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Omar Torrez?guitar virtuoso, soulful vocalist and composer?creates the strongly original musical hybrid he calls Latin Soul & Groove. The young artist's Mexican-European roots and iconoclastic spirit inspires his innovative music, a fresh sound that is at once reminiscent of such modern masters as Stevie Wonder and Prince, and rich with echoes of Paco De Lucia's guitar. He radiates fiery passion, drawing in both his band mates and audience, and connecting on the deepest spiritual and sensual levels.
"Omar Torrez sounds like a Gypsy King channeled through Hendrix," noted Gene Stout, music critic at the Seattle Post Intelligencer. "Dare we dub him the Latin Hendrix? The fastest fingers in the West, a massive talent poised to break out and kiss the sky," added Tom Scanlon, The Seattle Times music critic.
Torrez burst onto the Seattle music scene in 1995 as a finalist in the National Jimi Hendrix Gibson Guitar Competition. A then-unknown Omar took the stage with a borrowed guitar and brought a packed Seattle Opera house crowd to its feet with his guitar pyrotechnics. He then studied under well-known flamenco master Juan Serrano, whose art injected masterful technique and authentic rhythms into his music. Since then, Omar has been winning fans all over America and also, most recently, in Europe. "Omar Torrez is crossing many borders and establishing many unlikely links ? between classical and pop, virtuoso and hot swinging, Latin and blues, European and American, sexy and pure... and doing all this with style," said world-renowned Russian music critic Artemy Troitsky, of the World Music Consortium.
Cuchata was born out of guitarist/singer/songwriter Marcelo E. Quinonez's 1999 pilgrimage to his ancestral Nicaragua. There he discovered and fell under the spell of the country's rich musical heritage. Upon returning to the USA, he combined his new-found knowledge with his love of other Afro-Latin traditions to fashion a musical expression of his own. Joined by bassist Cody Rahn and percussionist Bryan Cook, Quinonez formed Cuchata in 2000. Their first release was a fascinating amalgam of influences from Nicaragua, Peru, Cuba and Columbia, with Caribbean-side Central American vocal flavors and Pampas rhythms from Paraguay and Argentina.
www.omartorrez.com
www.cuchata.com