16 Rayos

Orquesta Akokan is a multi-generational big band, comprised of top musicians from Cuba and New Yorks Latin music scene. Their sound is a reinvigorated take on the golden era of Cuban mambo (the 1940s) combined with rumba, son, tumbao, and cha-cha-cha wedded to Latin jazz. The bands acclaimed 2018 self-titled Daptone debut was recorded at Havanas Areito Studios and was followed by an enthusiastically received international tour. In the spring of 2021 the group re-assembled at Havanas legendary Egrem Studio (home to literally hundreds of classic recordings since the 60s, including the Buena Vista Social Clubs) and cut ten brand-new originals. Mambo has always carried the ghost traces of religious tradition in its DNA, in particular Santerias, the distinctly ritualistic Cuban meld of African vodou and Roman Catholicism. This set uses spiritual mambo as an inspiration and leaping-off point for exploration. The album title references a Yoruba legend where the suns 16 rays were gifted by the deity Olofi to sky father Obatala, enabling him to care for the earths children. Set-opener and first single Mi Conga Es de Akokan weds the driving, low-end serpentine rhythms of the conga to powerful, ringing, swinging mambo horns with vocalist Jose Pepito Gomez leading the band in feverish call-and-response. Cuatro de Octubre commences with an unaccompanied rhumba chant by Pedro Francisco Almeida Barriel, followed by knotty, cascading horns and percussion in cut time with gloriously dark exchanges between brass instruments and Michael Eckroths piano montunos. As infectious as the fast tunes are, the band reveals its secret soul on the ballad La Guajira del Mar, with atmospheric brass harmonies and gorgeous string interplay. El Inflador is a furious yet unbelievably sweet dancefloor mambo with gloriously arranged vocal and brass harmonies. Orchidea offers a solo piano intro combining classical piano and dissonance before the rhythm section guides the horns, congas, and timbales into a gloriously architected cha-cha-cha. Llegue con Mi Rumba also finds Almeida Barriel in excellent form as he engages the bands punchy, joyous groove and kaleidoscopic sense of swing. On the title-track closer, Gomez trades lines in duet and call-and-response with guest vocalist Xiomara Valdes (a first-call session singer who has worked with Omara Portuando and many others) as shadowy trumpets, dark trombones and ethereal, ecstatic strings wind around the drummers and Valdes sweet, tender falsetto. The group unites around their vocal improvisations with a more stately horn articulation and cha-cha rhythm. As enjoyable and edifying as Orquesta Akokans self-titled debut was, 16 Rayos is more sophisticated and inspired. While the first album amounted to a raucous, utterly enjoyable soulful dance party, this set is an emotional, spiritually satisfying, labyrinthine musical journey one can dance to. ~ Thom Jurek