata: “Porque cuando las cosas buenas tienen que pasar / Simplemente pasan”. More

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      Adalberto Álvarez, Latin Dance Music Maestro, Is Dead at 72

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      He was known as the “Gentleman of Son” because of his infectious enthusiasm for repopularizing the genre considered the bedrock of the Cuban sound.Adalberto Álvarez, one of Cuba’s most celebrated musicians, who as a bandleader helped revive and refashion Cuban son, a fusion of European and African styles and instruments that was vital to Latin dance music, died on Sept. 1 in a hospital in Havana. He was 72. The cause was complications of Covid-19, the official Cuban newspaper Granma said.An award-winning composer and arranger, Mr. Álvarez was known as “El Caballero del Son” (the “Gentleman of Son”) because of his passion for the genre and the infectious enthusiasm with which he repopularized it. Son is at the root of salsa, among other Latin dance genres, and is considered the bedrock of the Cuban sound.“I don’t think there is a composer more important for Cuban popular music than Adalberto,” Isaac Delgado, one of Cuba’s best-known salsa singers, said in a phone interview. “He created a sound that was very individual to him.” Mr. Delgado and Mr. Álvarez recorded an album together, “El Chévere de la Salsa-El Caballero del Son,” released in 1994.Mr. Álvarez was one of the most covered of the soneros, as singers of son are known, of the past 35 years. Salsa and merengue bands and performers like Juan Luis Guerra, El Gran Combo and Oscar De Leon have all recorded his compositions. His style influenced New York City’s salsa scene in the 1970s and ’80s as well.With his two most famous ensembles, Son 14 and Adalberto Álvarez y Su Son, Mr. Álvarez garnered numerous honors, among them a National Music Award in Cuba in 2018 and several Cubadisco awards. His first hit, in 1979, was “A Bayamo En Coche” (“To Bayamo in a Carriage”), followed by “El Regreso de Maria” (“Maria’s Return”) and, later, “Y Qué Tú Quieres Que Te Den?” (“And What Do You Want Them to Give You?”), among others.Onstage he was a crowd-pleaser, flashing a blinding smile. But he was more than an entertainer; he influenced the evolution of Cuban music by returning to its musical roots.“My main objective always is to get dancers dancing,” he said in a 2014 interview. “This is our mission, to give people joy.”Son had waned in popularity after the 1959 Cuban revolution. But in the 1970s Mr. Álvarez saw an opening and began to compose music that combined traditional elements of son with more modern Latin dance music, like salsa and timba. He emphasized son instruments, like the tres, a signature Cuban guitar with three sets of double strings. He then threw in son’s vocal improvisations and its famous call-and-response pattern and incorporated the double-entendre lyrics found in the trova, a troubadour-based musical genre.This ajiaco, or stew, of traditional and modern made Mr. Álvarez unique among Cuban bandleaders at the time, said Marysol Quevedo, an expert in Cuban music and an assistant professor of musicology at the University of Miami. “What he represents was this perfect hybrid of the traditional and influences from abroad,” she said.Unlike many Cuban artists of the era, Mr. Álvarez received permission from Cuba’s Communist government to travel abroad, starting with a trip to Venezuela in 1980. (President Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba expressed condolences on his death.) This freedom of movement gave him access to Latin music outside Cuba and kept him in touch with contemporary musical trends. In 1999, after he and his band performed in New York City, Peter Watrous of The New York Times called their sound “modern and unstoppable.”Mr. Álvarez served as a groundbreaker in other ways. A priest in the Yoruba religion La Regla de Ocha-Ifá, he was one of the first Cubans to bring songs focused on his beliefs to the stage and into the recording studio. Religions like Ifá — a blend of Roman Catholicism and West African spiritual beliefs — were banned and practiced covertly in atheistic Cuba until 1992, when the government declared itself secular and barred religious discrimination. Ifá and other Santería religions are now commonplace and openly practiced.The ban did not stop Mr. Álvarez from recording, in 1991, one of his greatest hits, “Y Qué Tu Quieres Que Te Den?,” which focuses on Ifá and asks listeners to think about what they desire from the orishas, or deities. The song served as a tribute to his religion, but also as a public acknowledgment of its popularity.Adalberto Cecilio Álvarez Zayas was born Nov. 22, 1948, in Havana and grew up in Camagüey, a city in central Cuba. His father, Enrique Álvarez, was a musician, and his mother, Rosa Zayas, was both a musician and a singer.He attended the National School of Arts in Cuba, where he studied composition and orchestration. He later taught students for a spell until