Hear and See The Music of Duende Libre

“The Dance She Spoke” by Duende Libre has been lingering in my mind for several days. I hesitate to say that it fits within the specific category of a collector’s item, though I can without reservation that it is well worth adding to your library.

I also pause to confine the collective’s upcoming July 17, 2020 release to the Afro-jazz isle, though it certainly lives on that ‘side of the street’, musically speaking. However, the album is more internationally grounded. Upon close examination the album is complex, nuanced, accessible to the casual listener, and equally refined as a musically balanced work of art. I rarely get to or should I say take the time to listening to an entire album the first time I hold hands with it. This week I made an exception and not because I felt compelled, but rather because their sound wouldn’t leave me alone.

The music is not overpowering, yet it is powerfully alluring as it soars back and forth between Afrocentric and Eurocentric musical norms with charts that are melodious, rhythmically pulsating with an overall sound that is really hard to ignore and certainly not the stuff one should play in the background at a party – this is a recording that beckons the listener to lend an attentive ear.

Alex Chadsey (piano/keyboards/compositions), Farko Dosumov (electric bass) and Jeff “Bongo” Busch (drums & percussion) are joined by Frank Anderson, vocalist, drummer and dancer, and Chava Mirel, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. In all this is a well-tempered recording appropriately dressed for jazz and world music fans.

What’s more Chadsey cites the Ethnomusicologist aka ‘All Things World Music’ Ruth Stone whose research in the field of world music is unparalleled.

So, experience it, hear and “see” the music for yourself.