Drummer, percussionist and composer Marlon Simon has traveled myriad different paths over the course of his nearly four-decade career. There is the personal journey that has led him from a small town in his native Venezuela to pursuing jazz in Philadelphia, New York, and now his current home in Katy, Texas, a small city near Houston.

Then there are the parallel musical paths in which he’s excelled – playing straight-ahead swing with pianist Hilton Ruiz, traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms with the Fort Apache Band and Chucho Valdes, Latin jazz grooves with Dave Valentin, and progressive jazz propulsion with Bobby Watson.

His brand new album, Resistencia! is officially now here and represents the true daily struggles of absolute triumph of keeping deep, artistic music alive and bringing it to larger audiences purely through the heart and dedication of musicians and community support.

With On Different Paths, his seventh as a band leader, and most ambitious album to date, Simon merges those disparate trajectories into a single new pathway that stretches far off into a hybrid future.

Thus representing the excellence and integrity of the musical art forms born in the USA for over forty years, having released this past month via Stay Black Records, Resistencia! showcases Marlon Simon and the Nagual Spirits at their very best, once again.

1. Ericka Insert
2. Fiestas
2. Walking
3. Variations on Ericka’s Theme
4. Rumba Para Andy
5. Ericka Insert 2
6. Marlon Dialogue
7. Africando
8. Missing Them
9. Ericka Insert 3
10. Walking
11. Marlon Dialogue 2
12. Straight Ahead
13. Ericka Insert 4

On what is a masterfully curated, dutifully melodic, and rhythm-tastic new live recording, Marlon opens on the short, but sweet emotive Ericka Insert and the fervently-charged rhythms of Fiestas, before we are gifted the bouncy, bubbly, near 13 minute opus Variations on Ericka’s Theme, the affectingly joyful Rumba Para Andy, another short burst of optimism with Ericka Insert 2, and then comes a beautifully informative Marlon Dialogue (where we also get introduced to the band behind him).

Along next is the melodiously low slung, at first, free flowing latterly Africando, the sweepingly elegant Missing Them and another short piece in the form of Ericka Insert 3, and they are in turn backed seamlessly by the impassioned nuances shown with the beautifully sculpted, drum-led Walking, another Marlon Dialogue 2 (this one explaining more about his music), the new set rounding out on the majestically, nay masterfully effervescent Straight Ahead, coming to a close on the minute long Ericka Insert 4.

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