BANDA ELASTICA

Banda Elastica were definitely among the most legendary names in the Jazz/Fusion/RIO field coming from Mexico, found in 1983 in Ciudad de México and led by keyboardist Rosino Serrano, guitarist Guillermo Gonzalez, bassist Lucio Sanchez, wind instrumentalist Jose Luis Romero, while the group featured also two drummers and percussionists, José Navarro and Rodolfo Nava.They debuted in 1986 with a private self-titled LP.

This was denitely a very daring album regarding its year of release and today ''Banda Elastica'' sounds still fresh and captivating.It is a nice mixture of complicated Jazz/RIO music, featuring plenty of sax and clarinet passages, with Latin-American Folk and more proggy moments, usually highlighted by the nervous keyboards of Serrano.The compositions sound tight, innovative and really challenging, containing countless of interplays and breaks, making the whole listening quite difficult at moments but still enjoyable.The music is strongly based in Jazz/Fusion with very technical performances and a very rich sound, but the band blended it with some nice Latin-American traditional tunes, either coming out of the acoustic guitars and flutes or the somber violin parts and the marimba sounds, which are all over the place.Even better Banda Elastica were lucky enough to have a talented keyboardist and Serrano appears every now and then with some fiery synthesizers, jazzy piano paces and 70's-sounding organs to add the album a very proggy taste, ''Infrasapienz'' even sounds symphonic at moments.Just a couple of short uninteresting instrumental tracks sound like fillers in ''Banda Elastica'', hurting the album's consistency, however the rest of it is pretty outstanding for the most of its length.

Adventurous and complex Jazz/Fusion/Prog of very high musical level and significant value.Strongly recommended to fans who starve for endless interplays and changing moods...3.5 stars.

BANDA ELASTICA are one of Mexico's finest bands. It's hard to believe that this was their debut released back in 1987. They were a six piece here and full of youthful energy. They can play, and we get some complex music with an avant/jazz flavour standing out in an ethnic sauce. This one had my head spinning at times. A couple of things that makes their second album so much more appealing to me is that they slowed things down, plus they got rid of a lot of the ethnic hot sauce.

They would become a seven piece on that second record, adding a second horn player who also adds flute. We get some guest flute on the opener and third track here, but mostly it's sax and clarinet. We also get two drummers, although one is often adding marimba. There are actually some vocals on that fourth and seventh song, but that's it. I also find it interesting that on that second album they sprinkled in four tracks from this the debut as bonus tracks there, but not tagged on at the end. This record almost feels like a dry run compared to their next one.

"Banda Elastica 2" is the one to get in my opinion from 1989. I also recommend "Ai Tencargo" from 2003 but feel it's a step down from that classic second record.