You and I: Charanga Cakewalk and "Tu y Yo"

Today's random tune is performed by Charanga Cakewalk, the brainchild of Michael Ramos. Ramos is a Latino Chicano Mexican who also describes himself as a citizen of the world. A once sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was a sometime member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called cumbia lounge. Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. This song, Tu y Yo, is from his 2004 album Loteria de la Cumbia Lounge.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Source: http://www.americanmusicandsound.com/en/pages/artists/michaelRamos.html

Profound Love: Charanga Cakewalk and "Amor Profundo"

Our song for today is performed by Charanga Cakewalk and is called Amor Profundo. Charanga Cakewalk is the brainchild of Michael Ramos. Ramos is a Latino Chicano Mexican who also describes himself as a citizen of the world. A once sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was a sometime member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called cumbia lounge. Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. Amor Profundo is from his 2006 album Chicano Zen.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Source: http://www.americanmusicandsound.com/en/pages/artists/michaelRamos.html

Providing a Spark: Charanga Cakewalk and "Chispas"

Today's song is performed by Charanga Cakewalk and is called Chispas. Charanga Cakewalk is the brainchild of Michael Ramos. Ramos is a Latino Chicano Mexican who also describes himself as a citizen of the world. A once sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was a sometime member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called cumbia lounge. Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. Chispas is from his 2004 album Loteria de la Cumbia Lounge.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Source: http://www.americanmusicandsound.com/en/pages/artists/michaelRamos.html

Romance of Desperation: Charanga Cakewalk and "Romanticos Desesperados"

Romanticos Desesperados is today's random tune and is performed by Charanga Cakewalk, which is the brainchild of Michael Ramos. Ramos is a Latino Chicano Mexican who also describes himself as a citizen of the world. A once sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was a sometime member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called cumbia lounge. Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. Romanticos Desesperados is from his 2004 album Loteria de la Cumbia Lounge.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Get the Popcorn: Charanga Cakewalk and "El Cine"

El Cine is by Charanga Cakewalk, which is the brainchild of Michael Ramos, a Latino Chicano Mexican who also describes himself as a citizen of the world. A once sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was a sometime member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called cumbia lounge. Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. El Cine is from his 2006 album Chicano Zen.

Holly Jolly: Charanga Cakewalk and "Acebo"

Today's random tune by Charanga Cakewalk, the brainchild of Michael Ramos. Ramos calls himself a Latino Chicano Mexican who who is also a citizen of the world. Originally a sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was occasionally a member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called "cumbia lounge." Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. This tune, Acebo, is from his 2004 album Loteria De La Cumbia Lounge.

Lounging Around: Charanga Cakewalk and "La Cumbia Lounge"

Charanga Cakewalk, performer of today's random tune, is the brainchild of Michael Ramos, a Latino Chicano Mexican who also describes himself as a citizen of the world. A once sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was a sometime member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called "cumbia lounge." Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. La Cumbia Lounge is from his 2004 album Loteria De La Cumbia Lounge.

At the Movies: Charanga Cakewalk and "El Cine"

The title of today's random tune, El Cine, reminds me that I haven't been to a movie in a while. My wife and I used to go to at least one movie a week, but as our lives have gotten busier our movie watching has gotten more rare. Even with the advent of streaming video, we haven't really made a lot of time to see movies. It's gotten to the point that when Academy Award season rolls around, we usually have only seen one or two of the ten movies nominated for best picture. However, we do try to catch the live action and animated shorts - and I find that I really look forward to those. Just as the short story is an under-appreciated literary art form, the short film is not given its proper due, particularly in the artistry involved to present a full story in 5 to 25 minutes.

I am also woefully ignorant on Latin American cinema, even though I know that there are classic films from those regions. Some of the newer directors I know, such as Alfonso Cuarón, and some of the newer stars. But classic Latin American cinema is something that has eluded me. I am not proud of this - but it only points toward the necessity of me exploring these cultural art forms.

El Cine is by Charanga Cakewalk, which is the brainchild of Michael Ramos, a Latino Chicano Mexican who also describes himself as a citizen of the world. A once sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was a sometime member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called cumbia lounge. Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. El Cine is from his 2006 album Chicano Zen.

