Editorial Reviews

Puerto Rico's answer to Los Van Van or Parliament/Funkadelic is really like no other band in the world. Literally two groups fused together, Truco & Zaperoko powerfully reflect the island's music, both past and present. Their second U.S. recording finds the band's bedrock -- the folkloric plena of Hector "Truco" Valentin melded with the fusioneering salsa-jazz of Zaperoko -- intact and in harmony as ever. Truco's drummers provide the percussive heart of the band via the island's indigenous bomba and plena rhythms, a tick-tocking merengue-like beat accompanied by hand-drums. Stretching the rhythms every which way and providing counterpoint with flute, horns, Fender Rhodes, and piano is Zaperoko, directed by trombonist Edwin Feliciano. Together they form a remarkably supple big band, capable of stopping on a dime, deftly shuffling rhythms, and especially adept at setting a bubbling groove to boil with tension-mounting montunos. The intense collective energy of the band -- three co-leaders and a sibling drum core all get their fair say on the album -- prevents all the disparate parts from floating away; the result is a band able to tackle anything. Which they do, from folkloric material to a cover of Brazilian Chico Buarque's "Cotidiano." You don't have to know anything about Puerto Rican music to get the gist of T & Z's fierce energy -- that's música universal indeed. Mark Schwartz, Barnes & Noble

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