Based on our first hand experience with the Red Cross and other “all purpose” fundraisers in New York (9/11) and New Orleans (Katrina), we recommend people do deep research before they send money to organizations to help.
After a great deal of study and thought, we have been recommending the PRIMA Fund which makes direct grants to musicians in Puerto Rico as a way to help musicians, their families, and their communities.
As Bobby Sanabria says: “Musicians are people too you know.”
I can tell you this from first hand experience – musicians were an essential key in helping put New Orleans back on its feet after the catastrophic levee failures there in 2005.
They brought life back to shattered streets, they raised morale, and they reinvigorated the travel and entertainment industry which was in a state of shock.
Musicians are doing the same thing in Puerto Rico today and our faith in PRIMA as a vehicle for helping them has been validated over and over again.
Composed by Leonard Bernstein for Broadway 60 years ago, West Side Story has proven to be one of the 20th century’s most durable musical creations.
This March 17, 2018, Bobby Sanabria’s Multiverse, made up of some of the finest musicians working in New York City today, will be performing a “reimagined” version of the work’s timeless melodies using the rhythms of Puerto Rico, Brazil, Venezuela, the Dominican Repubic and other Latin American countries.
Sanabria explains. In the reimagined version…
“…Puerto Rican bomba xicá, yuba and plena are omnipresent. Dominican merengue, Venezuelan joropo, Brazilian bossa nova and samba, funk, New Orleans second line, Cuban bolero and son montuno are now included alongside the show’s original use of Mexican huapango, Cuban mambo, cha-cha-cha, jazz, swing, European waltz and orchestral music.
It represents in full force the rainbow that is our collective Latino and African American culture in New York.”
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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Jazz on the Tube’s Ken McCarthy interviews Louis Marks of Ropeadope Records, an artist-friendly, jazz-friendly label in “East Philly” that’s blazing new trails in the art and science of connecting musicians with audiences via recorded music.
Louis and Ken discuss one of the label’s recent projects, a self-produced masterpiece by Eddie Palmieri called “Sabiduría” (“Wisdom.”)
They follow that with the story of the label’s participation in the musician-led movement to save and rebuild New Orleans after the 2005 levee failures and flood when so many TV talking heads and politicians were advocating that the city be bulldozed.
Finally, Louis shares his vision of how labels can adapt to the new business and distribution realities of the 21st century while simultaneously strengthening artists and giving fans more choice.
Music credit: The Jazz on the Tube podcast theme song is “Mambo Inferno” performed by The Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra conducted by Bobby Sanabria from the CD ¡Que Viva Harlem!
Bad news: The performance series referred to in this interview has come and gone.
Good news: Brian Pace does a great job capturing what you missed and weaves the music together with illuminating conversation with the maestro.
If you don’t already know the music of Eddie Palmieri, now’s the time to get acquainted with him.
If you do know him, this interview will remind you how deep he is.
Enjoy!
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks.
Electricity has been largely restored in San Juan. Schools, hotels, restuarants and many arts and music venues have reopened. (The rest of the island is another story.)
In this call with Jorge Andrés Ferreras, guitarist with the Puerto Rico-based band “Sr. Langosta”, Jazz on the Tube gets an update on conditions in the capital and what you can do to help (cutting to the chase: visit!)
Ella Fitzgerald