Simon Monserrat & Djeli

This is the myspacesite of the musicproject Djeli, lead by Simon Monserrat, whos been working as a freelancemusician since the mid 80´s. Since then hes been touring USA, Canada, Asia, and Europe, playing with: Linda Tillery & the Cultural Heritage Choir, Bebo Valdes, Colombia All Stars, Soneros All Stars, Jerry Galante, Maximo Jimenez, to mention a few...He comes from a musical family where both his father Marcos is, and his late uncle Roberto been percussionist. Roberto was also the musical director and co-founder of the famous group Federico y su Combo.

Djeli masterfully blends the sounds of Caribe, South America, and Africa, with jazz harmonies into a unique and exiting style of Latin jazz and World fusion. Simon is since many years a internationally touring percussionist, but this is his first selfproduced solorecording.

In the African tradition, the Djeli or Griot embodies the culture of his people. The Djeli is a historian, musician, dancer and performer who has the task of reminding the community at large of its traditional greatness, and of the accomplishments of those who have come before. Using the performing arts, the Djeli points out the contributions of each family group, generation by generation, that have contributed to the progress of society. Djelis music is based on afrocarribean drums, and rythms from instruments such as: Culo é puyas, and Quitiplá, that comes from the afrovenezuelean music and cultural tradition as well as batá drums from Cuba. Traditional music styles are mixed with new creativity to give birth to this unique and exiting mix of: jazz, afro-beat, blues, latin, danzón, rumba and son. The organic nature of the music of Monserrat creates challenging and intriguing arrengements that are rich with grooves that bouy the journey through music, rich emotions and inspiring lyrics.REVIEWS:"Like Sosa, Monserrat views the various musical offspring of the African diaspora as a common family, and he brings various styles together in unexpected and fresh ways. By stringing together chapters focused around different sounds, Djeli tells a musical story." (Nils Jacobson, All About Jazz)"Top of the world right now!!" (Djembe Magazine)

Currently Djelis is working on the 2nd release - Crossroads! with featuring artists like: Linda Tillery & the Cultural Heritage CHoir, Ivan "Melon" Lewis, Insingizi, Pepe Espinosa, Jon Ben Berger, among others...
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