Putumayo Goes Back To The Salsa Well, And It’s All Good

Thursday, March 26, 2009

I feel like I used to get e-cards all the time back when the internet was a young lad, now the only e-cards I get are from Putumayo — not that there’s anything wrong with that. Especially since their e-cards play good music (I feel like I remember a large proportion of e-cards I used to get were of animated cats telling me “Happy Birthday”).

Putumayo’s newest online greeting is announcing the release of their new album, “¡Salsa!”, not to be confused with their other salsa album, Salsa Around The World.

The above video is of New York’s own Eddie Palmieri with his new band, Perfecta II, performing Sujétate la Lengua, a track featured on “¡Salsa!”. it’s over 9 minutes long, but come on, it’s Eddie Palmieri, you can listen to this all day long and never get bored. Check out the maraca player at 5:32. A) Would this not be the coolest (and easiest) job in the world? What was that audition like, and who exactly did he beat out? And B) I swear to god I’ve seen this guy hanging out in the store on my corner, chatting it up with the clerk behind the counter and drinking coffee out of a Styrofoam cup.