landing a job writing songs for the group Conjunto Rumbavana in 1972, having impressed the band’s leader, Joseíto González. It was Mr. González who introduced Mr. Álvarez to the idea of reviving Cuba’s dance tradition.Mr. Álvarez wrote one of his first songs for Rumbavana, “Con Un Besito, Mi Amor” (“With a Kiss, My Love”); another of his compositions for the group was the celebrated “El Son de Adalberto.”With his dedication to son intensifying, Mr. Álvarez moved to Santiago de Cuba, in the easternmost Oriente province, where it had originated. He formed Son 14 in 1978 and Adalberto y Su Son in 1984.Information on survivors was not immediately available.Mr. Álvarez astutely understood that son could not survive on its own; it needed to be coupled with modern life for it to be rejuvenated — a realization that led to his fresh, original sound.“I consider myself to be the bridge between contemporary music and the establishment,” he said in 2001. “All my musicians are very young. So definitely I represent the new generation.” More

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      Ralph Irizarry, Innovative Latin Percussionist, Dies at 67

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      A colleague said Mr. Irizarry, who played timbales with Ray Barretto and Rubén Blades and led his own bands, expanded the instrument’s possibilities “to the nth degree.”Ralph Irizarry, a master of the timbales who played in groups led by the conga player Ray Barretto and the singer Rubén Blades before forming his own well-regarded bands, died on Sept. 5 in a hospital in Brooklyn. He was 67.His daughter, Marisa Irizarry, said the cause was multiple organ failure caused by a bacterial infection in his lungs that led to septic shock.Mr. Irizarry’s virtuosic timbale playing placed him in the tradition of masters like Tito Puente, said Bobby Sanabria, a percussionist and educator who occasionally performed with Mr. Irizarry.“Ralph took the instrument and expanded on its possibilities to the nth degree,” augmenting it with cowbells and other percussion instruments, Mr. Sanabria said in a phone interview. But he refused to use a bass drum or add to his band a drummer who played a standard trap set.“If you closed your eyes, you’d say, ‘Who the hell is playing the drums?’” Mr. Sanabria said. “Then you see this freaking guy with his two hands, his timbales, a snare drum and cymbals.”In a tribute on his website, Mr. Blades described a critical element of Mr. Irizarry’s playing.“Irizarry’s percussive lesson is clear,” he wrote. “Not everything is pyrotechnics — we must not always fill the silences.” Mr. Irizarry’s timbales “conversed,” he added, “sometimes in whispers, with a sense of syncopation, of time and rhythm always flowing, never repeated.”Throughout his career — and especially after he formed the septet Ralph Irizarry & Timbalaye in the late 1990s — Mr. Irizarry was clearheaded about the music he wanted to play.“I knew that the Latin jazz I wanted to do was going to be about Latin rhythms organized under the structure of jazz,” he said in an interview in 2015 with the Latin Jazz Network, a website dedicated to advancing the music.Reviewing a performance by Timbalaye at Scullers Jazz Club in Boston, Bob Blumenthal of The Boston Globe wrote that Mr. Irizarry and the conga player Robert Quintero “attacked the music with incredible speed and power, often starting at a fierce dynamic level and building from there.” He added, “At the same time, their precision in negotiating the breaks and shifts that spice the band’s arrangements was beyond reproach.”Ralph Irizarry was born on July 18, 1954, in East Harlem to parents from Puerto Rico. His father, Francisco, owned convenience stores, and his mother, Gloria (Sanabria) Irizarry, was a homemaker. The family moved to the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn when Ralph was 2.When Ralph was 8, he recalled, his father received a set of timbales to settle a $25 debt with a drug dealer.Mr. Irizarry once said, “I knew that the Latin jazz I wanted to do was going to be about Latin rhythms organized under the structure of jazz.” Alan Nahigian“They had real skins, probably calf skins,” Mr. Irizarry told the Latin Jazz Network. He and his two brothers made sticks out of clothes hangers and destroyed the skins in one day. But several years later, after his family had moved to South Ozone Park in Queens, a neighbor who had congas and who assumed that Ralph knew how to play them asked him to jam.He retrieved the wrecked timbales, put plastic skins on them and played with the neighbor.“I remember I hit the timbale one time and it was like love at first sight,” he said. “I felt something I have never felt before. All my skin felt it. I shook.