(Brick’s Picks, LA Weekly, 2010

They didn’t pop out of an egg or anything so you may not have noticed that the Spanish Harlem Orchestra won a Grammy this year in the Tropical category for their magnificent Viva La Tradicion!  They sing in Spanish, you see, and the music is rhythmically complex and the Grammy people figures that scares the bejesus out of everybody so none of it got on television. Gotta be careful these days, ya know. Even a band as good as the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, with Oscar Hernandez and all those killer musicians putting on one of the best live shows in the land, and who celebrate a music that’s been around a couple generations now…. well an act like that might just scare the bejesus out of people. They’ll change channels or stop buying records or join the Tea Party or toilet paper Neil Portnow‘s house. So the Spanish Harlem Orchestra was robbed of the publicity it deserved, and this is probably the first time you’ve even heard that they’re at the Shannon Performing Arts Center at Whittier College this Friday. That’s not far, people, just off the 605. This’ll be a helluva show, because these guys will rock your ass off in that fine old New York City Cuban style, and we have no idea when they’ll be out here again. Ultra-highly recommended.