Latin jazz

Triangles and Circles, the new album from Dafnis Prieto, blends Afro-Cuban beats, blues feeling and spontaneous rhythmic variations. Critic Kevin Whitehead says that drums are at the album's heart.

On her latest album, Claroscuro, the jazz clarinetist explores influences that range from Louis Armstrong to Brazilian music to that of her native Israel. It's the desire to adapt the instrument to so many musical traditions that has earned Cohen such acclaim.

The Analog Players Society provides some of the best evidence since the rise of Vampire Weekend that formerly exotic international music -- particularly African rhythms and accents -- has become an everyday part of modern popular tunes.

Guaraldi had range, as well as an instrumental hit right when jazz was vanishing from AM radio.

The great Latin band leader Eddie Palmierei has just received a Jazz Masters Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. for his lifetime of achievement in jazz. Fresh Air honors the Latin band leader with excerpts from a 1994 interview.

Kevin Whitehead looks at genre-bending new albums by Pablo Aslan and Sao Paulo Underground.

Music critic Milo miles reviews two new collections of tunes from the late Latin pioneers Tito Rodriguez and Tito Puente. The two were rivals on the bandstand of the Palladium, the epicenter of the 1950s mambo craze.

Through his first band, La Perfecta, labeled "the band with the crazy roaring elephants," Palmieri was credited with originating Latin jazz's trombone sound in New York during the sixties. In 1994, Palmieri's lobbying culminated in the announcement of a new Grammy Award category for Afro-Caribbean Jazz.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews El Arte del Sabor the new CD by the Bebo Valdes Trio (Blue Note).

Music critic Milo Miles reviews the new documentary about Latin jazz, Calle 54.