LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

180g LP
A comprehensive anthology of all the different music projects of outstanding peruvian flute and saxophon player Nilo Espinosa. On this compilation you can find most of his best and grooviest tracks from the 60s and 70s, playing with the Nil´s Jazz Ensemble, Bossa 70, Los Hilton´s, Nilo Espinosa & Los 007, or Nilo Espinosa y Su Orquesta. A total feast of tropical music, bossanova, boogaloo, latin soul, jazz funk, rumba, lounge, and even disco! Both the vinyl and the CD version come with extensive liner notes about this great artist. Tracing the sonorous tracks of musicians and record industries in rarely visited music-minded countries never ceases to be gratifying. It's a complicated task due to the lack of details and information, but also terribly appealing on account of the surprises one finds when trying. One such surprise is the work of the exquisite and utterly contemporary flautist and saxophonist, Nilo Espinosa. Beyond esthetic alibis, and several years past the commercial boom of an elegant kind of Lounge music, Nilo's recordings persevere for three reasons: attitude, quality and freshness. If, for him, the sixties were learning years, the seventies allowed him to develop his talent and consolidate his preference for upward moving rhythms... with a lot of groove. Because, with his work, Tropical, Bossa Nova, Boogaloo, Latin Soul, Jazz Funk, Rock, Rumba and Disco all fit in equally. It's a danceable music: hybrid and instantaneous. Although Nilo's career had a solid academic foundation, it was always linked to popular music. In 1959 he enrolled in the Conservatorio de Lima and in 1962 debuted with the Neptuno' s Orchestra, a night club located underneath a Drive-in movie screen located in the San Isidro district. At the same time, he was also studying arrangement and composition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston via long distance learning. Then, in 1963, along with Miguel Reyna (piano), Roberto Raffaeli (bass), and Cocho Arbe (drums), he joined the Astoria Jazz Club's house band. At that seminal moment it was a one of a kind locale in Lima, located near the Miraflores seafront, one of the more attractive areas to the capital's bohemians. They played there every week until 1965 when they broke up. He then began the search for his own style and formed his own band, Los Hilton's, becoming the group's musical director. The group's lineup consisted of Otto de Rojas on piano and organ, Jose 'Pepe' Hernández on double-bass, Roberto 'Tito' Cruz on drums, Charlie Palomares on percussion and Pedro Guajardo on guitar, as well as a female vocalist who sang backup on some of the songs. His large legacy of recordings also began at that time, and not only with his band, as he was also working as a studio musician for MAG and other labels in Lima, writing arrangements and participating in recordings and concerts alongside great talents such as Alex Acuña, Lolet Molina, Coco Lagos and Jaime Delgado Aparicio whom he also performed with on TV and in theater performances. In 1967 he recorded the LP Aquí vienen los Hilton's with Los Hilton's, and they also performed habitually in the Sky Room of the Hotel Crillón. Nilo later took a new direction in his career disbanding Los Hilton's with the intention of making a kind of music -ever under the influence of Jazz- that could serve to channel some of his restlessness at that time. He met Carmen Rosa at the El Virrey label offices, an Afro-Peruvian with a magnetic personality who could sing in Portuguese, English and Spanish and also had a great stage presence. He formed the group Bossa 70 with her, Roberto Raffaeli on bass and Roberto 'Tito' Cruz on drums. They recorded a four-song EP (Si você pensa / El gato / Las mariposas / Por amor a Ivy) and in 1970, celebrating the group's anniversary, a self-titled LP with collaboration from guest musicians such as guitarist Enrique 'Pico' Ego Aguirre -Shain's y Pax frontman, Victor Cuadros on piano, Manuel Marañón on percussion and Antonio Ginocchio on trumpet. At the end of that year Nilo traveled to Germany to perfect his studies at the Berlin Conservatory. Bossa 70 continued without him under the direction of Cocho Arbe, a friend from the Astoria Jazz Club days, until their definitive breakup in 1973. Nilo Espinosa stayed in Europe until 1974, "That's when everything really started for me... I traveled throughout all of Europe (except for Spain) with a quintet from Berlin. We played everything, I was on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean, Northern Africa, the Black Sea... all of Germany, Scandinavia... it was the University of Life". Upon his return to Peru he formed Nil's Jass Ensemble with Pancho Sáenz on trumpet, Miguel 'Chino' Figueroa on keyboard, Oscar Stagnaro on bass, Andres Silva on drums and percussion, Jorge Montero, Richie Zellon and Ramón Stagnaro on guitars. In 1976 they recorded their only album on MAG, leaving behind testimony of their chemistry, feeling and musical sense which all has remained for posterity. It had such an impact that the Nil's Big Band Jazz Ensemble was formed -a collective that practically every Jazz musician in Lima at the time played with, and that performed every week at clubs, theaters and concerts. That musical era was probably very special for Peruvian musicians. There was a fluid relationship among Jazz and Rock musicians. Nilo remembers that, "Jaime Delgado Aparicio began bringing Manuel Sanguinetti and Traffic Sound to his concerts as the opening band". There was a certain rapprochement between the two schools. Espinosa himself held many concerts, fusions of Jazz and Rock, with Gerardo Manuel (Shain's, Pepper Smelter, El Humo). It was also the era of Black Sugar, a band made up of Nilo's regular collaborators such as Miguel 'Coco' Salazar, Carlos 'Pacho' Mejía, Roberto Valdez, Luis Calixto and Jose 'Arrocito' Cruz. It was a coming and going of musicians who participated in innumerable parallel projects (El Ayllu, Kabul, Conjunto Frutas Verdes, Richie Zellon Blues Band, Elemental Music Group, Image, Dr. Wheat, Pepper, Zulú, Daniel 'Kiri' Escobar, Beto Villena, Rafael 'Pocho' Purizaga). Many took part -under the direction of Nilo Espinosa- in the band that, along with the Love Unlimited Orchestra, accompanied Barry White at a memorable performance at Lima's Hacienda Villa in 1977. These days Nilo is still active, performing at various venues in Lima and recording just like in the old days. Many years have passed, plenty since his first recordings. But as with some cases, looking back isn't synonymous with nostalgia but rather admiration because the first thing your body asks when listening to this anthology is to hit play again and repeat, one more... shaken, not stirred. Tracks : 01. Reflexiones (M. Figueroa) 02. El Gato (L. Schifrin) 03. Think (A. Franklin - T. White) 04. Las mariposas (D.R.) 05. Summer Love (D.R.) 06. Black Angel (D.R.) 07. Get Out Of My Way (R. de Silva) 08. Here Come The Hilton's (N. Espinosa) 09. Sherezade (N. Rimsky-Korsakov) 10. El bueno, elfeo y el malo (E. Morricone)11. Hard Work (J. Handy) 12. Looking For A Blues (D.R.) 13. Somos nada (D.R.) 14. Midnight And You (G. Page - B. Page) 15. Gotas de miel (D.R.) 16. Light My Fire (R. Krieger - J. Morrison) 17. Rock Your Baby (G. McCrae) 18. People Got To Be Free (F. Cavaliere - E. Brigati)