Aguabella Latin Jazz Band are flamekeepers

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Credit saddleback.edu

Aguabella Latin Jazz Band in concert at Saddleback College

While we love to feature the all-time greats of music on WEMU, we also look for deserving unknown ensembles, such as The Aguabella Latin Jazz Band which received their CD premiere for “Baker: Gateway To Death Valley”  this morning.  We had actually played many of these musicians before when they were in the band led by the late, great conga player, Francisco Aguabella.  Today they keep Aguabella’s legacy alive.  Now you know how they found their beautiful name. 

Based around Pasadena, California, Aguabella features some of the west coast’s finest contemporary Latin jazz players under the direction of saxophonist Benn Clatworthy.    Clatworthy’s arrangements take full advantage of the harmonies between bright trumpet, deep saxophone and slippery trombone licks.  Percussionists Christian Moraga and Jorge Carbonell provide the proper musical punctuation marks for Clatworthy’s challenging melodies.  We’ll be providing Aguabella on the WEMU playlist for a while.  Enjoy!