“Two days later,” he added, recalling a trip to Manhattan, “I went to Manny’s music store on 48th Street and bought brand-new timbales, sticks, everything.”When he was 17 and gaining confidence as a timbalero, he moved with his family to Puerto Rico, where he hoped to get musical work. He did get some, but he also felt prejudice against him as a New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent.Mr. Irizarry returned to New York in 1974 and after a few years was hired by Mr. Barretto, the dynamic conga player and popular bandleader. In 1983, Mr. Irizarry became a founding member of Mr. Blades’s band, Seis del Solar, which recorded albums, toured and played at Madison Square Garden and Carnegie Hall.“With four percussionists, two keyboardists and a bassist,” Jon Pareles wrote in a New York Times review of the band’s 1985 performance at Carnegie Hall, “Seis del Solar can sound like a stripped-down salsa group, a jazz-rock band, or both.”When Mr. Blades decided to go solo in the mid-1990s, he encouraged the band to continue to perform as an instrumental group and retain its name. They did that for a brief time, recording two albums until Mr. Irizarry decided to form his own group, Timbalaye.In 2004, Mr. Irizarry formed a second ensemble, Son Cafe, an eight-piece salsa dance band.He recorded with both bands. He also reunited with Seis del Solar for a tour that culminated with “Todos Vuelven Live,” which won the Latin Grammy for best salsa album in 2011.Mr. Irizarry stayed busy with both his bands for several years after that. But in 2015 he received a diagnosis of inclusion body myositis, a rare degenerative condition that causes muscle weakness. It forced him to stop performing in 2018.“He pushed to the very end,” his daughter said in a phone text. “It was a very big blow for him, but he never showed that much sorrow — he just knew at some point his hands and legs would keep getting weaker and weaker.”In addition to Ms. Irizarry, he is survived by his wife, Elizabeth (Jackson) Irizarry; his sons, Ralph Jr., and Marlon; his sister, Dolores Irizarry; his brothers, William and John; and five grandchildren.Mr. Irizarry was single-minded about the timbales from the start. As a teenager he would practice in the basement of his family’s house, playing along with the latest records he had bought. One day, he recalled, he was practicing and didn’t hear his father walk in.“For some reason I turned around, and my father was at the bottom of the steps of the basement, and he had a tear coming out of his eye,” he told Truth Revolution Records in a video interview in 2015, when the label released a Timbalaye album. “He had never heard me play.” More

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      J Balvin Attempts to Reintroduce Himself on ‘Jose’

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      The Colombian star skips innovation and presents an impressionistic inventory of the sounds that established him as a global force on his sixth studio album.If there is one figure in pop music who has perfected the language of feel-good cultural affirmation, it is J Balvin. For over a decade, the 36-year-old Colombian star has claimed he is on a mission to “change the perception of Latinos in music,” using his rainbow aesthetics, smooth reggaeton textures and radio-ready trap hits as ammunition.There have been plenty of milestones, including “Mi Gente” and “I Like It”: his chart-crushing collaborations with Willy William and Beyoncé, and Bad Bunny and Cardi B. Both tracks have become flash points for jejune narratives about “booming” Latino cultural representation: a tale that flattens differences among people of distinct races, languages and countries — and suggests this music is influential only when the Anglo mainstream is paying attention.There was his performance at Coachella 2019, when Balvin became the first reggaeton artist to play the festival’s main stage. There are his cartoonish visuals, leopard-print hairstyles and flowery album covers designed by the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. And there are his ad-libs — “J Balvin, man,” “Leggo” and “Latino gang!” — signature catchphrases that have become so trite, they’re essentially begging for meme-ification.“Jose,” his sixth studio album, arrives at a moment when Balvin has finally established himself as a global celebrity. The record considers what is possible when a pop idol, especially one from Latin America, no longer needs to prove himself.At the end of “Jose,” Balvin takes a true gamble. For what may be the first time in his career, he gets deeply personal.So, allow J Balvin to reintroduce himself. “Jose,” Balvin’s first name, is a 24-track behemoth that follows in the vein of other playlists-as-albums — the kind of project intended to dominate streaming platforms, like the recent supersized releases from Kanye West and Drake. But the album struggles to truly innovate: “Jose” is an itinerant, unfocused effort that offers an impressionistic inventory of the sounds that have established him as a force: pop-reggaeton, trap and EDM.The majority of the album (about 13 of its tracks) — like “Bebé Que Bien Te Ves,” “Lo Que Dios Quiera” and “Fantasías” — falls firmly within the sphere of ultrapolished, creamy popetón. It is an unimaginative