Mi Luz Mayor

Mi Luz Mayor is the third album from Eddie Palmieri in two years. This late-career surge (at the age of 81) began with Sabiduría, a collection of Latin jazz-funk issued in 2017. Palmieri continued with Full Circle earlier in the summer of 2018; he revisited eight of his salsa-era classics with startling new arrangements. Mi Luz Mayor, released just five months afterward, is a salsa follow-up, but with a different guiding principle. These 11 tunes are a program of Puerto Rican grooves and Afro-Cuban cha chas, sons, rhumbas, and mambos from his past, with his late wife Iraida. "El Maestro" explains it best: "I would play this music in our home often, during the holidays and on special occasions. We would dance to this music....Music was the constant force that touched our hearts and would heal any wounds that life sent our way. Ultimately, these songs represent our love story."
Palmieri employs a large-scale salsa orchestra here. He recorded this in New York City with top-flight players who include his regular quartet -- bassist Luques Curtis, timbalero Camilo Molina, Roy Haynes on drums, and conguero Little Johnny Rivero. The stellar cast also includes (but is not limited to) saxophonists Ronnie Cuber and Craig Handy, trombonists Conrad Herwig and Jimmy Bosch, trumpeters Brian Lynch and Jonathan Powell, and vocalists Herman Olivera and Gilberto Santa Rosa. Guitarist Carlos Santana makes a guest appearance on the scorching "Mi Congo," the set's first single. Arrangements were handled by the pianist and his son, Eddie Palmieri II, with selected assistance from old friends Ray Santos and Jose Madera. While "Mi Congo" represents Palmieri's long-held interest in the fusion of Latin jazz and rock juxtaposed against a strident and sometimes dissonant horn chart, the rest is a spiritual celebration of Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban music. Check the joyous opener "Abarriba Cumbiaremos," a tune made famous by older brother Charlie Palmieri from a chart by René Hernández. Olivera's vocals -- backed by a responsorial chorus -- are riotous, locked into the rhythmic interplay between piano and drums with the saxophones and trombones riding high. The rhumba "Chica Ni Lambo," made immortal by the Tito Rodríguez Orchestra, is rendered a bit more slowly with interlocking horn sections, Palmieri's meaty montunos, and Santa Rosa's soulful, authoritative vocal. "Que Falta Tu Me Haces" is another Santa Rosa vehicle, a sultry bolero originally cut by Gilberto Monroig. Another romantic bolero is "Soñando con Puerto Rico" (originally by Bobby Capó) rendered beautifully in Olivera's glorious tenor. The kaleidoscopic horn chart sounds like Nelson Riddle wrote it for Tito Puente. The reading of Orlando Pena's "Tremendo Cumbán" is a midtempo Latin jazz groover that rivals the Machito version from the '40s. The set closer is a cover of "Sun Sun Babae" by Benny More, delivered with great passion by Santa Rosa. Mi Luz Mayor is utterly uplifting and unabashedly romantic, it is one of Palmieri's most spiritual outings, grounded in his ingenious and innovative relationship to expanded harmony and layered polyrhythms. There is something here to delight virtually all Latin jazz fans. ~ Thom Jurek