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A few fans may find Latin roots-pop pioneer Lila Downs' return to old-fashioned, romantic ranchera music to be a retrograde move, but her commanding presence and the astonishing skill and economy with which she embellishes these old-school Mexican ballads with modern rock, electronica and even a tasteful dash of hip-hop will blow your mind, if you give it a close listen. Similarly, she weaves in the rich rhythms of Cuban son and Central American cumbia, reconciling and uniting several strands of Latin American popular music. The repertoire blends striking originals with classics from Jose Alfredo Jimenez, while Downs' dark, husky vocals give more than a mild nod towards the great Mexican diva, Lola Beltran, while Tex-Mex accordionist Flaco Jimenez anchors the album in a solid border vibe. You have to be willing to get into the style (and not everyone is, including plenty of folks who listen to other kinds of Latin American music...) But if you give it a chance, this is a pretty cool album, particularly how it points the way to a canny revitalization and modernization of one of the hemisphere's liveliest and most musically conservative genres. Oh, and Downs' old fans will not be disappointed: she's as authoritative, innovative and charismatic here as on anything she's done.

Can Blacks Play Klezmer? Authenticity in American Ethnic Musical Expression   David Borgo   Sonneck Society for American Music Bulletin vol. XXIV no.2 (Summer 1998)

Highway 61 Revisited: The Tangled Roots of American Jazz, Blues, Rock & Country Music

Gonzalo Rubalcaba (born May 27, 1963 in Havana,Cuba) is a jazz pianist. A prolific virtuoso and composer, he fuses Cuban and American influences into a powerful and innovative hybrid.

List of one listener's favorite congueros (conga drummers) from Cuban, Puerto Rican, and other Caribbean / Latin-American cultures.

Wang Fei 王菲 MA; Emily (active) San Francisco Bay Area, CA. A young qin player (taught by Li Xiangting) based in the United States, founding director of North American Guqin Association.

American qin player/scholar John Thompson advocates for both silk + nylon-wrapped metal strings for different styles of qin music (much like classical (nylon-string) and steel-string guitar music).

Of the Armenian diaspora, Arto Tuncboyaciyan grew up outside Istanbul. His music celebrates Armenian sorrow + loneliness, also in African-American jazz and blues; it's melancholic, joyous, loving, consoling...

Latin American Music Review - University of Texas Press

Cultural Context for Djembé Rhythms