formula, and one that Balvin has mastered: blend a lilting dembow beat, a candy-coated melody and lyrics about the gushy soap opera of a dance-floor courtship or a sexual fantasy for maximum streams. Elsewhere, Balvin returns to Top 40 trap, another style he’s known for: On “Billetes de 100,” featuring the Puerto Rican star Myke Towers, Balvin offers a self-mythologizing reminder that he can actually rap. “In da Getto,” a resort-ready EDM track produced by Skrillex, elaborates on yet another sound that has helped catapult Balvin to international stardom.Some songs aim for novelty. The opener, “F40,” is a self-assured blast of reggaeton bombast that shifts tempos, slowing to an irresistible, carnal crawl. And “Perra,” a collaboration with Tokischa, is an audacious, X-rated venture into dembow, a street sound born in the barrios of the Dominican Republic that has recently caught the attention of the wider Latin music industry, despite its longtime grasp on popular music in the Caribbean country.It is only in the last third of “Jose” that Balvin takes a true gamble: For what may be the first time in his career, he gets vulnerable and deeply personal. “7 de Mayo,” named for Balvin’s birthday, is a chronicle of his rise from the streets of Medellín to eminence, featuring spoken samples of his mother, Alba, and an awards-show thank you from the reggaeton forefather Daddy Yankee. “In a barrio in the middle of Medallo, this one was born/With sweat on my forehead/Calluses on my hands,” Balvin reminisces in Spanish. While the intimacy is new for Balvin, the song follows the formula of hip-hop origin stories too closely (nearly mimicking Jay-Z’s “December 4th”). It feels like Balvin is being forced to complete a tedious homework assignment, rather than reflecting earnestly on his personal hardships.“Querido Rio,” a soft guitar ballad dedicated to his newborn son with echoes of Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven,” similarly falls flat. Its shallow lyrics and syrupy delivery land with cloying sentimentality: “I don’t just want to be your father/I also want to be your best friend,” Balvin croons in Spanish.For an artist who paints himself as pathbreaking, “Jose” feels remarkably safe. At this point, Balvin does have the power to nuke expectations — those of his own career trajectory, his imagined community and the genres he operates within. Instead, “Jose” colors inside the lines, safeguarding Balvin’s reign by reveling in the familiar.J Balvin“Jose”(Universal Music Latino) More

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      The Trumpeter Adam O’Farrill’s Art of Avoiding the Obvious

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      The son and grandson of Latin jazz royalty is releasing a new album with his quartet Stranger Days, and it’s their most melodically engaging yet.If you pay close enough attention to jazz, Adam O’Farrill might have landed on your radar about a decade ago, when he was still an adolescent. His last name is immediately recognizable — his father and grandfather are Latin jazz royalty — but he stood apart even then, mostly by hanging back and letting his trumpet speak for itself.Since his teens, O’Farrill has prioritized restraint, so that his huge range of inspirations — Olivier Messiaen’s compositions, Miles Davis’s 1970s work, the films of Alfonso Cuarón, the novels of D.H. Lawrence, the contemporary American-Swedish composer Kali Malone — could emulsify into something personal, and devilishly tough to pin down.“I don’t really feel the need to pastiche too heavily,” he said in a phone interview last month, while visiting family in Southern California. “The point is really how you digest it — and in letting that be its own thing, and letting the influences sort of surface when you least expect.”That, he said, feels “more exciting than trying to prove that you’re coming from somewhere” in particular.Now 26, O’Farrill this year was voted the No. 1 “rising star trumpeter” in the DownBeat magazine critics’ poll, and there’s little disagreement that he is among the leading trumpeters in jazz — and perhaps the music’s next major improviser.For the last seven years he has led Stranger Days, a quartet that also features his brother, Zach O’Farrill, on drums, as well as the bassist Walter Stinson. Until last year, its tenor saxophonist was Chad Lefkowitz-Brown; after a brief hiatus, the band recently returned with a new saxophonist, Xavier Del Castillo.On Nov. 12, Stranger Days will release “Visions of Your Other,” its third album, and O’Farrill’s most melodically engaging effort yet.O’Farrill was mentored by the musicians around his father, Arturo O’Farrill, in whose Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra he still occasionally plays.Camilo Fuentealba for The New York TimesWith its spare lineup, the band has given O’Farrill ample room to play around with dimension, scale and tension in his compositions. He thinks of Stinson’s bass as the group’s sonic center, and challenges himself to orient his