Joaquín Betancourt and his Joven Jazz Band and his new album Settling Debts

December 21, 2022

With Cuban popular music there are hundreds of debts, assures maestro Joaquín Betancourt, but you alone cannot settle them all. That is why, he affirms, he hopes that other groups will join him and his Joven Jazz Band in this purpose, who have just released the album Settling Debts, with the Unicornio label of Abdala Productions, in collaboration with the National Center for Popular Music.

This third album release approaches danceable popular music through an excellent musical selection made by the National Music Prize winner himself, and covers emblematic themes of the genre alongside distinguished composers such as Miguel A. Rapsal, Rolando Vergara, Juan Formell, Adalberto Álvarez, Chucho Valdés, Arturo Cleyton, Enrique Bonne and Elio Revé. Additionally, as a distinctive feature, each track includes a guest artist.

Regarding this, in the liner notes maestro Betancourt notes: "We managed to begin to make the desired sonic journey, from the past dressed in the clothes of the present, and from the present with the soul of the past… The architecture of rhythm, the harmonic turns, the endless dialogues between the instrumental sections, the mischief of the refrains, provoked by the choruses and the thunderous and brilliant interpretations of the solo singers, leave the stage prepared to imagine where yesterday really begins and where today concludes…".