I never realized my test pressings (pieces of vinyl sent to you by the record pressing plant to make sure that they got it right and there are no last minute adjustments or flaws in the vinyl pressing process) might be valuable to someone. But to a lot of people, they are. Ghostnote, a platform that specializes in unique music ephemera reached out to me to see what I have in my bins, and if I’d like to make any of it available to the world. I said yes, and put a few of my Ocote Soul Sounds and Antibalas test pressings up. See everything here.
25th Anniversary of Antibalas: Two nights at Brooklyn Bowl
Just recovering from two nights of sublime and intense music in my old stomping grounds of Williamsburg Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Bowl. We had DJ Rob Castillo from Caracas via CDMX, Kaethe Hostetter and her magic violin (fri) and Stuart Bogie’s Magic Hands (Sat) for support.
The Band: (both nights)Trumpet: Jordan McLean; Trumpet: Andrew McGovern, Tenor sax: Drew Vandewinckel, Baritone sax/flute/percussion: Martín Perna; shekere/vox: Marcus Farrar. congas: Reinaldo deJesus; drums: Kevin Raczka; guitar: Timothy James; guitar: Bryan Vargas; keys: Jake Pinto.
Guests night 2: trombone: Raymond Mason; tenor sax: Max Kassoy; Tenor sax: Stuart Bogie;
From the Dap Kings: percussion: Bosco Mann, percussion: Elizabeth Pupo-Walker; trumpet: Dave Guy; tenor sax: Cochemea Gastelum; from Skatalites/Frightnrs: Anant Pradhan; From Havana, Cuba on congas Pellito el Afrokan
Summer 2022
Happy belated summer solstice from the Bay Area. I am spending my days parenting, walking the flats and hills of the East Bay, trying to find clean water to my kid to swim, picking stone fruits (plums, loquats, apricots) which are just coming into season, and scoring two big pieces for PBS.
Antibalas continues to bring our new repertoire throughout Europe and North America this summer and we’ll be recording all this for a new album this fall or early next year. There’s a feature on us and our back catalogue in the recent Songlines Magazine June 2022 issue.
Hmm…what else. Reading Joan Didion “Salvador,” B.W. Higman “Jamaican Food”, working on some musical / nature prototypes and a big Fire Wedding collaboration at the end of this month with Earth Lab at UCSC, Annie Sprinkle, Beth Stephens, Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Courtney Desiree Morris and other artists.
Now back to the lab. Love to whoever’s reading this.
Antibalas: 2022 Tour Dates
The band is back on the road in 2022 with a new repertoire as well as a few old gems.
New Music: Martez
Once upon a time a young man would walk along on the bayou. He followed a princess to the cold north, where he was trapped in a barn. The princess cast a spell and released him. He followed the sun to where it swims in the water.
I had a lot of time to myself during the pandemic, away from the musical mobs I have worked with for the past 25 years. I’ll be back with them for more, but in the meantime, enjoy these sounds.
Music Policy Forum Webinar 5/31/2020
Hey world. We all want live music to resume, but we are nowhere close to where we need to be on so many fronts—health-wise, economically, and so forth. I was invited by Michael Bracy and the Music Policy Forum to share my experiences and outlook as a professional musician since the Covid-19 shutdown.
My last day of work was February 29, 2020 performing in Denver with Antibalas. We were in the midst of a spring/summer album tour through North America and Europe, and a fall trip to Nigeria in the works and all of that is on ice for now. It is far too early to create any sort of a timeline, but several cities are on board with REVS (Reopen Every Venue Safely), developing standards and protocols for what it would take to make this a reality. It is going to take a lot.
Anyway, below is my segment of the webinar but PLEASE check out the whole thing—we talk about healthcare resources before and during Covid-19 in New Orleans, Seattle, and Austin.
On tour with Antibalas worldwide in 2019
On tour across North America, Europe and beyond with Antibalas, celebrating 20 years of making music together.
Jamcruise 2018: Reflections
Putting aside for a moment the strangeness of being on a massive floating city and fraught politics of global capitalism inherent in pretty much everything we do, Jamcruise 16 was amazing and along with going to Cuba and Benin, probably the richest musical experiences of my life.
