It's harvest time, and once again I have a ton of new music to share with you out there in the RP universe. We'll start with the current top new release at KCRW, St Germain's eponymous new album. Our favorite kiwi band, Fat Freddy's Drop, has a great new album called Bays. Bronx-born-bred-and-raised bass player Carlos Henriquez is next, laying down some mean Latin jazz. We follow it with a big production, featuring many pop, jazz, and operatic artists performing music based on African-American poet Langston Hughes' 1961 work "Ask Your Mama."
A great new set of Erroll Garner's legendary 1955 performance in Carmel, Calif., is next. The mood becomes more meditative on the next two tracks: Italian superstar Ludovico Einaudi's new album Elements has shot to the top of the European classical charts, and Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan follows, with Armenian sacred hymns that date all the way back to 500 A.D.
I picked up the the new one by fado star Mariza when I visited in Paris on a recent trip -- the album is not out here in the U.S. yet! We bring it back home next with Los Angeles' favorite Cambodian rock band, Dengue Fever. We close with a hot rumba number from Senegal's Dieuf-Dieul de Thies, a band that reached fame in Dakar over thirty years ago, broke up, and now is back delivering some great Afro-Latin dance grooves.