Latin Jazz Network

Craft Latino celebrates the 50th anniversary of Roberto Roena y Su Apollo Sound’s landmark salsa album Lucky 7 with a deluxe vinyl reissue arriving August 14. Long out of print, the 1976 classic features enduring favorites including “Mi desengaño,” “Fea,” “Mala maña,” and Ruben Blades’ “Que me castigue Dios.” Remastered from the original tapes and pressed on 180-gram vinyl, the release also includes limited-edition color vinyl variants for collectors.

A pioneering percussionist, bandleader, and showman, Roberto Roena helped shape modern salsa through his work with Cortijo y su Combo, El Gran Combo, and later his own innovative ensemble, Apollo Sound. Blending salsa, funk, jazz, and soul influences, Lucky 7 became one of the bestselling salsa albums of its era and remains a defining example of salsa dura. Fifty years later, its return offers a welcome opportunity to rediscover a timeless classic.

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with Craft Latino

Roberto Roena y Su Apollo Sound’s Lucky 7 Returns to Vinyl - Latin Jazz Network Half a century after its original release, Lucky 7—one of the defining albums of the salsa dura era—returns to vinyl in a special 50th-anniversary edition.

PROPHETS: The Sound of Creative Freedom - Latin Jazz Network PROPHETS is the latest project from acclaimed pianist, accordionist, composer, and arranger Ronn Yedidia. Joined by flutist Immanuel Davis, bassist Eddy Khaimovich, and drummer Paolo Cantarella.

Featured Q&A with Guitarist and Composer José Guzmán (The Afro-Caribbean Jazz Collective)

For guitarist and composer José Guzmán, the distance between the academic rigours of a Doctoral degree and the street-level pulse of a Puerto Rican bomba circle is non-existent. Born and raised in Ponce, Guzmán has spent his career translating the "hard 90-degree pivot" from rock-and-roll to jazz into a sophisticated, percussion-driven language. His latest project with The Afro-Caribbean Jazz Collective, Cortadito, serves as a vibrant proof of concept for his "drum-first" philosophy—an approach that demands the composer master the hand drums before ever picking up the pen.

In Cortadito, Guzmán departs from the traditional jazz quintet by daringly removing the drumset entirely. By centring the barril and congas, he creates a sonic space that smells of the Caribbean sea and feels like the cobblestones of Old San Juan. It is an intimate, unfiltered snapshot of heritage that balances the intensity of son montuno and songo with the tender, lived-in emotions of the bolero.

In this candid conversation, Guzmán opens up about the "flying without a net" energy of the Collective, his responsibility to the legacy of masters like Rafael Cortijo and William Cepeda and why he believes that to truly play Latin Jazz, you must first learn to speak through the skin of the drum.

Read the full Q&A on latinjazznet.com