Featured Artist: Puentes Brother

CD Title: Morumba Cubana

Year: 2005

Record Label: ALMA records

Style: Latin Jazz / Latin Funk

Musicians: Alexis Puentes (acoustic and electric bass, nylon string guitar, tres, maracas, clave, chéquere, bombo leguero, guiro & egg ), Adonis Puentes (bongos, maracas, congas, cow bell), Léon Torres Quintero (congas), Humberto Mendoza (vocals), Humberto Mendoza, Adonis and Alexis Puentes (drums, timbales), Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez (accordian), Peter Cardinali (bata drums), Pancho Quinto, Francisco Hernandez Mora (surdo agogo), Prof. W. Andrew Schloss (flute), Jane Bunnet (flute Solos), Javier Zalba (trumpet), Hilario Duran (piano), Armando Delfin (violin), Marie Berard, Annlee Patipatanakoon and Erika Raum (viola), Douglas Perry, Roman Borys (cello)

Review:

Alexis and Adonis are “soneros”; they perfectly know how to play their music. The twin brothers come from a family of musicians and are famous in Santiago de Cuba. For this album the Puentes have even invited famous virtuoso piano player Hilario Duran and Grammy award winners, percussionist Horacio ‘El Negro’ Hernandez and Jane Bunnet.

The group's playing is endowed with a unique, mysterious, undulating quality. The Cuban sun was enlightened with the Buena Vista Social Club and millions of listeners romantically danced under their rhythms. And now the “son cubano” (through the Puentes Brothers) shows us a young generation with a new dimension in spreading the sun all over the world.

In this release, Alexis shows that his romantic compositions fit extremely well with the seductive and magic lyricism of Latin rhythms. Asegurate, Desatino, La Rumba Primero, Love Crazy, A Mi Melancolía, Son Para Nuestros Hijos and Esta Noche are the perfect reflection of pure Latin expression and poetry. Alexis is a master of the three pairs of string instruments called, tres. The sound of  the tres give a Cuban authenticity to Puentes’ compositions.

Timba En Trampa and El Loco Bailarín will make anybody get up the desire to dance and move. This is the goal of the Puentes Brothers: being able to show the world that their music exists, and how and why salsa is possible to hear from the tropical countries all the way up onto the coldest places of the earth.

Tracks: Asegurate , Oye Rumberito, Desatino, La Rumba Primero, Love Crazy, Timba en Trampa, A Mi Melancolia, Corazon en Fuga, El Loco Bailarin (Crazy Dancer) , Son para Nuestros Hijos, Encomienda, Esta Noche

Reviewed by: Dr. Ana Isabel Ordonez

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