layers of dynamic melody around that point, even if it’s constantly shifting.Near the end of “Visions of Your Other” comes a standout, “Hopeful Heart,” a neatly balanced tune in an odd meter. O’Farrill begins his solo about halfway through the track, and it sounds as if he’s starting a conversation with a stranger, tentative and broadcasting caution. Then the harmony shifts, and he seems to find a riverbed coursing through the chord changes: His improvising begins to roll down easily, as simple and elegant as the trumpet playing on an old Mexican danzón record.But that flood of momentum only lasts a few bars; soon he pulls back again, holding his notes longer, and subtly gesturing at the influence of the contemporary trumpet star Ambrose Akinmusire. He alternates between beautifully diatonic notes and more worrisome ones, asking you to notice both.O’Farrill grew up enmeshed in New York’s jazz and Latin music scenes, and was mentored by the musicians around his father, Arturo O’Farrill, a Grammy-winning pianist, in whose Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra he still occasionally plays.He started out on piano at age 6, and was almost immediately composing tunes of his own. He took up the trumpet two years later, and started to learn the art of improvising.Anna Webber, a rising saxophonist and composer, has worked with O’Farrill in various situations since he was in high school — though she didn’t realize then how young he was. “He just had this patience and maturity and confidence to his playing,” she said. “Even when he was I guess 17 or 18, it felt like it was already there.”O’Farrill is an expert at “not throwing everything you have into a particular solo,” she said, “always trying to find something new in a given piece, but always letting the music choose which direction you go in.”“I don’t really feel the need to pastiche too heavily,” O’Farrill said. “The point is really how you digest it — and in letting that be its own thing, and letting the influences sort of surface when you least expect.”Camilo Fuentealba for The New York TimesWebber recently invited him to be a part of the band that recorded “Idiom,” her album of dense and rigorous experimental compositions. As she prepared the music, she had one-on-one conversations with each of the group’s 13 members, to ensure the ensemble would feel like an organism in motion, not a firing squad of hired guns. (That band will perform music from “Idiom” on Sep. 23 at Roulette.)Moved, O’Farrill said he was inspired to bring this approach to his own large-ensemble project, Bird Blown Out of Latitude, a nine-piece group for which he wrote a suite of electroacoustic music that surges with rock energy and toggles, sometimes abruptly, between borderline over-spill and near-total silence.Thinking about his son’s sense of efficiency and control, Arturo O’Farrill acknowledged that training in Afro-Latin music forces a trumpeter to learn the importance of precision and leaving space. But he also touched on another of Adam’s childhood pastimes: video games.“The golden rule of video games is that you don’t look at the avatar, you look at the shadow,” Arturo O’Farrill said. “It’s about not declaring. Not stating the obvious, not following the avatar.”It’s through video games that Adam first found out about Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Japanese musician whose old band, Yellow Magic Orchestra, planted the seeds in the 1970s and ’80s for what would become chiptune, or early arcade-game music. “Visions of Your Other” opens with a restive, cycling cover of Sakamoto’s “Stakra.”“He’s a real master of taking a lot of pillars of musical convention — whether it’s pop or more Romantic, Schumann-esque things — and both respecting and dismantling them,” O’Farrill said, explaining what he loves in Sakamoto’s music, though it sounded as if he could be describing his own work. “That’s what’s so brilliant about his voice: It’s both deeply individual and very grounded in musical history, and relatable.” More

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      Larry Harlow, Influential Figure in Salsa, Dies at 82

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      He was born into a family of Jewish musicians, but he made his mark in Latin music, as a pianist, bandleader and producer.Born into a family of musicians, Larry Harlow was probably destined for a music career from the start. But it was his walks to class at the High School of Music and Art in Upper Manhattan that put him onto his lifelong passion.