Cuba: The Conversation Continues EPK
Jazz Night in America
ARTIST
Arturo O'Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra
TITLE
Cuba: The Conversation Continues
RELEASE DATE
August 21, 2015
TYPE
Album
ROLE
Producer
LABEL
Motéma Music
HONORS
Latin GRAMMY Award, Best Latin Jazz Album, 17th Latin GRAMMY Awards
GRAMMY nomination, Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, 58th GRAMMY Awards
Top 20 Album of the Year, 2015 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll
iTunes Jazz Best of 2015 List
DownBeat Top Albums of 2015 List
JazzTimes Top 40 Albums of 2015
Best Latin Jazz Releases/Best Large Jazz Ensemble Releases 2015, NYC Jazz Record
TRACK LIST
DISC 1
1. The Triumphant Journey
THE AFRO LATIN JAZZ SUITE
2. Movement I: Mother Africa
3. Movement II: All of the Americas
4. Movement III: Adagio
5. Movement IV: What Now?
6. Guajira Simple
7. Alabanza
8. Blues Guaguancó
DISC 2
1. Vaca Frita
2. Just One Moment
3. El Bombón
4. Second Lina Soca (Brudda Singh)
5. There’s a Statue of Jose Martí in Central Park
PRESS
“An album worthy of its moment, an ambitious statement that honors deeply held musical traditions while pushing forward.”
— The New York Times
“…Cuba: The Conversation Continues, captures that cross-cultural collaboration, with cutting-edge works written by a carefully selected group of U.S. and Cuban composers.”
— NPR First Listen
“O’Farrill has been on a creative tear over the last five years; Cuba: The Conversation Continues extends it with an inspired — and perhaps career-defining — album.”
— iTunes
NPR Jazz Night in America
The New York Times
NPR First Listen
ABOUT
Recorded in Havana 48 hours after President Obama announced his plan to normalize relations between the U.S. and Cuba, Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra’s Cuba: The Conversation Continues is a powerful symbol of cultural diplomacy, a juxtaposition of music and current events. A follow up to the GRAMMY-winning The Offense of the Drum, the new album builds upon the conversation started by Dizzy Gillespie and Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo — a musical dialogue that bridged the gap between jazz and Afro-Cuban music. O’Farrill brings top composers from both the U.S. and Cuba to create a dazzling musical tapestry, successfully fulfilling Dizzy’s dream of creating “universal music.”
On Cuba: The Conversation Continues, O’Farrill enlisted four of today’s premier Cuban composers (Bobby Carcassés, Alexis Bosch, Cotó, Michel Herrera) and six world-class American composers/arrangers (Dafnis Prieto, Michele Rosewoman, Earl McIntyre, Gregg August, Arturo himself, and his own son, Zack O’Farrill).
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