Chango 14 Dag

Innovative Argentinean accordion virtuoso and composer Chango Spasiuk’s latest CD is entitled Pynandí – Los Descalzos (“Barefoot,” 468083, street date February 10, 2009), from an indigenous Guaraní word, referring to that nation’s impoverished rural populations. This is quite fitting as, like American blues, Portuguese fado and Argentina’s own tango, the sunny, lilting chamamé was at one time considered too lower-class to be of interest to educated listeners. But that was before Spasiuk, with his uninhibited stage demeanor and flying blond hair, put his spin on it, delighting traditionalists while intriguing rock and jazz audiences. The current album, produced by Bob Telson, is a love letter to the land of Spasiuk’s birth, capturing the red earth, blinding heat, and rough good humor and warm fellowship of laborers heading out for an evening’s fun. But all is not as simple as it seems – the first track, Tierra Colorada (“Red Land”), while cheerful on the surface, also harbors edgy moments of dissonance. Suite Nordeste (“Northeastern Suite”) opens with an accordion astride a staggering percussion motif, like a horseman negotiating uneven ground. Later on, as the guitar, fiddle and other instruments enter, the scenery becomes more and more resplendent, although the journey has its rough spots and, ultimately, a lonely grandeur. Each of the 15 tunes harbors a contradiction of some kind; although this music is seductively accessible, it is also anything but easy listening – in the best possible sense.

The Return Of El Santo is King Chango's 2000 album, released on the Luaka Bop label. The group are from New York City but are open to everyone in the Hispanic world and beyond. This title also features help from two members of Ozomatli.

Chango Studios Memphis May Fire "Challenger" Processed Drum Kit. Processed exactly as heard on Memphis May Fire's hard hitting record "Challenger"!

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ironweed, a dramatic novel of love and revolution from one of America's finest writers.

hen journalist Daniel Quinn meets Ernest Hemingway at the Floridita bar in Havana, Cuba, in 1957, he has no idea that his own affinity for simple, declarative sentences will change his life radically overnight.
So begins William Kennedy's latest novel-a tale of revolutionary intrigue, heroic journalism, crooked politicians, drug-running gangsters, Albany race riots, and the improbable rise of Fidel Castro. Quinn's epic journey carries him through the nightclubs and jungles of Cuba and into the newsrooms and racially charged streets of Albany on the day Robert Kennedy is fatally shot in 1968.