New York-based Colombian ensemble La Cumbiamba eNeYé recently released its second album, La Palma. Band leader Martín Vejarano came to NY1 Noticias to talk about the record, the relation between the Colombian geography and the country’s music, and how the guerilla war has generated a musical diaspora.
Las October, Canadian-Mexican chanteuse Amanda Martínez presented her second album, Amor, in New York’s Blue Note.
In this interview for NY1 Noticias, Martínez told me how she found her musical identity, and why she prefers to attack the Latin American classics with the sheer charm of her voice.
Legendary dancer Pilar Rioja talks about the mysterious forces that lie behind flamenco when trying to explain how she made me cry.
Watch here.
DJ Javier “Sonido” Martines recently released the compilation Nueva Cumbia Argentina: The Buenos Aires Implosion! During his visit to New York to promote it (and spin records at places like the Natural History Museum), he came to NY1 Noticias to talk about how the Colombian rhythm made Argentineans rediscover their South American identity.
Watch here.
Novelist and El País journalist Jesús Ruiz Mantilla came to New York to participate in a colloquium on writing about food and the pleasure of eating. He came by NY1 Noticias to talk about the novel in which he tackles these topics along with the beauty of being well rounded, Gordo.
Watch here.
My interview with romantic singer Ricardo Montaner, wherein the Venezuelan artist discusses his memoir Lo que no digo cantando. Watch for his confessions on why he prayed for his kidnappers, why he used the stage of famed Chilean Festival de Viña del Mar to preach in secret, and why he is a master of the art of cornyness.
Watch here.
It is hard to express the satisfaction I get from having brilliant musicians perform when I interview them for NY1 Noticias. In the case of flamenco star Niño Josele, I could barely make a question after watching him play the guitar as if he was walking through an automatic door.
A few minutes earlier, ha had interrupted his improvisation by saying with a smile: “What a hard-to-play instrument the guitar is!” I didn’t know if he was joking. He wasn’t.
In this interview, he explains with more musical notes than words how he can go from Bill Evans to flamenco in what to him is a flick of the wrist.
Chicha, cumbia and rock and roll. Oulipo, Perú and Brooklyn. Accidents, Bach and syncretism.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Olivier Conan.
Watch here.
When the dust settles, Babasónicos will probably be considered one of the fundamental rock bands to come out of Argentina, no small feat if you consider that country —as I do— to have produced the best rock canon after the United States and Great Britain. That’s why when I had the chance to interview two of his members, Diego Rodríguez and Diego Tuñón, I started by asking why were they not more popular in this country. But they disagreed with one of the premises of my question.
Watch here.
Colombian-born photographer Nereo has been telling stories through his photographs for 60 years. The New York based artist recently has published his first book outside of his native country, “Images from Half a Century,” which includes images from his photographic essays on the Amazon jungle, Bogotá and his friend Gabriel García Márquez.
Interviewed at NY1 Noticias, he claimed that, upon looking at some of his photographs, he normally wondered how did he make them. “It was an impulse,” he said.
WATCH:
José Manuel Simián 
