WHY ‘SPEAKS LATIN?’ I realised a while back that a lot of our original music has a Latin feel of one sort or another, and thought it might be faintly amusing to package what we do as ‘The David Gordon Trio Speaks Latin’. Gradually I began to research more and more interesting - and to an anglophone listener, obscure - repertoire: folksong, from various South American countries, choro from Brazil, milonga from Argentina and some popular song from Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries. Instead of the usual emphasis on original material, we put our creative energy into giving these songs the trio’s characteristic twist, and we even started singing! So the title of the project has stuck, while the music has changed almost beyond recognition. Perhaps this will lead to other ‘Speaks...’ Projects and recordings...

We’ve found that the folklorie character of this music engages audiences in quite a different - and often more direct - way than jazz music often does. We feel we’re telling a story, and to some extent we are of times of revolution and hope which are specific to a time and place, but which are always and everywhere relevant. Some listeners here in the UK are familiar with the great Chilean songwriter Victor Jara; perhaps fewer with the Argentine Jorge Cafrune or the Venezuelan Simón Díaz. We’ve tried to combine this rather exotic - and also a bit off-the-wall repertoire with the trio’s characteristic melodic and rhythmic flow. This music certainly demands from us all the humour and characterisation that we can muster, but we feel it’s our strongest set to date. David Gordon