Chico O'Farrill

[Durium]

CHICO O'FARRILL

Chico O' Farrill, the Cuban band leader and composer, is often compared to Duke Ellington and labeled as The Duke Ellington of Latin Jazz.

Thanks to Lonehill Jazz you can now listen to his early 1950s recordings, produced by Norman Granz on a 2005 double CD titled Chico O' Farrill - The Complete Norman Granz Recordings. ( Lonehill Jazz LHJ10172)

The Norman Granz Recordings

Keep swinging

Durium

[BillF]

CHICO O'FARRILL

Chico O' Farrill, the Cuban band leader and composer, is often compared to Duke Ellington and labeled as The Duke Ellington of Latin Jazz.

Thanks to Lonehill Jazz you can now listen to his early 1950s recordings, produced by Norman Granz on a 2005 double CD titled Chico O' Farrill - The Complete Norman Granz Recordings. ( Lonehill Jazz LHJ10172)

The Norman Granz Recordings

Keep swinging

Durium

Now that looks interesting! I love his arrangements for the Goodman orchestra during the years when Benny embraced bop.

[RiRiIII]

I think that the VERVE 2CDs release of this material is still in-print for $18:

http://www.cdconnection.com/details/Chico_...159?source=none

A marvelous set! When I was in New York for the first time in 2000 I had to choose on Saturday night either to go to Blue Note and see Jim Hall/Joe Lovano or Chico O'Farrill at the Village Vanguard. I chosed Jim Hall. Later I regretted it, since Chico died some months later. Nevertheless his son conducted the Lincoln Latin Jazz O. last year in Athens and they were gooood!

Many thanks for the info.

Best

Alex

CHICO O'FARRILL

Chico O' Farrill, the Cuban band leader and composer, is often compared to Duke Ellington and labeled as The Duke Ellington of Latin Jazz.

Thanks to Lonehill Jazz you can now listen to his early 1950s recordings, produced by Norman Granz on a 2005 double CD titled Chico O' Farrill - The Complete Norman Granz Recordings. ( Lonehill Jazz LHJ10172)

The Norman Granz Recordings

Keep swinging

Durium

[mikeweil]

This is excellent music and contains some of the cornerstones of Afro-Cuban Jazz - if there is a middle ground between Afro-Cuban music and jazz, O'Farrill (the son of Irish immigrants) hit it bullseye.

I also mourn that Verve never got around to compile the Norman Granz recordings of Machito in the same caretaking way - there would be some overlaps (which could be omitted) but the few examples of tracks on various Verve compilations show that the masters in the Verve vaults sound much, much better than the heavily noise reduced tape transfer that is availbale on Pablo. But there has never been an issue collecting all tracks including all takes of "Tanga".

For the US, the music of O'Farrill and Machito - i.e. Mario Bauza - is the first musical high point of the genre.

Edited August 5, 2008 by mikeweil