Cumbancha is pleased to announce that the late Andy Palacio´s 2007 master piece Wátina has been included in The Observer Music Monthy's list of the "Top 50 Albums of the Decade". The list puts Palacio alongside artists such as Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Amy Winehouse, Eminem, Johnny Cash and Tom Waits. The Observer writes “Conceived as a tribute to the threatened culture of the Garifuna people of the Caribbean, the late Palacio's masterpiece beguiled everyone who came across it.”

The Andy Palacio Foundation has been officially launched. Love news spoke with Raphael Martinez who told us how the Foundation came about and what are its objectives.

Raphael Martinez; Co-Founder of the Foundation

"In April of this year a group of family and friends we got together and we wanted to continue the legacy of Andy Palacio, this national hero as referred to by our Prime Minister in his speech and I am sure we all agree that he deserves no less; that is to be honored in this regard. With this in mind we got together and we decided to form this Andy Palacio Foundation and the objectives are to preserve and promote the legacy of Andy Palacio, Belize's great music icon, cultural ambassador and UNESCO artist for peace, also to establish an Andy Palacio Museum in his native village of Barranco, his home, Barranco and also to establish the Andy Palacio Trust Fund. We also want to use this forum to spread information and knowledge about the life and work of Andy Palacio, to promote music and to assist with its expansion and development through training, performances, production, to publish and produce catalogues, special editions, postcards, posters, prints, t-shirts, written works by creative persons, musical and other electronic materials, and to facilitate interaction amongst creative persons and institutions and other authorities within this area. We have quite a few activities that will be coming up as well including the launching of a book on the life of Andy Palacio and the Image Factory is behind this initiative., Getting back to the group of family and friends who decided to start up the Andy Palacio Fund just to name a few, myself, Marion Cayetano, Ivan Duran, Loretta Garcia Palacio, Vincent Palacio, Jeremy Enriquez, Uani Palacio, Sherlette Slusher, Nita Palacio, Raquel Battle, Rozelle Flores, Joseph Palacio, Yasser Musa, Darius Avila, Gilvano Swasey and Harold Arzu. These are the family and friends who decided to come together to form this Andy Palacio Foundation to actually carry on the legacy of our great musical icon and national hero, Andy Palacio."

Raphael Martinez; Co-Founder of the Foundation

"It will be family and friends actually sharing their experiences with Andy Palacio as well as some entertainment and some refreshments as we look back at what paved the way to this initiative with the Andy Palacio Foundation. We will be showcasing quite a few things tomorrow. I will not be letting the cat out of the bag, I want as many people to come and view for themselves, be entertained as well as share in the life and times of this icon, Andy Palacio so just be there and I will assure you that you will leave from there encouraged in his footsteps."

Youssou N'Dour to Tour and Record with
Garifuna Musician Aurelio Martinez as Part of the
Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative

Prestigious grant unites African music legend with rising
Honduran star for an exciting year of artistic collaboration

JUNE 2008 - With the help of luxury watch company Rolex, Afropop legend Youssou N'Dour and the rising Garifuna music star and Cumbancha/Stonetree recording artist Aurelio Martinez will be working closely together over the next year in an inspiring musical reunion between Africa and the Americas. The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative pairs highly talented young artists from around the world with great masters in film, visual arts, theater, dance, and music for a year of creative collaboration in a one on one mentoring relationship. West African superstar N'Dour, chosen by Rolex to be this year's music mentor, personally selected Martinez to be his protégé, inviting the Honduran musician to tour and record throughout the coming year.

Every two years, Rolex invites masters in dance, film, literature, music, theatre and the visual arts to provide individual guidance to gifted young artists. In six disciplines, a senior artist (the mentor) agrees to foster and counsel a young artist (the protégé) for one year. Previous mentors have included Martin Scorsese, Wole Soyinka, Julie Taymor, Pinchas Zukerman, Toni Morrison and other highly recognized figures in the arts.

Martinez is a Honduran born musician who is acclaimed as a central figure in the recent resurgence of the music of the Garifuna, an Afro-Amerindian community whose culturally threatened population lives primarily along the Caribbean coasts of Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.  His debut album Garifuna Soul received critical acclaim worldwide and he is a member of the Garifuna Collective, a multi-generational group of Garifuna musicians whose work with the late Andy Palacio on the Cumbancha/Stonetree album Wátina is now legendary in world music circles. Currently, Martinez is fronting the Andy Palacio Tribute Tour, promising to carry the torch for Garifuna culture after Palacio's tragic and untimely death in January 2008. Martinez is the first member of his local Garifuna community to be elected as a representative to the Honduran National Congress, where he is a staunch advocate for the nation's minority populations.

The collaboration fulfills a life long goal of Martinez to reconnect Garifuna music with its African roots. "There is so much I would like to learn from Youssou N'Dour and from Senegal's musical culture," he says. "It is my dream to reconnect Garifuna music with our ancestral homeland." N'Dour also extended praise to his protégé remarking, "The man has talent. I told him that you may be here to learn something, but I tell you, I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot from you!"

The two artists plan to tour together in Europe this year and collaborate on new music in N'Dour's recording studio in Dakar. Producer Ivan Duran has already begun work on Martinez's next album, which will be released in 2009 on Cumbancha/Stonetree.

