The Pedro Pastrana Trio

Contact: Pedro Pastrana

# of musicians to perform at LJS: 

Genre: fusion of Puerto-Rican folk music and jazz

likely instrumentation: cuatro, electric bass, tenor saxophone, (percussion) OR cuatro, electric bass, percussion.

Inquiry date: 4/10/2025

links to recordings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uyPK4t7py0&authuser=1, https://youtu.be/u6BD76_bbxM

My observations: All the cuts show adequate technical proficiency. However, musically there's a big difference between the links.  All the clips I listened to display adequate technical proficiency -- from Pedro's description in his inquiry, I was hoping for more of an ethnic folk sound. To me, the first link (PR folk/jazz fusion) is somewhat boring -- the only thing that seems 'ethnic' and 'folk' to me is the sonority of the cuatro lute.  The second link, on the other hand, sounds more like authentic PR folk music (I played in a PR band many years ago with Julius Melendez, and some of the music from this link seemed familiar -- or maybe it was Putomayo CDs I listened to over the years.) I dig the second cut -- it's the real deal. Benny specifically said he wanted to present his PR/jazz fusion with his trio -- note that the first cut sounds like a quartet to me... I wonder if he thinks he has to present his folk/jazz fusion here because this is a 'jazz society'... I would consider having him play if I could convince him to have his trio play the authentic folk music sans tenor sax -- it sounds so much more compelling to me!