The Best of 2007 Awards and the New Year have been center stage for a while, but I wanted to make sure that I returned to our current Spotlight artist, Layla Angulo. She brings a lively energy and serious musicality to Live At The Triple Door, making it an exciting listen. As I return to this album, I’ve come to increasingly appreciate Angulo’s compositions – she’s got a creative vision for horn writing in Latin music that intrigues me. She also displays a vested interest in Afro-Peruvian rhythms, a current interest of mine. Her performance reveals depth in both jazz and Latin idioms, allowing her to make a strong statement.

For more information on Layla Angulo, you can visit her website. If you’d like to hear some tracks from Live At The Triple Door, go to Layla Angulo’s MySpace page. If you’d like to purchase the CD, go here.

I’ve copied Angulo’s bio from her website so that LJC readers could learn a little more about her background. Enjoy!
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Born in Louisiana to parents of Greek and Irish descent, raised between Boston, Los Angeles, Hawaii and Seattle, Layla Angulo began playing the piano at age five, the saxophone at age ten, and was performing in jazz clubs by the time she was fourteen.

Growing up, Layla was introduced to a wide variety of music. Her grandfather played the upright bass and was a big influence on why she began playing music. Both of her parents are artists and each have a great respect and love for all music. Her mother taught her how to dance and they listened to everything from traditional Greek music to jazz. While spending the summers with her father in Boston, Layla heard music ranging from Mexican Rancheros and salsa to classical and jazz. Her father frequently sat with her and, as an exercise, asked her to analyze the emotions happening inside the music they listened to.

Layla really fell in love with jazz in Boston and at the same time grew up surrounded by a huge Latino population in her community. Early in her high school years she was introduced to Charlie Parker and has been infatuated by the be-bop icon ever since. After high school she continued her studies at Cornish College of the Arts, learning from and performing with Hadley Caliman (Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard, Mongo Santamaria) and with Julian Priester (Herbie Hancock, Duke Ellington, Max Roach). Layla’s biggest influences have been Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley, Stan Getz and, Paquito D’Rivera.

After college she moved to Spain where she played and performed with Spanish and European musicians. She came to appreciate and admire the many styles and influences in the beautiful Galicia region, from Celtic and Moorish to African and Middle Eastern. Layla came away from that experience with an unquenchable desire to make her own music. In furthering her musical development, Layla became enamored of the giants in arrangement and composition such as Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente and “Machito,” to name a few.

Returning from Europe, Layla was moved by what she heard in Afro-Peruvian music. Her study of composers such as Chabuca Granda, and Susana Baca led to her to writing music that mixed jazz with Afro-Peruvian rhythms. After the release of her first CD, Layla expanded her interests in World rhythms and began a study of the complex rhythms of her Greek ancestry as well as experiments in mixing World rhythms and jazz.

Layla has performed as a special guest with 2005 Grammy Award Nominee Paoli Mejias. She has also performed with George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars, George Clinton Jr., and the Joe Santiago’s Salsa All Stars, including Giovanni Hidalgo and many others. She toured in Sicily where she performed sold-out concerts with some of Italy’s finest jazz musicians. In 2005, the song La Rumbera was Semi-Finalist in the world-famous International Songwriting Competition (ICS) and in 2006 La Rumbera received an Honorable Mention in the ISC. Layla not only composes for herself and group, but also has written numerous songs and albums for other artists.

With the release of two Latin Jazz CDs, and an intensely loyal and growing fan base, Layla and her band create a thrilling musical experience wherever they perform whether it is a quintet or her large 13 piece as can be heard on her latest CD, Live at the Triple Door. It has received high praise from not only the Seattle Times and the Stranger, but is being played on a regular basis in Radio Stations across the world.

The fierce enthusiasm and encouragement of her fans keep pushing Layla to reach for even higher musical planes. She is back in the studio recording her next CD with some of the most well-known and highly respected musicians in the business, including Orlando ‘Maraca’ Valle, David Torres, Paoli Mejias, Oscar Stagnaro, Roberto Quintero, Dario Eskanazi, and Tony Escapa.

As one of a handful of women instrumentalists performing in the genre, Layla may very well be the only female saxophonist, vocalist and composer of authentic Latin, Afro-Peruvian and World Jazz.
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