John Santos Lecture - African Spiritual Practices and Retentions in Latin Music

    Last year I had the opportunity to attend the incredible lecture series by John Santos called La Rumba No Es Como Ayer, a wonderful 7 part lecture series on rumba; history, styles, instrumentation, influences, etc, etc.

    Well it seems this year Mr. Santos will be continuing his participation with SFJazz by offering another interesting 6 part lecture series August 4-September 8 called African Spiritual Practices and Retentions in Latin Music. I found John's lectures to be very high quality, entertaining and educational . An added bonus is he permits audio recording for future reference. I'm certainly planning on attending this upcoming lecture series. If you happen to live in the area, or are going to be visiting, why not take in a lecture if time permits. It is bound to be fascinating. Highly recommended.

SFJAZZ, the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival and The Museum of the African Diaspora present a unique and distinct series presented by Bay Area lecturer, band-leader, percussionist and educator, John Santos.

Music is the richest source of African culture in the Americas. And musical practices throughout Latin America have preserved a wealth of African spiritual content. This six-part series will reveal several elements of African spiritual origin that form the basis of popular Latin music and Latin jazz, including instrumentation, rhythm, melody, lyrics, mythology, oral history and language. During the series, participants will listen to and analyze a broad cross-section of recorded examples from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Republica Dominicana/Haiti, the United States and Brazil that span the last century.