SOUNDTRACK: BIO RITMO-Tiny Desk Concert #392 (September 29, 2014).
Bio Ritmo is a nine-piece band that has played salsa music for 23 years (as of 2014). The back beat and rhythm is pure salsa–there’s a drummer (who has that classic salsa drum sound) and two bongo players. There’s shakers and scrapers and timbales and congas and a cowbell.
The four horns players (two trumpets, sax and trombone) punctuate all o the right notes to get you moving along.
The first song is “La Via.” The main driving force seems to be the keyboard, which was unexpected–it adds a kind of Latin jazz feel to the proceedings. I love the way the keyboards shift from a Latin feel to a more groovy 70s feel before the vocals start. There’s a cool break in the middle of the song when it stops and we get a few pounding notes before the song resumes. Classic salsa.
“Picaresca”has fun dancey rhythm and a lengthy trumpet solo, giving it another interesting salsa/jazz feel. The keyboard solo sounds a little cheesey here–like they need better sounds on that program, but it’s the drums “solo” in the middle that makes this song so much fun. It’s a great instrumental.
“Perdido” goes through many different genres. He explains that it begins like a Puerto Rican dance from the 1800s and then goes “into other stuff.” The opening does indeed sound like an old song and after a few verses it morphs into modern salsa once again.
I really enjoyed this set a lot. Most salsa music sounds the same to me, but I really like it when I hear it. On the downside, this is the first Tiny Desk Concert where I felt like the band wasn’t mic’d effectively. The vocals are really quiet (almost inaudible at times), and when the trombonist does a solo it’s also a little too quiet. But the main focus is the percussion and that’s plenty loud!
[READ: May 10, 2016] Stuffed
I have had to interlibrary loan a lot of the rest of the First Second books because my library system doesn’t have them. Usually if a library doesn’t have an older book it’s because not many people read it any more so they got rid of it. That doesn’t necessarily mean the book is bad, but it doesn’t give you a ton of confidence about it. But this book defied every expectation and wound up being outstanding!
I assumed this title would be a cautionary tale about someone eating too much. I had no idea what I was actually in for!
As the book opens, we meet Tim. He works for a benefits department of an insurance company (it sounds awful). He gets a call that his father is dying. He rushes to the hospital just in time to see his father insult him once more before breathing his last. His father’s estate is to be split between himself and his half-brother, Ollie. No one has seen Ollie in ages. When they do track him down, he is now known as “Free Spirit.” (more…)
I Just Read About That... 