Larry Koonse- Guitar, Dean Taba-Bass, Maggie Herron-Piano and Vocals

04 - Salty Wine

EL ECO with Guillermo Nojechowicz is Re-Issuing “Two Worlds”

This is the first song on this disk

Led by drummer and composer Guillermo Nojechowicz and featuring Helio Alves, Kim Nazarian, Dino Govoni, Fernando Huergo, Claudio Roditi, Romero Lubambo, & Donny McCaslin, El Eco is re-issuing "Two Worlds." The disk features an intriguing mix of Brazilian/Argentinean music.  Guillermo in his writing fuses Brazilian beauty with the darker, more complex rhythms of Argentina and Uruguay, influencing the shape and sound of the Latin jazz scene in Boston.  

Guillermo composed the material for Two Worlds, immersed in the chacarera of Argentina, and the samba of Brazil.  One piece – Chacarera de Paloma – was dedicated to a friend who became one of the “desaparecidos,” or vanished ones, lost in Argentina’s Dirty War. During his solo, saxophonist Donny McCaslin captures the tune’s haunting atmosphere. Guillermo wrote "Samba de Maya," a bright up-beat Brazilian samba, for his daughter Maya. “La Bossa Nova de Claudio” was composed for his mentor master trumpeter Claudio Roditi who is a special guest on this CD.   

"Two Worlds" was inspired by Guillermo’s youth in Argentina and the experience of becoming an immigrant, starting life over in the US. The project featured a variety of musical styles, including candombe from Uruguay, an African-rooted rhythm from the Rio de la Plata.  Candombe is used most notably in "Uruguay," a tune Guillermo wrote as a tribute to the country where he spent many summers with his family.  

In his liner notes for “Two Worlds,” jazz journalist Fernando Gonzalez said, “If the results sound organic, lived-in, it is because they reflect a life experience that is not just bilingual but bicultural. This is music from a place with blurred boundaries: a place of memories, echoes, and startling newness."


"With moods both bright and dark, and melodies and rhythms from Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, 'Two Worlds' makes a sophisticated mix of sambas, tangos, and Afro-Cuban rhythms sound uncluttered and compelling. "						
--Bob Young, Boston Herald

"The high quotient of both jazz and exotic Latin American rhythms, performed with warmth and deep understanding, makes El Eco's CD Two Worlds uncommonly  attractive."  
-- Mark Holston, JAZZIZ


“This is true world music at its best.”					
--Ron Mason, Kansai Time Out / Japan

"Guillermo's tunes are fabulous and I love the performances on this disk. El Eco's CD is simply  fantastic!"                        
--Paquito D'Rivera
World-renowned musician

"...a persuasive package...warm and lustrous tones with plenty of space for the listener's thoughts...big bass, vibrant percussion, and a large dose of South American DNA mixed with the blues and bop that circulate in our air. The cultural complexity, following a long jazz tradition, enlivens this set. Nojechowicz plays with decrescendo nicely, making music that ebbs and flows like the body's rhythms....trumpeter Claudio Roditi and guitarist Romero Lubambo make cameos...it sure goes down sweetly..."                 				 
--Karl Stark, Philadelphia Inquirer

Guillermo has performed with Carly Simon, Claudio Roditi (Dizzy Gillespie), Jon Faddis, Kim Nazarian, Danilo Perez (Wayne Shorter), Airto Moreira, Luciana Souza, Romero Lubambo, Walter Vanderlei, and Pedro Aznar (Pat Metheny), among others. He teaches at the Berklee Five Week Summer Program and he has also taught at the New England Conservatory. In addition, he teaches at the Visual and Performing Arts Department, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where he has established a Percussion Program and World Jazz Ensemble. Guillermo has studied piano and composition with Charlie Banacos, Herb Pomeroy, and drums with Alan Dawson, Duduka DaFonseca, Gary Chaffee and Portinho in the US, and with Beatriz Tabares and Chiche Heger in Argentina.

www.elecomusic.com

Two World

Two Worlds

JAZZIZ Critics' Picks - Mark Holston (#1) Neil Tesser (#5) for EL ECO with Guillermo Nojechowicz "Puerto de Buenos Aires 1933"  

The band has performed at:
• Dominican Republic Jazz Festival featuring:
Marco Pignataro, Brian Lynch, Helio Alves, Kim Nazarian & Fernando Huergo
 • Buenos Aires Jazz Festival (Argentina)
 • Curacao Jazz Festival (Netherlands Antilles)
 • Blue Note (NYC)
 • Scullers (Boston)
 • Philadelphia Museum of Art
• NPR’s Jazz Set with host Dee Dee Bridgewater (broadcast by more than 100 radio stations across the US) 
• Telluride Jazz Celebration in Colorado with guest Airto Moreira. We shared the stage at Telluride with Herbie Hancock, Terence Blanchard and Nneenna Freelon.  



• EL ECO with drummer-composer-educator Guillermo Nojechowicz

A Brazilian Argentinean jazz ensemble based in Boston, New York City, and Oberlin, Ohio, EL ECO digs deep into straight-ahead jazz and bebop, punctuated by a deep respect for the complexity of Latin and Afro-Cuban rhythms, darkened by echoes of Piazzolla. 

Puerto de Buenos Aires 1933, their new CD just released by Zoho Music was inspired by a remnant of Guillermo’s family history, the passport that his grandmother carried when she fled Warsaw for Argentina in 1933 along with her small son. Crossing Europe by train, they left behind everything familiar to face the unknown in Buenos Aires – a trip that spared them from the Holocaust, when so many others in their community later perished.

The Latin jazz suite that chronicles their long uncertain journey is the centerpiece of Puerto de Buenos Aires 1993 – a record that jazz vocalist Luciana Souza has called “beautiful and important.”  ​​ 

A leader of Boston’s Latin jazz scene, El ECO received national acclaim in a broadcast performance on National Public Radio’s “Jazz Set” with host and Grammy Award-winning vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater. Performances have included the Curação International Jazz Festival in the Netherland Antilles, the Freihofer Jazz Festival in Saratoga Springs, the Telluride Jazz Celebration in Colorado, and the Buenos Aires Jazz Festival in Guillermo’s native Argentina.  Recently Guillermo was featured on NPR with host Marco Werman for “The World.”

Guillermo is also an international clinician and educator. He performed with his students and guest artist Joshua Redman through a program with Harvard University and with former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky at Google Headquarters in Cambridge. Traveling in 2012 and 2016 to the Panama Jazz Festival – where jazz pianist Danilo Perez is Artistic Director – he and his students performed and he taught master class workshops in Brazilian jazz.​

Two Worlds

EL ECO with Guillermo Nojechowicz

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