Marc Myers writes on Marlon Simon: 'On Different Paths'
Harry Sepulveda has great taste in Latin music, especially Latin-jazz. He should, considering that for decades he managed Record Mart, the Latin record store that first opened in 1958 and stood in the Times Square subway station near the Grand Central shuttle. I first met Harry in the 1970s when the record shop was located several steps down from the shuttle, near the BMT line, where the N and the RR stopped. Back then, I pored over the bins, asking Harry all sorts of questions about Latin music. Sadly, Record Mart closed in 2020 due to the pandemic. [Photo above of Marlon Simon, courtesy of Marlon Simon]
So whenever I receive a package in the mail with Harry's return address, I take the contents seriously. This time Harry sent a single CD—Marlon Simon and the Nagual Spirits' On Different Paths (Truth Revolution). The album is Latin jazz, but it's way more than that. The album is loaded with a wide range of rhythms, jazz feel and tenderness.
Drummer and composer Marlon Simon was born in Venezuela and arrived in the U.S. in 1987. In 1991, he completed a bachelors degree in jazz performance and contemporary music from New York's The New School for Social Research. He spent years in New York working with artists such as Hilton Ruiz, Jerry González, Dave Valentin, Bobby Watson, Charles Fambrough and Aretha Franklin. His brothers Edward, a pianist, and Michael, a trumpeter, joined him.
