Gustavo Cortinas - Desafío Candente (2021)

“This is a monumental, unprecedented work; it is one of the great events in Mexican and global jazz music in the 21st century… a major work that has no parallel in our Mexican musical history… it is a poem, a jazz poem, in the manner of the great symphonic poems of a century ago. Gustavo Cortiñas composes this work with a spirit, with a commitment to Latin America.”

Vibración Azul - Dr Luis Jesús Galindo Cáceres

“Cortiñas draws inspiration from Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano’s canonical anti-colonialism/capitalism tome Open Veins of Latin America in a two-disc opus as sprawling and fiery as the text itself. A vast array of instrumentalists and spoken-word artists from 11 countries accompanies Cortiñas’ supple sextet across 14 sublime originals. The ambitious instrumental narrative — divided in chapters and stitched together by horn-laced rhythms and words spoken in the staccato of Indigenous languages and the cadence of Spanish — is a resounding sonic condemnation of the exploitative power structure that has long held sway over Latin America since Europeans set foot.”

JAZZIZ - Best of 2021 Critics Picks

“A musical meditation of the book The Open Veins of Latin America, by the esteemed author Eduardo Galeano. It is a brilliant exploration of jazz mashed up with various sounds from Latin America.”

NPR’s Alt.Latino

Best Albums of 2021: “Story telling, and the political history of place, go hand in hand with Jazz. For Mexican drummer Gustavo Cortinas this tradition unfolds in his masterwork Desafio Candente; a sweeping account of how colonialism and capitalism have shaped Latin America.”

33Third.org’s Best of 2021

“Listeners familiar with Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra are sure to experience a bit of reverie after hearing the beginning fanfare. “Cortiñas has produced a veritable musical score, replete with all the revolutionary nuances and cadences invoked by Galeano... The revolt against oppression reaches a climax that is better understood with Galeano's book in your hand, and Cortiñas' music in your ears."

DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE