Balimaya Project
(Picture: Create Not Destroy)A Tuesday evening in deepest east London, and a grateful crowd is on its feet and dancing to a hepcat big band with a vibe straight out of the Nuyorican barrios. The tune, Tanga, a raw swirl of clashing horns and driving percussion, is the oldest in a repertoire inspired by New York’s mix of jazz and Latin music from the ‘40s to the ‘70s.
That is - the golden era of big bands: when Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker sat in with Afro-Cuban jazz dons Machito and Mario Bauza in ritzy NYC clubs like the Palladium. When sharp suits and sharper attitudes marked out the trombone-heavy salsa orchestras of the Fania Records label. When the collective trauma sparked by major social upheaval – a World War, a fiscal crisis – was healed, for the odd night at least, by live music intended for dancing, and delivered with a force that, even unamplified, blew everybody’s hair back.
