Ken Schroder's Latin Jazz Sextet

The distinction from other American colonies of the Dutch and British was first made only in the 19th century, using the differences in the predominance of Latin in the languages of these powers, possibly to keep the distance between Protestant and Catholic countries nice and sharp.

Latin American music came about with the introduction of slavery, where Africans were brought against their will to work the plantations and elsewhere in the new colonies, and even if they were deprived of their drums, they brought with them the rhythms central to their cultures.

From these dismal beginnings of colonialism, many wonderful fusions emerged, where African rhythm fused with European languages and cultures to create many styles of so-called Latin American music. With the advent of freedom and independence this music kept developing, and with modern technologies, like the radio and recordings, spread back around the world creating dance crazes, pop music movements, even Herb Alpert and the Tijuana brass.  Famous amongst these are the cha cha, the tango, the conga, salsa, samba, bossa nova, and merengue.

This band comprises: Ken Schroder (sax/clarinet), Aaron Entresz (guitar), Louise Denson (piano), Ben Brinkhoff (double bass), Liam O'Leary (drum kit), Pablo Cadenas (percussion).

To me, Latin music is like a mountain, or even a mountain range, like the Himalayas, and I must walk around it, looking for footholds for a jazz mountaineer to attempt to climb some of the peaks. Jazz Latin is a fusion; often those who wrote famous Latin tunes had no idea that jazz saxophonists would attempt to play their songs.  What the jazz player looks for is a great tune, and Brazilian tunes possess that quality in spades; powerful rhythms, music which already bears the stamp of fusion with jazz, like Bossa Nova with Joao Gilberto, Astrid Gilberto and Stan Getz, or Dizzy Gillespie with Cuban conga genius, Chano Pozo. Drummers like Art Blakey, Roy Haynes, Art Taylor all had African roots to their drumming, even if it was swing or bebop or even cool jazz.

We Got Rhythm draws on all these influences, and we even indulge in a little swing, and, above all, we'd like to share our enthusiasm for this music with you, the audience.”
Ken Schroder