French guitarist Louis Winsberg melds flamenco music with a multicultural, genre-hopping attitude on Jaleo, a fine release that might spark notions of guitarist Pat Metheny's '80s-era Brazilian stylizations. The album title refers to the flamenco term for, "cry of joy, energy, life, and music." Winsberg performs with flamenco guitarist Jean-Baptiste Marino alongside percussionists, vocalists, and artists performing a variety of instruments on selected tracks. As the leader of this date, he uses an assortment of guitars to coincide with highlights such as Isabel Pelaez's dance solo on the second part of the suite titled "Balkann Sevillan," which is a multipart movement, complete with vibes, handclaps, vocals, and guitars performing impossibly fast unison lines drawing from the flamenco vernacular. A contemporary framework subsidizes Winsberg's mastermind, brimming with asymmetrical injections of Latin, jazz, and East Indian underpinnings. More importantly, this release is coated with a sense of jubilant expressionism to complement the respected musicians' superior technical gifts.
© Glenn Astarita /TiVo