My Latin Heart by Roger Glenn
It only took Roger Glenn 49 years to release his second album as a bandleader. Even then, My Latin Heart merely scratches the surface of the flautist/vibraphonist/saxophonist's talent as a player and composer. As its title indicates, Heart finds Glenn indulging in the love for Afro-Hispanic and Brazilian rhythms he inherited from his mother and employed in some of his side work as a musician in combos led by Cal Tjader, who merits a name check in the title one of the set's slinkier numbers.
Elsewhere among his eight originals, Glenn leads his dexterous accompanists in a two-piece suite connecting the prison trade in the African nation of Angola to Louisiana's Angola Penitentiary and a samba celebrating Carnaval. Vibes, marimba and flute dominate among the ways by which Glenn makes his infectious melodic statements; but neither does he take a backseat in working magic on alto sax. And, however obliquely, there's even a bit of redolence of the electrified, funky fusion that marked the last time Glenn's name appeared on the front of an album jacket, 1976’s Reachin'. If advancing in age creates compulsion to communicate before one passes on, it's reasonable to hope that Gleen won't so long to share his talent as front man.
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