Hot and Spicy Contrabajo

[Marc Decho]

Good Morning All, here in good ol' stuffy Ottawa our annual bluesfestival were hosting a Cuban stage last night where they brought in some of the hottest acts from Cuba, the Alexander Brown Quartet performed last night and man they are smokin' guess you could call it "contemporary" Cuban jazz (whatever the hell that means) and of course the contrabassist Omar Gonzales was awesome! had all the traditional Cuban tumbaos and lots more, big fat tone big slaps and big fingers, mind you when your in Cuba you can close your eyes, throw a rock into the wind and hit an amazing bass player every time, ... even when the band were swinging into standard 4/4 tempo he was never playing typical swinging lines everything was broken up and real funky a la Cachao, great stuff... i'm going back tonight for the Havana Ensemble, it's great you plant yourself in the grass buy a Cohiba and a beer and your transported right to the sunny island. ahhhh memories

[abaguer]

I played at the Bangor Blues and Folk Festival last year and they had a Cuban group. After the gig all the performers went to a jam and I was talking to the bass player Cuco. It turns out he wasn't the bassist at all, but a conga player who played the bass because their regular bassist couldn't make gig. He played great and it felt great and I was doubly impressed that it wasn't even his instrument.