Five days, nights and morning of performing, listening, collaborating and creating with some of my most favorite and esteemed musicians, people I listened to and adored well before I ever imagined myself playing music: Maceo Parker, George Porter if the Meters, Steel Pulse, John Scofield, to make just a few.
I am truly grateful to have been a part of this and in awe of the tremendous amount of work it took to put together such a magical event. It was transformational and I want to see this happen again and that far more people- musicians and fans can experience this.
I am fascinated by the concept of modifying the concept of a cruise ship into something more sustainable. How could it run with a zero carbon footprint, with equitable labor practices, cooperative ownership, healthier connections with the people in the different port cities to build systems which promote economic self determination and cultural understanding and appreciation.
The cruise ships are sophisticated, well oiled machines and I wonder how much of this is possible only because of all the social and environmental costs and externalities that are hidden from us. Having several friends from Nicaragua who have spent decades working on and off ship, it is a mixed bag. It does offer new possibilities, relationships and income not possible at home. At the same time, the work is intense and demanding and full of assaults to ones dignity. And the price of being separated from ones family and community for periods of nine months at a time over several years.
All that to say that in addition to my gratitude to the people who organized the event, I am even deeper indebted to the people on the ship grinding tirelessly to create a space for other people to experience such an intensely joyful event. Til next time.
¡Orquesta Akokán! Out 3/30/18 on Daptone Records
On March 30, Daptone Records will release the new album by Orquesta Akokán. It is among my favorite albums of the past few years--so much flavor, amazing arrangements and creative orchestration. Read more about them here at NPR program alt.Latino.
I was honored to have been asked to write the liner notes for the, which I'm including here:
Listening to the new LP by Orquesta Akokán, you can't help but feel the spirits of Cuba's musical giants radiating from the speakers. But honoring and caring for these spirits is not easy work, nor is it a task to be left solely to one generation. It is a collaboration of young and old; The elders know the traditions, the gestures, the incantations, but it is the younger generation that have the duty to learn, the strength to carry on, and the fire and soul to make new songs for new spirits.
In November of 2016, Michael Eckroth traveled to the hallowed Areito studios in Centro Habana with a stack of charts tucked under his arm. Arriving in the cavernous wood-paneled live room, he took stock of the players assembled by producer Jacob Plasse: a dozen or so of Cuba’s most ferocious and pedigreed wind and rhythm players from storied groups including Irakere and Los Van Van, the sensational veteran vocalist José “Pepito” Gómez, and a handful of seasoned young New York Latin music freaks. These musicians would transform his charts into the living, breathing document you’re holding in your hands.
An arpeggio tumbles sweetly down the keys of the piano, and the set bursts forth en masse with exclamatory trumpet blasts, introducing saxophones that immediately establish themselves as the center of a rhythm section. The arrangements carry the exquisite beauty, pathos, and playfulness of the renowned dance orchestras of the 1940s and 1950s who had recorded in this very room, evoking the ghosts of Arsenio Rodriguez, Perez Prado, and Beny Moré. And the robust, time-tested musical architectures of son cubano and mambo are present and skillfully honored through all nine of these original compositions. The melodious tres cubano, the swinging tumbao of the congas, the tight blend of vocal harmonies — they’re all there. Yet there’s something unequivocally fresh — saxophone sections playing montunos where you’d imagine a piano, an angelic, swinging flute you’d expect in a charanga recording, sones — vocal improvisations that have the seasoned flow and cadence of mid 1970s “salsa dura” singers, and of course, the appearance of the inimitable César “Pupy” Pedroso on piano. Somehow this synthesis of musical grammar and compositional styles, of Havana and New York, of old and new, makes perfect sense.
Akokán is a Yoruba word used by Cubans to mean “from the heart” or “soul”, so it comes as no surprise that a recording like this would find its way back to Brooklyn’s Daptone Records. For nearly a generation, the venerable label has brought us soulful music in a myriad of styles, made in the present, but with all the craft and flavor of the classic recordings of the past. In doing so Daptone has enshrined both the genres it honors as well as artists creating new works in the universal canon of dance music. It’s a perfect kitchen from which to serve this captivating baile between old and new — una sopa levantamuertos (soup to raise the dead), prepared with rhythm, with care, and above all, con akokán.
-Martín Perna, Antibalas