“When I got out of the subway, I would walk up this huge hill and hear this strange music coming from all the bodegas,” he told The Forward in 2006. “I thought, ‘What kind of music is this? It’s really nice.’”What he was hearing was early recordings by Tito Puente, the Pérez Prado mambo hit “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” and other energetic new Latin sounds. Soon Mr. Harlow, a Brooklyn-born Jew, was fusing those and other influences into a career as a major figure in salsa, as a pianist, bandleader, songwriter and producer.In the 1960s and ’70s, onstage and in the production studios of Fania Records, a label often described as the Motown of Latin music, he would help define salsa and spread it throughout the United States and around the world. He was affectionately known in the Latin music world as “El Judío Maravilloso” — the marvelous Jew.Mr. Harlow, who lived in Manhattan, died on Aug. 20 at a care center in the Bronx. He was 82. His son, Myles Harlow Kahn, said the cause was heart failure related to kidney disease.As a bandleader Mr. Harlow was most identified with salsa dura, or hard salsa — brass-heavy, bebop-influenced and danceable. He performed in small clubs and on big stages, including for an audience estimated variously at 30,000 to 50,000 at Yankee Stadium in 1973 as a member of the seminal group the Fania All-Stars, a show that proved to any doubters that there was a vast audience for Latin music.He was just as influential behind the scenes at Fania, the Latin label formed in 1964 in New York by Johnny Pacheco and Jerry Masucci. Mr. Harlow was one of the first artists the label signed — his first Fania album, “Heavy Smoking,” came out soon after — but he also became part of the Fania brain trust, helping to sign numerous up-and-coming artists and producing some 250 records.Aurora Flores, a music journalist and composer who was working with him on his memoir, said Mr. Harlow had displayed an acerbic wit, an acid tongue and a willingness to defy conventions.Mr. Harlow was one of the first artists signed to Fania Records, often described as the Motown of Latin music. His first Fania album came out soon after.FaniaMr. Harlow was not just a Fania artist; he was also part of the Fania brain trust, helping to sign numerous up-and-coming artists and producing some 250 records.Fania“He’d always side with the underdog,” she said by email. “His first recording, ‘Heavy Smoking,’ featured his girlfriend Vicky singing lead and playing congas, unheard-of in the Cuban patriarchy, where women were not allowed to touch the drums. He produced the all-female orchestra Latin Fever and later, when other bandleaders refused to accept Rubén Blades into the scene because he was too white and middle class, it was Harlow who took him under his wing, letting him front his big band.”She added simply, “Larry Harlow broke the mold.”Lawrence Ira Kahn was born on March 20, 1939, in Brooklyn. His mother, Rose Sherman Kahn, was an opera singer, and his father, Nathan, was a bass player and bandleader who used the stage name Buddy Harlowe, from which Larry later derived his own stage name, dropping the E.He began studying piano when he was about 5, and he also absorbed musical influences by lingering backstage at the Manhattan nightclub the Latin Quarter, where his father led the house band. The club was owned by Lou Walters, whose daughter would also sometimes hang out there — Barbara Walters, the future television journalist.“When I was a kid, 10 or 11 years old, Barbara and I used to sit in the booth next to the spotlight,” Mr. Harlow told The New York Times in 2010, “and we saw every show that came in there, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Joe E. Brown, Sophie Tucker.”His first interest wasn’t Latin music. It was jazz. But, he said, he wasn’t welcomed in jazz circles. “So I went into the next closest thing,” he told The South Florida Sun-Sentinel in 2009, “where I could still improvise and stretch — Latin music — and I got really good at it.”But that took some time. Mr. Harlow had been introduced to Latin music as a boy, when his father would play the Catskills, where the Jewish vacationers loved to dance the cha-cha and mambo. But by the time he was walking to high school, the music he was hearing coming from those bodegas was growing more complex. While he was still a teenager, a bandleader named Hugo Dickens invited him to play piano in his Latin band, but the first time Mr. Harlow took a solo, Mr. Dickens gave him a blunt review: He was terrible.So Mr. Harlow committed to getting better, buying up records and studying what the musicians on them were doing. While in high school he traveled to Cuba on Christmas break, and after graduating he returned there to immerse himself in Afro-Cuban music and culture, in the process expanding the Nuyorican Spanish he had picked up on the streets of New York.Mr. Harlow at the piano in an undated photo. He was introduced to Latin music as a boy when his bandleader father played the Catskills, and he became immersed in it as a teenager during a trip to Cuba.Fania Records“He was there with his reel-to-reel tape recorder taking it all in when the bombs started falling,” his son said in a phone interview — the bombs of the Cuban revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power at the beginning of 1959. That drove Mr. Harlow back to New York, but the music stayed with him.