THE JAZZ ON THE LATIN SIDE ALL-STARS

For the past decade, Latin-music lovers in Southern California have been blessed with the sounds of KLON's Jose Rizo and his Friday night radio show "Jazz on the Latin Side." Rizo's dedication and deep understanding of the music has allowed the genre to blossom to unexpected levels. By supplying his regular listeners with the top sounds in Latin jazz, he has gained the attention of record and film companies, concert and festival promoters, radio station directors and disc jockeys, night club owners, colleges and universities, cultural institutions, music educators, book and music publishers. He has also helped young talent on the path to musical success, and enabled established acts to gain further recognition and notoriety. The show has recently found an even wider audience via the internet at www.klon.org.

On January 7th 2000, 28 of LA's top Latin jazz musicians were brought together by Rizo at B.B King's Club in Universal Studios to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of his radio program. The capacity audience was treated to what was to become a historical, once-in-a-lifetime event--the birth of the Jazz on the Latin Side All-Stars. The musicians, feeling the overwhelming enthusiasm from the audience and the friendly competitiveness between each other, pushed themselves to take their individual and collective performances to a higher level. For one night, B.B. King's was transformed into a single sweltering mass of music lovers--dancing, sweating, grooving to what everyone knew would probably never occur again. Fortunately CuBop Records was on hand to record it.
   
Appearing that night were Francisco Aguabella, Alex Acuña, Justo Almario, The Banda Brothers, Luis Conte, Sal Cracchiolo, Susie Hansen, Robert Incelli, Danilo Lozano, Al McKibbon, Ricardo "Tiki" Pasillas, Louie Perez (Los Lobos), Joe Rotundi, Otmaro Ruiz, Poncho Sanchez, Asdru Sierra (Ozomatli), Francisco Torres, Arturo Velasco and many others. The concert, which will be released over two volumes, features the compositions of Jose Rizo himself.
ABOUT JOSE RIZO:
   
Jose Rizo (photo) was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and raised in Oxnard, California. He played trumpet in high school, but it was not until he was a student at U.C. Santa Barbara that he developed his love of jazz, and latin jazz in particular. He first brought his appreciation of latin jazz and salsa to the air waves as a host of a weekly music show call "La Voz de la Raza" on Santa Barbara's top-40 station KIST in 1975. He also founded "Radio Chicano", a chicano-latino student and community broadcasting organization based at KCSB-FM on the U.C. Santa Barbara campus. From 1977 to 1982, Jose hosted a more exclusively music oriented show on KCSB-FM called "Barrio Soul" which featured a mix of latin music and latin jazz. In addition to hosting "Jazz on the Latin Side", Jose is a contributing writer for publications such as "Jazziz", "Latin Beat" and "Firme", as well as keeping his "day job" as a teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

"The Playing here is everything one would expect from the best in the biz, and more."
-Jazz Review