Police Brutality: Charanga Cakewalk and "El Ballad de José Campos Torres"

Today's song, El Ballad de José Campos Torres, sounds deceptively mellow - like a song one would like to relax to on a Saturday evening while playing a mix of similar, low-key music during a sunset. And maybe that's the point, because the name of José Campos Torres symbolizes anything but mellow and relaxing times.

In 1977, Houston police picked up José Campos Torres, a 23 year old Vietnam veteran, on a disorderly conduct charge. They took him to a waterway called Buffalo Bayou, where they proceeded to beat him and inflict serious injuries. After the beating, they took him to the city jail, but the jail refused to admit him due to his injuries. The cops were ordered to take him to the hospital, but instead they took him back to the bayou, handcuffed him and dumped him into the water. One of the cops supposedly said "Let's see if the wetback can swim." After a trial of the police officers on state murder charges, they were convicted of negligent homicide, given one year of probation and fined $1 each. A year later, they were brought up on federal civil rights charges and convicted, with each serving 9 months in prison.

The story attached to this song hits close to home, given that I live in Albuquerque and our police are under investigation by the Justice Department. Since 2010, officers of the Albuquerque Police Department have shot and killed 27 people. These shootings and the investigation into the police have been covered by Albuquerque media, including KUNM, and by national media as well. The most notorious shooting was of a homeless man, James Boyd, who was shot and killed while apparently surrendering to police. Other shootings by APD include a man in his own back yard, and a young woman running from an officer who brought her down but apparently didn't turn on his lapel video camera. All of this, coupled with the recent national discussion focusing on the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson and about the militarization of police forces nationwide during the War on Terror continues to shine a spotlight on the role of the police. Are they our guardians, or should we be guarding ourselves from the police? And if you are a minority, are you automatically targeted? This discussion isn't just happening in the United States. The recent conviction of Oskar Pistorious in South Africa on lesser charges after shooting his girlfriend through a bathroom door (by a black judge) has reignited questions of whites in that country automatically get the benefit of the doubt in criminal cases. The fact that in this country, blacks comprise about 13 percent of the total population but about 40 percent of the total prison population may hint at many things - the role that poverty has on our minority communities for one, but also the way that police view minority communities for another. If anything, El Ballad de José Campos Torres can remind us that until we are all treated in similar fashion as guaranteed to all US citizens under the Constitution, regardless of whether we are shopping, driving, or getting picked up on suspicion of a crime, the United States will always still have a way to go to live up to its full potential as a democracy.

El Ballad de José Campos Torres is by Charanga Cakewalk. Charanga Cakewalk is the brainchild of Michael Ramos, a Latino Chicano Mexican who also describes himself as a citizen of the world. A once sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was a sometime member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called cumbia lounge. Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. El Ballad de José Campos Torres is from his 2006 album Chicano Zen.

Not Your Mama's Lounge: Charanga Cakewalk and "Volcanico"

The enduring image of the lounge singer, so immortalized in all its cheesiness by Bill Murray in Saturday Night Live sketches, or even as satirized by Richard Cheese (his lounge version of Baby Got Back has to be one of the best song parodies of all time), has been taking a beating lately. That's because lounge music is cool again.

A lot of this makeover of lounge music has to do with electronic advances in music. Ambient sounds can be utilized very effectively to create a mood, just as in the old days lounge singers tried to create a mood with their vocal stylings and downtempo versions of popular songs put to exotic rhythms, as well as utilizing themselves the sounds available to them. So whereas my mom would have gone to Vegas to see the Rat Pack, Wayne Newton and Louis Prima (who, for the record, I absolutely love), nowadays people listening to lounge can find it incorporating music from all over the world. It's not as if lounge hadn't done that before - Brazilian forms such as samba and bossa nova were part of the lounge landscape in the 50s and 60s - but the availability and knowledge of different styles of music from other areas of the world is much greater in a world so interconnected. And I find that it is within the bounds of world music that lounge has become so interesting.

In this vein, today's artist is Charanga Cakewalk. Charanga Cakewalk is the brainchild of Michael Ramos, a Latino Chicano Mexican who also describes himself as a citizen of the world. A once sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was a sometime member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called cumbia lounge. Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. This song, Volcanico, is from the 2005 album Loteria de la Cumbia Lounge.