New Regency Orchestra

Brainchild of Lex Blondin, Church of Sound and Total Refreshment Centre co-founder, New Regency Orchestra is an 18-piece Afro-Cuban big band inspired by 1950s New York. The band unites some of the London jazz and Latin scene’s best players, including Eliane Correa as bandleader – and it sounds like it. A particular favourite is salsa track ‘Labasta Llego’, with its vintage sound and groovy vocal melody and intense horn lines underpinned by timbales. Apart from ‘Papa Boco’, the rest of the 12 tracks are big instrumental numbers, each drawing on a different facet of the band’s Latin influences, including fresh spins on tunes by Tito Puente and René Hernandez among others. Lex Blondin lends his hand to ‘Mambo Rama (Lex Blondin Rework)’, which is built around a heavy horn-stab backbeat. The press notes state, ‘Our intention is to be both respectful to the innovators and inventors of this incredible music… but also to add something special from London, where the city’s new jazz scene connects with its Latin… influences.’ This intention definitely rings clear in the music, I loved hearing how this group of London-based musicians have created a sound that’s vintage and authentic, but equally innovative and ‘London’ in it’s sonority.