On Sentir, the globetrotting, Cuban-born pianist Omar Sosa is joined not by a full band, but rather by a host of percussionists and vocalists. Sosa remains focused on communicating a kind of ecstatic, multicultural religiosity – most of these tracks are dominated by fervent chanting in one of several languages, underscored by rolling percussion grooves. Sosa's piano is the only Western instrument on the scene, a fact that somehow gives it added power. Like his previous album, Prietos, this one also has a hip-hop element, with Terence Nicholson (aka Sub-Z) contributing rap poetry on five of the tracks.

Cuban born pianist Omar Sosa completes his third recording on the Ota label with the large ensemble sound of Bembon. Sosa creates world fusion music highlighted by the combination of Afro-Cuban funk with the inventiveness of jazz. Bassist Geoff Brennan and the percussion team of Elliot Kavee and John Santos generate an invigorating rhythmic glue that keeps the improvisational elements of Bembon on track. Added into the interweaving musical blend are the voices of Bay Area singers Ledisi and Maria Marquez and the spoken word of Will Power.

Acoustic pianist Omar Sosa has done his share of ensemble work, and he has often demonstrated that he is an insightful, thoughtful arranger. But the Cuban improviser takes a break from ensemble work on Ayaguna, which focuses on a July 25, 2002, concert in Yokohama, Japan. This time, Sosa forms an intimate duo with Venezuelan drummer Gustavo Ovalles, who plays a variety of Latin percussion – not only the Afro-Cuban percussion one would expect to hear on a Sosa album, but also various Venezuelan percussion instruments that are used in traditional joropo music. The two musicians enjoy a strong rapport throughout this Latin jazz/post-bop CD, which tends to have a very spiritual quality. In fact, some of the material is mindful of Santeria, a Caribbean faith that contains elements of Catholicism as well as the West African Yoruba religion.

By 1961, flutist Herbie Mann was really starting to catch on with the general public. This release, a follow-up to his hit At the Village Gate (two songs are from the same gig while three others actually date from seven months earlier), features Mann in an ideal group with either Hagood Hardy or Dave Pike on vibes, Ahmed Abdul-Malik or Nabil Totah on bass, drummer Rudy Collins and two percussionists. Mann really cooks on four of his own originals, plus "Bags' Groove," blending in the influence of African, Afro-Cuban and even Brazilian jazz.

In apparent response to the sampling of old Latin jazz records by hip-hop artists, Verve raided its Cal Tjader archive to come up with this fiercely grooving collection drawn from nine of his Verve albums. For all of producer Creed Taylor's '60s penchant for fashioning two- to four-minute cuts aimed at airplay, he allowed Tjader's groups considerable room to stretch out on several of the tracks included here, particularly on the live "Los Bandidos" and the hypnotic collaboration with pianist Eddie Palmieri, "Picadillo." More importantly, Tjader's records with Taylor were more varied in texture than his earlier discs, venturing now and then from his solid Afro-Cuban base into Brazilian rhythms, soul, big-band backings, and '60s pop touches…

Some friends think that Shihab the man owes the balance of his soul to his beautiful Danish wife. They may be right; for Eros is the very essence of what Shihab plays.Yet Eros is a god with many a face. A tale of tender mournings Shihab’s flute is telling in Mauve - a piece that translates its title into delicately changing colors of sound. In Uma Fita de Tres Cores he has his instrument wooing with the proud self-reliance of Latin grandezza. Calmly, softly, almost blandishly Shihab blows the solo flute in the Jimmy Woode composition My Kinda World. Serene and somewhat playful his own title Another Samba comes along - a most uncommon composition by the way: lasting for sixty bars as if growing independent out of itself, with solos that appear to be additional spinnings rather than improvised choruses; and yet; a perfect, self sustaining melody no element of which is superfluous…

In the summer of 1956, the famed Harlem congressman Adam Clayton Powell arranged for Dizzy Gillespie to embark on a worldwide goodwill-ambassador tour sponsored by the State Department. Gillespie and an all-star big band featuring trumpeter Quincy Jones, the late trombonist Melba Liston, alto saxophonist Phil Woods, and tenor saxophonist Benny Golson performed in Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil to frenzied, beret-wearing fans. Recordings were made but they weren't commercially available and were played only for a select group of musicians before Gillespie's death in 1993. Now the sides have been released, showcasing Dizzy at his bebopping best.

