
Rediscovering The Big Apple
Revisiting the 80s from Latin funjk to smooth Cha Cha CHa - Los Charly's best work to date.
by Simon White
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Any new music from Los Charly's Orchestra causes a bit of excitement, and a new album is a special event - and this new album is a very special event. This is Salsa and beyond. Rediscovering The Big Apple is Los Charly's second full album and in some ways a bit of a departure from what had become their signature 70's/80's Latino funk sound. The album launches through ten tracks that could easily have been recorded at any time in the last four decades a tiny New York or Los Angeles studio. A few of them were released on limited edition vinyl 45's and they've been remastered for inclusion here.
That 80's sound is retained on the opening track All I Wanna Do, a funky tribute to the sound of Fania and War and in contrast track two, My Barrio is as authentic 60's sounding as it could possibly be. Al Ritmo Del Latin Funk is a bottom heavy tighten up tribute to the 70's and the theme of combining and contrasting the old and the new continues through the great Return To Spanish Harlem, Descarga Cachao and Ten Cuidao' which is pure 1968 New York. Rediscovering The Big Apple, the albums title track and the vocal and instrumental versions of Merecumbe sound like they came from the coolest movie soundtrack you never heard before then it's back to the smoothest of Cha Cha grooves for the final track, The Other Side. This is Los Charly's best work to date and that is saying something.