NICKI DENNER CON JULIAN LLANOS - EL MEDICO DE COQUI (2007)
El Médico de Coquí pairs pianist Nicki Denner with the exquisite singing of Julian Llanos (who recorded with Latin music legend Arsenio Rodriguez) featuring traditional Latin love songs with a hint of Latin jazz
Nicki Denner- piano
Julian Llanos- vocals
Rolando Morales-Matos- percussion, coro
Jennifer Vincent- bass
Mark Miller- trombone
Anton Denner- woodwinds
Shai Hayo- coro, percussion
Willie Martinez- coro
full tracks can be heard on Vinilemania's Radio Channels
review by Peter Watrous - courtesy www.descarga.com
Julian Llanos is a singer from Puerto Rico who had the good fortune to have sung with Arsenio Rodriquez. He’s been brought to this microphone by the pianist Nicki Denner, who had the idea of making a bolero recording with him; finally she decided to do ballads and some uptempo material, which is good because Llanos can sing boleros, but he’s great at faster material also. Not that anything takes off here; it’s beautifully controlled music, with Denner’s exquisite touch and sense of tempo framing the roughness of Llanos’ singing; her solos, full of surprises, make you listen. The rest of the band keeps up, with Rolando Morales-Matos and Shai Hayo laying down the percussion, Jennifer Vincent on bass and Anton Denner playing the horn section, joined by Mark Miller on trombone. This stuff goes down really easily, and it’s easy to go back to. Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous, 2007-12-04)
