DROP COLLECTIVE
LAGRIMAS NEGRAS (BRIXTON RECORDS)
Personal revision of the well-known bolero, in which Drop Collective, the band from Barcelona fuses with their usual ska-jazz mastery, sounds of the two Antillean islands in a version that will surely become a classic.
After their album "Come Shine" (2021, Brixton Records) DROP COLLECTIVE dares to revisit the immortal bolero, composed by the Cuban Miguel Matamoros, of which there have been so many versions.
Although the band prefers to record their own-penned songs, this is an arrangement that the band is very fond of and is part of their live repertoire, so they couldn't resist.
In October 2018 DROP COLLECTIVE were invited to perform at the 50th anniversary of the BCN Jazz Fest which paid tribute to Bebo Valdés and, at the same time, they were given an ambitious task: to do a version of "Lágrimas Negras" inspired by the one made by the Cuban pianist himself.
Daniel Ferruz, the band's keyboardist, took on the challenge of making the arrangement with the initial difficulty of the personality that Valdés' version already has.
He confesses that he was afraid to change things, but finally he decided to give it a roots reggae approach, but with more rocker spaces.
He kept the sax solo and lyrics intact, and introduced a novel reharmonization at the end.
The result is spectacular, the band from Barcelona fuses with their usual ska-jazz mastery, sounds of the two Antillean islands in a version that will surely become a classic.
The recording was made at La Panchita Studio (Barcelona) and the B-side includes a dub version of the song by the dub wizard Chalart 58.