Isla by Mark Levine & The Latin Tinge

01 Dec

Written by Kate Kaiser
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I love this CD even more than the band's first two which were just great. Anyone who says that non-Latin musicians can't play Latin jazz authentically are wrong, wrong, wrong! Mark and the band turn on the heat to Latin tunes like "Seis Pa' Chuito", a lovely song by Jose Lugo, and play fantastic Afro-Cuban jazz arrangements to jazz standards such as Cedar Walton's "Black" and Kenny Garrett's "Ain't Nothing But the Blues". My personal favorites - aside from "Black" - are Dizzy Gillespie's "Con Alma", with an intro and interlude based on a traditional Vietnamese (!) song and the bolero "A Free Man" by Donald Brown. "Isla" is definitively a keeper for me.