This Saturday at Jimmy Mak’s, vocalist Jessie Marquez and guitarist Mike Denny will come up from Eugene to play a concert promoting their new CD: Get the Feeling.
Marquez’s music focuses on a Cuban-American connection in what is known as ‘filin’ music. Here’s what Marquez’s website says about the genre:
Playing on the English word “feeling,” Cubans have aptly named this emotional genre. An offshoot of bolero, filin draws from American jazz, Brazilian bossa nova, and the Cuban people’s familiarity with the many shades of love and longing.
Marquez is not just another American singer with a taste for Latin music. She actually travels to Cuba to perform and learn about the music. In fact, in 2003, members of the Afro-Cuban All-Stars heard her sing in Havana, and offered to arrange and record her first CD, Sana Locura.
“Far from the hotbeds of Latin music, singer and composer Jessie Márquez has carved out a niche for herself in the Northwest. She returned to Cuba to record an album of tropical Latin classics and originals with some of Havana’s top musicians, and adapted effortlessly to the Cuban style with a commanding vocal presence, highlighted by a sincere, evocative delivery with a sensuous edge.” — Hispanic Magazine
Music at Jimmy Mak’s starts at 8 PM. For this show, there is a $10 cover.
