{"id":2445729,"date":"2019-06-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-26T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=308436"},"modified":"2019-06-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T06:00:00","slug":"grammy-nominated-cuban-mambo-band-orquesta-akokan-to-play-snowmass-and-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/grammy-nominated-cuban-mambo-band-orquesta-akokan-to-play-snowmass-and-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"Grammy-nominated Cuban mambo band Orquesta Akok\u00e1n to play Snowmass and Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Orquestra Akokan will play the Snowmass Summer Concert Series on Fanny Hill on Thursday and the JAS Cafe Downstairs at the Nell on Friday.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Producer Jacob Plasse teamed up with the beloved mambo singer Jose \u201cPepito\u201d Gomez and an all-star group of Cuban jazz players last year. Their aim was to make a mambo record that could sit alongside classic recordings by the likes of Benny Mor\u00e9 and P\u00e9rez Prado, but that would also gel with contemporary Latin music.<\/p>\n

They succeeded with the Grammy-nominated self-title debut by Orquesta Akok\u00e1n<\/a> and a U.S. tour last summer that earned widespread acclaim from critics during its initial shows.<\/p>\n

With fiery dance-friendly concerts featuring Gomez\u2019s vocals and a 10-piece big band behind him including three saxophones, two trumpets, two trombones and two percussions, the band has been a hit. The reception from crowds and critics has been as rapturous as it was unexpected.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the kind of music that people are being bombarded with or told that it\u2019s cool,\u201d Plasse said in a recent interview from Brooklyn. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely not cool in the Drake sense of the word. But the musicians are so incredible and their joy is so infectious \u2014 most people have never heard anything like this. I\u2019ve never heard anything like this!\u201d<\/p>\n

The band is back stateside this summer, headlining the Snowmass Summer Concert Series on Thursday and opening the JAS Caf\u00e9\u2019s summer season on Friday. The band is the first of 10 in the summer-long JAS Caf\u00e9 series, running at the Little Nell, the St. Regis and the Aspen Art Museum through Aug. 18.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love playing with this band because I feel like more of a fanboy than a producer,\u201d said Plasse, who plays tres with the band as well as producing.<\/p>\n

The collaboration began with Plasse\u2019s fandom. He\u2019d looked up to Gomez going back to Gomez\u2019s 1990s records with Pupy y Los Que Son Son. In recent years, the singer has occasionally sat in with Plasse\u2019s New New York-based salsa band Los Hacheros, with got the pair talking about making a contemporary mambo record and working on new material with arranger Michael Eckroth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were all learning together, studying the music and figuring out how it can work and how we can interpret it in a way that felt fresh but also respected the tradition,\u201d Plasse said.<\/p>\n

They wrote collaboratively and came together, unexpectedly, in Havana to make what would become the band\u2019s 2018 self-titled debut. Gomez was going to Cuba to play some shows with Pup y Los Que Son Son and asked Plasse to tag along.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018Come on down,\u2019 and I said sure, then he\u2019s like, \u2018Let\u2019s play some music,\u2019 and I said sure, and then he\u2019s like, \u2018Let\u2019s check out some studios\u2019 and the next thing I knew we were making a record in Havana with 15 of the most badass jazz musicians,\u201d Plasse recalled with a laugh. \u201cIt was unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plasse was nervous about the seat-of-their-pants recording process, he said, because of the attendant issues of blackouts and the political pitfalls of recording at the state-run Estudios Arieto and such, but he trusted the creative process and believed in the music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was told, \u2018This is a bad idea and you shouldn\u2019t do this,\u2019 but I didn\u2019t listen and I\u2019m lucky that I didn\u2019t listen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations backslide toward the Cold War embargo and tensions between the governments rise, Plasse believes it\u2019s vital for Cuban music \u2014 and Cuban musicians \u2014 to connect with American audiences, grow empathy and understanding, and foster cultural exchange.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important so that people understand what is being lost,\u201d Plasse said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to get them here and it\u2019s only getting harder, with the way policies are changing and the way the grandstanding is going right now. Something will be lost if they can\u2019t come here again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orquesta Akok\u00e1n\u2019s U.S. summer tour runs into July before a month of shows in Europe. After that, Plasse is hopeful that they can record another album in Havana in September.<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Orquestra Akokan will play the Snowmass Summer Concert Series on Fanny Hill on Thursday and the JAS Cafe Downstairs at the Nell on Friday.Courtesy photo Producer Jacob Plasse teamed up with the beloved mambo singer Jose \u201cPepito\u201d Gomez and an all-star group of Cuban jazz players last year. Their aim was to make a mambo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 08:26:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}