The Andy Palacio Tribute Tour featuring Aurelio Martinez, Umalali and the Garifuna Collective will be taking place in Europe this summer. For current tour dates, visit www.cumbancha.com.

For press materials please contact:
Simeon Chapin at 802.425.2118 or via email at simeon@cumbancha.com

For more information on the Rolex Mentor Protégé Arts Initiative, visit:
www.rolexmentorprotege.com

If you have not already seen it, the music video for "Nibari" has been posted on YouTube and embedded directly on the Umalali MySpace page. Check it out and enjoy!

The Andy Palacio Tribute Tour finished it's North American run on a high note last week with a free concert to an enthusiastic audience at Lisner Auditorium in Washington DC. The tour was a celebration of the life and work of Andy Palacio, a tireless advocate for the music, language and culture of his Garifuna people, an Afro-Amerindian culture based in Central America. Palacio, who was experiencing a wave of critical acclaim for his 2007 album Wátina, died suddenly on January 19, 2008.

The tour featured members of the all-star, multi-generational Garifuna Collective, as well as singers from Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project along with special guests Aurelio Martinez, Lloyd Augustine and Paul Nabor. Throughout the tour, concert-goers recognized the significance of Andy's work and experienced the strong foundation he set for Garifuna music on the world stage. The Tribute Tour continues in Europe this July with dates in Spain, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria.

Reviews of the tour have been unanimous in their praise. "The joyousness and spirit of community was palpable and it's hard to imagine that Palacio would have wanted it to be any other way," wrote Tom Pryor of National Geographic Music in his piece on the tour's opening date at Symphony Space in New York City. Brent Hallenback of the Burlington Free Press wrote of his deep sadness in the loss of Andy Palacio, however when the band came to the Burlington, Vermont nightclub Higher Ground, "riding the wave of Andy Palacio's music, joy crushed sadness."

Read Tom Pryor's review

Read Brent Hallenback's review

The Garifuna Collective and Umalali will be back in the states for a series of west coast performances beginning with Grand Performances in Los Angeles on August 29th. For regular news and current tour dates, visit www.cumbancha.com

Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project Featured on the National Public Radio Program "Day to Day"

March 24, 2008 – The nationally syndicated news and information program "Day to Day" profiled the new Cumbancha release, Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project on their show on March 24th. Reviewer David Was discussed the fascinating history of the Garifuna people and this monumental recording project which was over ten years in the making. Was compares the emotionally stirring voice of Umalali singer Silvia Blanco with French legend Edith Piaf, and he states "Garifuna culture may be be endangered, but the Women's Project creates a legacy that will endure."

The full piece can be read and heard at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88960540

Heard on over 100 NPR stations around the US, "Day to Day" represents major media exposure for this new album, which was released by Cumbancha on March 18th. Members of Umalali are touring the US in April as part of the Andy Palacio Tribute Tour. For more information on the album and the tour, visit http://www.cumbancha.com.

The new Cumbancha release, Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project, has already reached the top spot on the Canadian Campus Radio charts and 7 on the CMJ New World Chart in just its second week of airplay. Released on March 18th, Umalali has already been featured in the New York Times, Billboard, and NPR's Day to Day, and with a major national tour coming up in April and May, the album looks poised to achieve similar acclaim as Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective's groundbreaking album Wátina.

The praise is not limited to the US and Canada. The UK publication Songlines gave the The Garifuna Women's Project a five star review in their current issue, raving, "It is a beautiful mix of African rhythms, choral singing, and hypnotic, melancholic melodies that will leave you gasping for air, with a mood that will haunt you long after every listen. A unique, deeply moving, unforgettable album."

None other than Andrew Fenstermaker himself weighed in on the Fensepost review of Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project. In the piece Fense (as he is known to readers) kept coming back to the intriguing and apt compairson of the women's vocal style to that of the late great Nina Simone. With the well known cultural exchange between the Caribbean and Jazz traditions, Fense's prose is not a far stretch by any means. Read the whole review here.

NYT music critic Jon Pareles reviewed Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project yesterday. In a playlist themed by the "Soft and Tough", a smiling Sophia Blanco of Umalali was featured along side other photographs of Ghostland Observatory and Dan Bejar of the New Pornographers. The full text of the Umalali review is copied below.

Umalali

West African slaves who survived a 17th-century shipwreck begat the Afro-Caribbean culture of the Garifuna, who have held onto their language and music in coastal Belize, Honduras and Guatemala. The death in January of Andy Palacio, who galvanized a revival of Garifuna culture, has not ended Garifuna outreach. "Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project" (Cumbancha) had been in the works since 1997. Umalali means voice; Ivan Duran, Mr. Palacio's producer, gathered performances of Garifuna women and gradually built modern studio productions around them, using some musicians from Mr. Palacio's Garifuna Collective (with whom they will be performing on tour). The nonpurist result is world-music fusion, linking the Central American parranda and punta to African and Latin pop, flamenco, even electric blues. Yet the studio hybrids are largely compatible with the traditional styles, and the women's voices — particularly the brusque Chela Torres, the pungent Sofia Blanco and the equally biting,
higher-voiced Silvia Blanco, her daughter — defy any artifice.

UK World Music magazine Songlines has chosen "Hattie" from the upcoming release Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project for their April "Top of the World" feature CD. "Hattie" tells the story of the 1961 hurricane by the same name and the destruction it brought to the Belezian coast.