MUSIC

Pablo Mayor & Folklore Urbano, a NYC-based collective, is a fresh, sophisticated, and wildly fun addition to the burgeoning scene of new Colombian music. Pablo Mayor, an accomplished jazz pianist and composer, originally from Palmira, a town near Cali, Colombia, has turned his talents towards harnessing the joyful and complex rhythms of his country’s dance music, and the result is the band’s latest CD, Baile/Dance! The sound is fresh, featuring the vocals of Ronald Polo and a first-rate group of musicians. The rhythms come from the diverse regions of Colombia: the Caribbean and Pacific coasts and the Andes. The arrangements make the music wonderfully textured and danceable.

Folklore Urbano forges new territory by presenting the improvisatory elements of jazz while retaining the rhythm and flavor of a Colombian tradition that is mostly unknown today. In New York, the band has played at many prestigious venues including S.O.B’s, Central Park’s Harlem Meer Festival, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Festival Internacional de Arte de Cali in Cali, Colombia.The group’s first CD, Aviso, has been broadcast throughout South America, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Puerto Rico, Miami, and New York.