Quarter Street

Making their Count’s debut is the fiery Quarter Street, taking you back to the heart of classic salsa. Inspired by the passion of salsa luminaries such as Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barreto and Hector Lavoe, and emphasizing the raw sounds of New York in the 1970’s, Quarter Street revisit an era where the music of the streets resonated with the voice of the people.

If you are looking for authentic New York Latin flavours, Quarter Street delivers the real thing. Piano and bass riff hard and the percussion makes you move. It’s not shiny, it’s not clean and poppy or unduly jazzy. It’s tough, it’s gritty and earthy and in terms of musicianship, writing and production -it straight up cooks. Sergio Botero’s voice is pure street Salsero, a worthy inheritor of the tradition defined by Hector Lavoe and Rubén Blades. Conguero Luis Poblete and brothers Cesar and Cristian Saavedra on baby bass and timbales round out the core group of Quarter Street. Like many Latinoamerican migrants to Australia, their parents fled the various coups and revolutions of the 70s and 80s, raising their children to the sounds of the Spanish language superstars of the era. Cuban brass virtuoso Lazaro Numa, recently arrived in Melbourne, adds a taste of Havana to the underlying mix of classic Puerto Rico / New York styles. The boys grew up salsa and now they’ve brought together an impressive unit of Melbourne’s finest Latin and Jazz musicians together to light up turntables and dancefloors worldwide.

There’s been a lot of rough and real analog funk, soul and Afro vinyl material released in
the last couple of decades, from the Dap-Kings and Antibalas in New York to the Poets
of Rhythm in Germany. So far few have flown the flag for the revival of hard-out analog
era Latin music. Quarter Street are doing it.

Don’t miss Quarter Street bring the latin party to The Count’s Courtyard for one night only.

Members:
Luis Poblete – Vocals, Congas
Cristian Saavedra – Timbale
Sergio Botero – Vocals
Leo Salvo – Vocals, Bongo
Andrew James – Piano
Cesar “Fito” Saavedra – Bass
Ben Gillespie – Trombone
Jimmy Bowman – Trombone
Lazaro Numa – Trumpet/Trombone

The AU Review
“The physical and emotional hits kept coming for the last two days of WOMADelaide 2016. The heat would not relent, and while watching Quarter Street send the crowd into a salsa frenzy on Monday, sweat accrued in places that it is not natural for sweat to accrue.

Thankfully, the crowd didn’t mind. In fact, they wiggled their hips even more enthusiastically than ever in an apparent act of defiance against the humidity. Given the pumping brass and percussion soundtrack, the searing sun and the party atmosphere were really quite appropriate. We could have been anywhere from Miami to Rio. Not all the dancing was skillful, but it was surely enthusiastic. And what the crowd lacked in dance ability, Quarter Street made up for in musicianship. They made the very difficult look easy and sound great”