“There was no turning back,” he told The Miami New Times in 2000. “I was salsafied.”But the style that would become known as salsa was still evolving at that point. The music represented a mix of Afro-Cuban, Spanish and other influences, tempered with American jazz and refined by Cuban, Puerto Rican and other musicians living in New York. Mr. Harlow was an influential part of that swirl, first as a sideman in other people’s orchestras and then as the leader of his own groups.“Nobody was using a trumpet-and-trombone sound,” he told Latin Beat magazine in 2006, describing what he brought to the salsa mix. “It was my dream to use these instruments because then you could have a piano bass line, and then have the horns play counterpoints. So we had three to four layers of different things going on at the same time.”In addition to the many records he made and produced at Fania, Mr. Harlow was instrumental in pushing Mr. Masucci, who died in 1997, and Mr. Pacheco, who died in February, to back a documentary directed by Leon Gast called “Our Latin Thing” (1971), which chronicled a performance by the Fania All-Stars at the Midtown Manhattan nightclub Cheetah. (Mr. Gast died in March.)The film became a word-of-mouth hit among fans of Latin music and boosted the profiles of everyone involved.“We used to sell 25,000 copies of an album, and suddenly we’re now selling 100,000 copies individually, as bandleaders, and a million or more as the All-Stars,” Mr. Harlow told The New York Times in 2011, when a 40th-anniversary DVD of the film was released. “We were just playing around the ghetto, and all of a sudden we’re playing in soccer stadiums all over the world.”Mr. Harlow conducting a rehearsal of his suite “La Raza Latina” in 2010 for a Lincoln Center performance that included the singer Rubén Blades.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesOther career highlights included “Hommy: A Latin Opera,” which Mr. Harlow, inspired by the Who’s “Tommy,” created and presented in a concert version at Carnegie Hall in 1973. In 1977 he branched out from the snappy dance numbers he was known for to record “La Raza Latina,” an ambitious suite.He later led an all-star group he called the Latin Legends.Mr. Harlow earned a bachelor’s degree in music at Brooklyn College in 1964 and later received a master’s degree in music from the New School. His marriages to Andrea Gindlin, Rita Uslan, Agnes Bou and Wendy Caplin ended in divorce. In addition to his son, from his first marriage, he is survived by his wife, Maria del Carmen; a daughter, Haiby Rengifo; a brother, Andy Harlow Kahn; and three grandchildren.Late in his career Mr. Harlow would sometimes turn up on the records or in the shows of younger musicians and bands, including the alternative rock act Mars Volta. He found such homages gratifying.“When someone comes up to me and says, ‘Thanks for the music, thanks for the memories,’” he told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1999, when the Latin Legends played that city, “that’s worth a million bucks to me.” More

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      Larry Harlow, a Salsa Revolutionary

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      The musician, who died on Friday, was a true originator of the genre. An outsider, he lived a Latin music life by immersing himself in Afro-Caribbean culture.In many ways, Larry Harlow — one of the central figures of salsa and its defining label, Fania Records — was a master at mixing the diverse musical connections between New York and the Caribbean. In a career that spanned six decades, he stitched together overlapping genres like rock, jazz and R&B and various Cuban genres like rumba, son and guaracha through intimate, soulful knowledge of both musical traditions.Harlow grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and studied classical piano. His father, Buddy Kahn, was a Jewish mambo musician who led the house band at New York’s Latin Quarter club. The musician and scholar Benjamin Lapidus writes in his new book that Jews were sponsoring Latin dances with live bands as early as the 1930s in New York City. Harlow came out of a tradition of mamboniks, Jews who danced mambo at spaces like Midtown’s Palladium, various spots in Brooklyn and the Catskills hotel circuit. Jewish musicians like Marty Sheller often wrote arrangements, and radio D.J.s like “Symphony” Sid Torin and Dick “Ricardo” Sugar promoted the music. Immortal Latin band leaders like Tito Puente regularly played the Catskills, a space where young musicians like Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros, who became a Harlow collaborator, cut their teeth.Yet Harlow, who died on Friday at 82, wanted to go beyond the Europeanized mambo performance styles heard in the Catskills and be true to the music’s African roots. He traveled to pre-Castro Cuba in the 1950s and returned determined to combine what he learned with what was happening in New York, creating a modern synthesis of the traditional and the avant-garde. Seeking acceptance among core post-mambo musicians, he even went so far as to become initiated to the Afro-Caribbean religion of Santería to stake his claim to authenticity and earn respect from the music community.