03/11 Popcast: Latin Music Special

November 3, 2010, 1:03 pm — Updated: 10:19 am -->
Popcast: Latin Music Special
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

This week’s Popcast, The Times’s music podcast, takes a look at Latin music with Times critics and reporters on the short history of the Latin Grammys and the long and tangled history of the Cuban-American jazz exchange.

First Jon Pareles, the chief pop critic, previews next week’s Latin Grammy Awards, with some of his favorites in the major categories and a look at the influence of the show in its 11th year. This year’s ceremony will be held in Las Vegas on Nov. 11, and broadcast live by Univision.

And in a special roundtable discussion, Ben Ratliff, a pop and jazz critic, and Larry Rohter, a cultural reporter and longtime Latin America correspondent, talk with Ben Sisario about how jazz has benefited from Washington’s recent loosening of travel restrictions to and from Cuba. Wynton Marsalis’s Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra has played in Havana, and Chucho Valdés, an acclaimed Cuban pianist, recently played in New York for the first time in seven years. But there are still obstacles to open cultural exchange.

Jon Pareles previews next week’s Latin Grammys, and Times music writers discuss the history of Cuban-American jazz relations. (mp3)

“The problem is that there are laws in place that you can try to fudge, but you can only go to certain limits,” Mr. Rohter says in the conversation, excerpts of which can also be read here. “The issue of spending money in Cuba, and Cuban artists coming to the United States and earning money, they’re really sticklers on that. That puts a certain natural limit on how much can be done, until there’s legislative reform here, and until there is a loosening of the travel restrictions that the Cuban government imposes on its citizens.”

More Latin music from the Popcast interview and performance archives: Bebel Gilberto, Camilo Lara of Mexican Institute of Sound, Garotas Suecas.