Hemispheres to Collide!! - Live on StarMedia.com
alison de grassi
CONTACT: ALISON de GRASSI
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
EMAIL: in...@troporecords.com
tatamonk !
HEMISPHERES TO COLLIDE
LIVE ON STARMEDIA.COM
REDWOOD VALLEY, California - tatamonk, the critically acclaimed
Andean jazz sextet featuring Chilean
multi-instrumentalist Quique Cruz (kee'kay) and North American guitarist
Alex de Grassi, appears in a live webcast
from the San Francisco studios of StarMedia.com at 7 p.m (EST) on Wednesday,
December 20, 2000. Go to
http://mbp.starmedia.com/index2.html to view the webcast. Joining de
Grassi and Cruz in the live webcast are Michael
Bluestein on piano, Jon Evans on double bass, Dan Foltz on drums, and
special guest Fernando Torres on bombo and
sikus.
StarMedia is the leading portal for the
Latin American on-line community. Previous StarMedia interviews and
concert webcasts have featured Carlos Santana, Los Lobos, Christine
Aguilera and now . . . tatamonk! Excerpts and
interviews from the live webcast will be available on demand one week
after the broadcast on the multimedia page at
http://mbp.starmedia.com/index2.html.
The group's debut release
on Tropo Records, tatamonk, has been receiving rave reviews from world,
Latin and jazz
media. Chuy Varela, in the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay Express,
says "This hauntingly beautiful album is a
landmark in the melding of acoustic jazz with the instrumental indigenous
flavors of the Andes." The unique character
of this music is achieved by overlaying a jazz and blues feel on to
various South American rhythms, such as saya,
huayño, and milonga. tatamonk unites the folk traditions of
Andean nations with contemporary jazz improvisation.
Horacio Salinas, Music Director of Inti-Illimani "Quique Cruz and Alex
de Grassi have given themselves to this noble
adventure from apparently different worlds. Nonetheless what they have
in common is the testimony and the
hand-print of the human spirit, at times with its pain, and at times
with its euphoria."
Independent label, Tropo Records, was launched in 1998
by de Grassi with the release of his
GRAMMY-nominated solo guitar recording, The Water Garden. The internationally
renowned instrumentalist has
enjoyed a long career recording for such diverse labels as Windham
Hill, RCA Novus, EarthBeat! and Narada Jazz.
Cruz is considered a virtuoso of such instruments as the diminutive
ten-stringed charango as well as the kena, an
indigenous flute. In addition to founding Grupo Raíz, he has
also toured and recorded with Jackson Browne, and
Strunz and Farah.
Tropo Records
P.O. Box 772
Redwood Valley, CA 95470
http://www.troporecords.com