A very short clip of our concert in Vaires-sur-Marne, filmed by flutist Emilie Laroubine (thanks, Emilie!), who came to sit in with us for a few tunes.

We’ve just finished the arrangement of singer Eddy Carvajal’s new tune, which includes a bridge that Eddy and I worked on together. We’ve been looking for a solid medium tempo song to include in our new demo recording (to be completed by the early spring, we hope!), and this track looks like it will make it on the list. In the meantime, this rough mix will give you an idea of what’s to come!

A rough take on one of my favorite Cuban son standards, a tune that is actually a recent composition by Alejandro “el viejo” Almenaris, of Santiago de Cuba. After his quartet was featured on a Putumayo release back in the ’90s, the song has made the rounds and has been covered all around the world. I like the simplicity of it, which seems to lend itself well to really opening it up and looking around inside.

The Way Blue Bucket is nothing if not experimental. The very makeup of the group, drums, saxophone, and electric guitar, began as an experiment.

In 2000, I was in my junior year as a jazz guitar major at Temple University. I had been playing for several months with a drummer named Rob Smith, who shared my interest in creative improvisational structures, and two events led directly to the formation of this group. The first was the fact that our beloved bass player, Steve Kerr, was leaving for New York City. The second was the night that Rob took me to see the Tiny Bell Trio, a trumpet-guitar-drums project led by the great Dave Douglas.

Excited by the sonic possibilities of improvisation without a bass player to anchor things, and suddenly without a bass player, Rob and I decided to seek out a horn player. I also started writing a bunch of tunes specifically for this instrumentation. After a brief stint playing with tenor player Ryan Harrington, we got in touch with Aino Soderhielm, whom we knew from her playing with Tintinabulus, and the Way Blue Bucket was formed.

While the goals of the group shifted over the years, our basic measure of whether or not we were on track was the continued difficulty of describing the music we were making. The only kinds of sounds that we ruled out were ones that were too close to clearly “jazz” or “rock” or “folk” sounds. As long as it fell slipperily “in the cracks,” we were happy.

We also fought against the idea that improvised, avant-garde, or any aurally challenging music had to be serious. Inspired by the likes of Frank Zappa and Sun Ra, we tried to find ways of making otherwise esoteric music accessible through humor, by wearing silly hats, doing post-modern sing-a-longs, and any other kinds of stunts that we could think of.

In 2002 we started work on our studio recording, of which Green Bean is one of our most successful efforts. Green Bean had long been one of the favorite numbers at live performances, and we sought to capture some of that energy in the studio. Working up to the recording, we rehearsed two or three times a week, and the tightness of the group at that time comes through right away. For a copy of the whole album, contact me directly by email.

The Way Blue Bucket has been inactive since 2003, when I left Philadelphia for Wesleyan University, Cuba, and then eventually Paris. Will there ever be a reunion? Only time will tell.

While the roots of Çasonando are in traditional Cuban dance music, the band also incorporates elements of the more modern timba, Senegalese soukous, Colombian cumbia, and jazz…

I met Eddy Carvajal when we both played together with Parisian son group Barrio del Este. He had just arrived in Paris from Santiago de Cuba, and was looking to get a band together. He later introduced me to Nils Wekstein, a veteran of the Parisian “world music” scene, and soon after we began rehearsing, calling ourselves Çasonando.

The name, which plays on the Spanish words sazoneando (spicing it up) and sonando (lit. making sound or playing the music known as son), makes an orthographic nod to our Parisian surroundings.

Our eclectic approach to the music has been partially motivated by a desire to differentiate ourselves from the countless other Buena-Vista-style groups that have been playing in Paris since the late ’90s. This has affected our choice of repertoire as well: we cover Cuban standards like “Chan chan,” but we’ll also play songs from other genres, approached in a basically Cuban way. Premier Gaou, the track featured here, is a good example of this. We take the basic structure of the song and mix in elements of Cuban changui and timba to create a sound that is all our own.

The group is preparing to record its first demo, so mp3s of that project will soon be up on this site, as well as on the official website. To book the band for summer or fall 2007, contact me directly by email.

Conjunto 23 (pronounced “cone-hoon-toe vain-tee-tress”) is essentially a traditional Cuban band with some special Philadelphia twists…

While their old-school sound is as swinging as the likes of Compay Segundo or Ibrahim Ferrer, their interest in jazz, soul, and the more modern sounds of Cuban timba (also read: “freaky, funky, no-holds-barred Cuban salsa”) gives Conjunto 23 a fresh, tight sound.

Founded as a quartet in 2001 by David Garlitz (tres, vocals), Jim Jordan (bass, vocals), Robin Moore (percussion, guitar, trumpet, and vocals), and Scott MacDonald (bongó, vocals), the group has performed concerts, given masterclasses, hosted dances, and performed for private functions up and down the East Coast.

–from conjunto23.com/bios

Find out all about Conjunto 23 on the official website, where you’ll find more clips from the album, photos, band bios, and up-to-date concert information. Here on DavidGarlitz.com I’ll be posting some minidisc recordings spanning the band’s career, some which will eventually make their way to the official site as well.