801 Latino
Live Album - April 2001
Recorded in Newark 1999
Phil Manzanera's Sleeve notes:-
The idea for '801 Latino came about when I was clearing out a room at home in July 1999 and came across some photos of the last time I played in Havana in 1997. I was there at the invitation of one of Cuba's most famous singers, Augusto Enriquez. We had played together at a concert in the National Auditorium just off Revolution Square. I had recorded the Manzanera/Moncada album when he was the lead singer in the Group Moncada at the Karl Marx Theatre on Havana... it reminded me that I should reciprocate and invite him to England and play a concert. Also that summer, I had seen a 19 year old pianist in a Channel 4 documentary called 'Tuning With The Enemy' and to my surprise at The Royal Festival Hall on the same night as La Vija Trova Santiaguera, playing one of his own compositions - he was brilliant. I thought let's get some young Cubans over and that's how the '801 Latino' project evolved. The original 1976 801 concept of bringing together different musicians from a wide spectrum, for a short time, recording them in a live concert, still seemed valid some 25 years later. This time I wanted to see if 801 would work with Latin players. Aldo, the Cuban prodigy suggested 20 year old Mosca, top drummer with Omar Portuando, Augusto recomended Yamile, a young hot, female singer and I completed the band with my Columbian friend and ex-Eurythmics bassist Cucho Merchan. During rehearsals there was a lot of creativly charged Latin passion and mucho mucho talking in rehearsals. I don't know how we manged to get it together in such a short space of time but somehow from the chaos, this selection of Latin music emerged. It spans the '40s to the '90s and in many ways is a snapshot of the music that has accompanied my musical journey, starting in Havana in 1957.