The premiere Cuban music group Irakere has played Ronnie Scott's club in London regularly since 1985. Their Jazz House CD starts out with a throwaway salsa vocal piece, then has two impressive showcases for German Velazco (one apiece on alto and soprano). "Stella By Stalight" (which in Spanish is "Estella Va A Estallar") is swung hard and the closing, nearly 17-minute rendition of Dave Brubeck's "The Duke" has explosive yet lyrical piano playing by Chucho Valdes and some shouting choruses worthy of the Count Basie Orchestra. Overall this is one of Irakere's jazz recordings that is easily recommended.

Diego Ramon Jimenez Salazar (Madrid, 27 de diciembre de 1968), mas conocido como El Cigala, es un cantaor de flamenco espanol de etnia gitana y nacionalidad dominicana desde 2014. Es "Diego" resultado de una disputa familiar producida por su padre y su tio en la pila bautismal; y "el cigala" apodo que recibio de los hermanos Losadas, guitarristas. Crecio cerca de la zona del Rastro, en el barrio de Embajadores de Madrid. Sobrino del cantante flamenco Rafael Farina, a los 12 anos gano un concurso de flamenco y el primer premio del certamen al mejor cantaor de Getafe. En 1997 publica Undebel, su primer disco en solitario, donde colaboran entre otros Tomatito y Paquete. En el 2000,

Few artists would dare to tackle quite such a kaleidoscope of music styles and accompanying socio-political issues in the space of 12 songs and 66 minutes. And yet France-based Senegalese virtuosic bassist, vocalist and composer Alune Wade, who’s worked with Joe Zawinul, Marcus Miller, Oumou Sangare, Bobby McFerrin, Youssou N’Dour and others, achieves this with effortless mastery on Sultan, his fifth solo album in 15 years.

Chucho Valdes, Cuba's most famous jazz musician, has rebalanced the repertoire of his Afro-Cuban Messengers on Border-Free, mixing its American-jazz agenda (the group's name deliberately references both Valdes' roots and the late Art Blakey's classic soul-bop Jazz Messengers group) with more extended Latin-American input, and some Native American and Andalusian connections, too. Saxophonist Branford Marsalis, guesting on three tracks, is warmly romantic on tenor on the loping Tabu, agile and fluent on the Cuban dance-shuffle Bebo, and mercurial on a soprano-sax break full of north African microtonalisms on the hurtling, horn-hooting finale, Abdel.

With every recording Omar Sosa releases, his horizons continue to broaden within the context of world ethnic fusion, but with Across the Divide, he's bettered himself yet again. This collection of jazz-influenced, Latin-tinged music crosses the disparate genres of country folk and tribal sounds, recognizing the migration of the banjo from Africa to the Eastern seaboard of America, and percussion from the griot village to the rural Mid-Atlantic. In collaboration with vocalist and story teller Tim Eriksen, Sosa merges rhythm and ancestry via inspiration from Langston Hughes, John Coltrane, King Sunny Ade, Pete Seger, and contemporary bluesman Otis Taylor as popular reference points.

In 2009 Chucho Valdes, a pianist, instrumentalist, and composer who already had four Grammy Awards and is regarded by specialists as one of the top four jazz players of the world, won the Grammy in the category of Best Latin Jazz Album. He shared the award with his father, Bebo Valdes, with the album Juntos Para Siempre (Together Forever). Father and son, both Cuban piano virtuosos and exceptionally talented composers got together to record this example of their musical greatness after their tour “Juntos para siempre” in Spain.