Spanish Harlem Orchestra
Spam Allstars
Tato Torres Y Yerba Buena
Bobbito Garcia a.k.a Kool Bob Love
Saturday, August 04, 2007
From 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Central Park SummerStage
Classic salsa, Latin electronica and Boricuan rhythms rule the day for this exciting SummerStage event.
SummerStage celebrates the rich diversity of Latin music with this rhythm packed event. Formed in 2000 by Rubén Blades’ piano player and musical director Oscar Hernandez, and comprised of some of the greatest Latin musicians in New York, The Spanish Harlem Orchestra seeks to recreate and expand on the sound of salsa’s golden age, particularly as it was epitomized by greats like Tito Puente and Machito. SHO’s 2004 set Across 110th Street won the 2004 Grammy ® Award for Best Salsa / Merengue Album, and their latest offering, United We Swing is of the same caliber. All Music said “The 13-piece collective delivers a non-stop volley of pure neo-retro salsa dura that couldn't possibly be improved upon.”
Spam Allstars include every type of instrument in their music, from timbales to turntables, creating an exhilarating mix of Latin music, R&B, funk, hip-hop, deep-down dub and spaced-out soul. The instigator of this acousti-electronic jam style is DJ Le Spam, a Miami-based turntablist of English-Venezuelan extraction. The group’s latest album, electrodomésticos, includes contributions from soul-funk legend Pee Wee Ellis.
Traditional Boricuan music is the lifeblood of Tato Torres Y Yerbabuena. Torres grew up in Puerto Rico, and ever since his family moved to New York over 20 years ago, he has played in groups such as Los Amigos de La Plena and Los Bomberos de Brooklyn. Torres gathered together many of New York’s best Boricuan musicians, vocalists and dancers to form Yerbabuena--a group whose express purpose was to rescue such styles as bomba, plena and música jibara from the kiss-of-death “folklore” label and restore them as living, breathing expressions of Boricuan culture. Yerbabuena shows are renowned for their hypnotic rhythms and enchanting vocal harmonies.
Bobbito Garcia wears a lot of hats. He’s a basketball player, published music critic, film actor, sneaker designer and sneaker culture historian. All you really have to remember, though, is that he’s an internationally famous DJ who’s had his finger on the pulse of hip music for the past 20 years. Throughout the ‘90s, his regular radio show with DJ Stretch Armstrong on WKCR introduced such future giants as Nas, Jay-Z, Big Pun and Wu-Tang Clan. His live sets incorporate Latin, hip-hop, funk, house, classic rock and afro-beat and have kept dance clubs hopping from New York to Beijing.
