Month: January 2004

Post-Iberia: Multicultural Musicians Attain Authenticity Without Purity

Globalfest
Public Theater
January 10Okay Player Tour
Irving Plaza
January 3

With an aural smorgasbord as ambitious as last Saturday’s GlobalFEST, it’s inevitable that a few choice items will go untasted. In five hours on three stages at the Public Theater, a sold-out crowd scrambled to see 16 multicultural attractions from around the world and around the block. Forty-minute sets were just long enough to leave most of us wanting more. Continue reading “Post-Iberia: Multicultural Musicians Attain Authenticity Without Purity”

Latin Swing’s Last Lion: Johnny Pacheco Returns to the New York His Salsa Once Changed

Dapper, charismatic, and 68 years young, Johnny Pacheco is one of New York’s cultural lions, a Juilliard alumnus who revolutionized the way Afro-Latin swing, a/k/a salsa, was perceived around the world. One of the last of a vanishing breed, Pacheco holds a torch that now shines as much for fallen comrades like Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Héctor Lavoe, Celia Cruz, Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez, Charlie Palmieri, and José Fajardo as for himself. Simultaneously at work on a new solo album and a biographical memoir spanning his life at the epicenter of Latin club music, Pacheco is far from hanging up his clave. This week, he appears with his conjunto-style orchestra to inaugurate regular Latin nights at a spanking-new midtown venue–LQ at 47th Street and Lexington Avenue. Continue reading “Latin Swing’s Last Lion: Johnny Pacheco Returns to the New York His Salsa Once Changed”