New Regency Orchestra Returns To La Linea London’s Latin Music Festival
La Linea will feature artists from across the eclectic and thriving Latin music scene in venues across the UK capital from 21 April to 2 May.
London’s Latin Music Festival — La Linea — will return this spring featuring New Regency Orchestra (NRO), a twenty-piece big band, as its festival finale program on 2 May at Hackney’s Earth Hall.
NRO takes its inspiration from New York’s melding of Jazz and Latin from the 50s to the 70s, when the sound of jazz luminaries Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker collided with the Cuban roots of Chano Pozo and Machito.
Today, the big band is on a mission to take the music of the Afro Cuban musical saints and reinvent it through a London filter. This is hard-blowing music for hard times featuring a storming twelve-piece horn and eight-piece rhythm sections. Expect some special surprises for La Linea.
Mirroring the effervescence of that scene, New Regency Orchestra adds a contemporary London spin with the City’s best Latin Music and Jazz talent driving each other to greater heights.
Curated by Lex Blondin (Total Refreshment Centre / Church of Sound) the band’s core repertoire features pillars of the genre from Machito, Tito Puente, and Chico O’Farrill as well as more obscure gems recovered by deep-mining. New arrangements have been made by pianist/composer Eliane Correa and the Catford Quincy Jones, Nathaniel Cross, is putting down his trombone to conduct the roaring big band.
The musical director is master percussionist and Afro-Cuban don, Adé Egun Crispin Robinson, and the band’s evolving line-up is a who’s who of the what’s what in London’s Jazz and Latin scenes from Tamar Osborn on saxophone to Yelfris Valdés on trumpet.
Featuring a program largely headlined by women, La Linea 2022 marks the return of international artists after more than two years alongside shows from an array of acts from the UK’s burgeoning Latin music scene.
Como No and La Linea have always been active in the Latin music scene. The festival is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
The festival has pre-launched multi-Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Bebel Gilberto’s show on 27 March, who debuted work from her highly acclaimed 2020 album Agora. Carwyn Ellis & Rio 18 opened Bebel’s show. Their Welsh language take on Brazilian music epitomizes the La Linea bridge between the UK and Latin America.
Tickets are on sale now and available from the event’s official website.
Candela Records Night:
Angelo Flow, Clara Hurtado and Guala, Rene Alvarez and his Afro-Cuban Funk Project
Thursday 21 April – The Jazz Cafe
Maykel Blanco y su Salsa Mayor + Javier La Rosa + Rich Fallon + Dr Jim
Friday 22 April – Electric Brixton
Lina_ Raül Refree + support Francisco Sales
Saturday 23 April – Union Chapel
Roberto Fonseca
Sunday 24 April – The Jazz Cafe
Luzmira Zerpa
Sunday 24 April – Café Oto
“He [Bebel’s father] taught me to be a perfectionist. But my mother taught me how to lose it. And you can hear it in my music today, I think.”
— Bebel Gilberto, American Brazilian singer.
Ana Tijoux + support Fedzilla + DJ Cal Jader
Tuesday 26 April – The Jazz Cafe
Sara Correia + support Babesa Cubana
Thursday 28 April – Union Chapel
Mambo Man
Thursday 28 April – Ritzy Cinema – film premiere
Mariachi Las Adelitas UK
Friday 29 April – Rich Mix
¡Cumbia, Mi Amor! ft Malphino & special guests
Saturday 30 April – Well Seasoned Peckham
New Regency Orchestra
Monday 2 May – Earth Hall