“Here was a Jewish guy hanging out with all these Cubans and Afro-Caribbeans,” he told me in a 2004 interview. “I figured when in Rome, do like the Romans do.”Harlow never tried to pretend he was not who he was. Even after achieving insider status in the Santería community, he was often photographed wearing a Star of David around his neck. He was affectionately known by Spanish-speaking audiences as El Judío Maravilloso (the Marvelous Jew), a sobriquet given to him because of his devotion to the music of the blind Afro-Cuban bandleader and mambo progenitor Arsenio Rodríguez, known as El Ciego Maravilloso (the Marvelous Blind Man). When he chose, in the early 1980s, to release an album called “Yo Soy Latino” (“I Am Latino”), the lead vocalist who delivered the lyrics was the much-loved Puerto Rican singer Tito Allen.Beyond immersing himself in Afro-Carribean spirituality, Harlow was directly involved in the evolution of salsa music, collaborating with Johnny Pacheco and Jerry Masucci, the founders of Fania. According to Alex Masucci, Jerry’s surviving brother, Harlow was the first artist contracted to record for Fania. His first few albums, “Bajándote: Gettin’ Off,” “El Exigente” and “Me and My Monkey,” which includes a version of the Beatles song “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey,” traded on the bilingual, R&B-influenced bugalú sound, which united Black and Latino listeners.Harlow’s move away from búgalu to a jazz-influenced update on Rodríguez’s more Africanized conjunto sound — which added more trumpets and percussion like conga and cowbell — was crucial for salsa’s gestation. His blend of jazz, mambo and conjunto would become one of the primary influences on the emerging idea of salsa. While Eddie Palmieri and Willie Colón’s innovative use of trombone gave the horn sections a more aggressive, urban sound, Harlow and Pacheco’s influence was also decisive. Harlow’s early ’70s releases, “A Tribute to Arsenio Rodríguez,” “Abran Paso” and “Salsa,” crystallized his new aesthetic. He pioneered recording with both trumpets and trombone. He gave the Cuban charanga sound, which featured flutes and violins, new life. And he incorporated the batá drum, used in religious ceremonies, into his decidedly secular project.Harlow exulted in the spirit of the late 1960s — Rubén Blades told me he was the “Frank Zappa of salsa” — and was a voracious collaborator. His bilingual Beatles cover and the album artwork for “Electric Harlow” flaunted psychedelic style. He played piano for Steven Stills and Janis Ian, and had a rock-jazz project with the Blood, Sweat & Tears keyboardist Jerry Weiss. In 1972, after Miranda left his band temporarily, he painstakingly adapted the Who’s “Tommy” as the salsa opera “Hommy,” transferring the original British characters to New York’s Latino barrios.Although salsa’s burst in popularity during the mid- to late 1970s was organic, feeding off the hip young Latino audiences from the Bronx and Uptown, Harlow helped it blow up by taking a major producing role in Leon Gast’s vérité concert film “Our Latin Thing.” The film was a breakout party for the Fania All-Stars, a supergroup featuring Ray Barretto, Colón, Cheo Feliciano, Pacheco and many others, with Harlow on piano. Last week Masucci told me that Harlow was the connection to both Gast’s involvement and the appearance of authentic Santería devotees that appear late in the film. In 1976, he recorded a celebratory musical history, “La Raza Latina Suite,” with Blades singing in English.Though Harlow wasn’t born into the traditions that birthed salsa, throughout his career he was widely accepted as a pillar of the music. He was one in a long line of Jewish musicians who have played a key role in Afro-Caribbean music, going all the way back to Augusto Coén, a Jewish Afro-Puerto Rican who led a Latin big band in 1934 that was a predecessor to the mambo kings Puente, Machito and Tito Rodríguez. (The exchange went both ways: Even the Queen of Salsa, Celia Cruz, recorded the Jewish folk song “Hava Nagila” with her band La Sonora Matancera.)For Harlow, blending cultures and genres was simply second nature. In 2005, he contributed a wide-open keyboard solo to “L’Via L’Viaquez,” on the Texas psychedelic punk band the Mars Volta’s album “Frances the Mute” — a choice that shouldn’t be considered out of the ordinary. Several musicologists and writers have recognized the influence of Cuban bass patterns, called tumbaos, as well as cha cha cha patterns, on early rock hits like “Twist and Shout,” and “Louie Louie.” To Harlow, the connection between rock and Latin, funk and salsa was natural, a product of the era when he came of age.“It was revolution time,” he once told me. “People were writing songs about protest, and me and Eddie and Barretto were changing the harmonic concept of Latin music. I was the one who psychedelicized them a little bit.” More