| World Jazz |
“El Muki”: A Mythical Spirit and a Musical Force – Gabriel Alegría’s Afro-Peruvian Sextet Reimagines the Soul of World Jazz.
It is musicians like Gabriel Alegría who have redefined what the term world jazz can mean, artists whose scope extends beyond cultural homage to true cultural synthesis. Alegría’s Afro-Peruvian Sextet doesn’t merely borrow influences from disparate traditions; it creates a soundscape where musical lineages from Peru and the United States converge, collide, and ultimately coalesce into a new, exuberant language of rhythm and expression. It’s the kind of work that could make even a legend like Carlos Santana take notice, not for its showmanship, but for its sheer architectural complexity and artistic integrity. The arrangements, though intricate and uncompromising, are never cerebral for their own sake. Instead, they serve as scaffolding for interwoven melodic lines, rhythmic interplay, and the radiant energy of true ensemble performance.
From the opening bars of El Muki, the listener is launched into an intense and immersive journey, no room to breathe, no polite preamble. Just music, alive and urgent, layered with rich brass textures, expressive saxophone phrasing, and a rhythmic core that pulses with both intellectual rigor and visceral excitement. At its core, the album is a celebration, of sound, of tradition, of invention, and it ultimately invites the listener to dance, reflect, and perhaps even rejoice.
The album’s title refers to a mythical Andean figure believed to protect miners in the highlands of Peru. In this context, El Muki casts the Sextet as guardians of something equally vital: the soul of music crafted by real people, in real time, on real instruments. But cast aside your expectations of pan flutes and folkloric kitsch. This is no cliché-laden exploration of “world music.” Instead, El Muki embraces traditional Peruvian instruments, cajón, cajita, quijada, and integrates them with vibrant brass arrangements, modern harmonic sensibilities, and a groove-oriented language rooted as much in Afro-Peruvian festejo and landó as it is in the harmonic freedom of jazz.
“El Muki is about resistance and hope,” explains Gabriel Alegría. “It reminds us that music is most powerful when it speaks from lived experience, when it comes from a human dimension.” This ethos is palpable in every track, perhaps nowhere more than in the compositions featuring saxophonist and co-founder Laura Andrea Leguía. Her return to writing after a profound personal transformation lends the album both introspective lyricism and raw emotional force. “Motherhood changed everything, including the way I hear music,” Leguía reflects. “Coming back to composing for this album felt like rediscovering a part of myself.”
Since its founding in 2005, the Afro-Peruvian Sextet has garnered acclaim on international stages, building a reputation for a sound that’s both deeply rooted and boldly exploratory. El Muki exemplifies this ethos. Tracks shift fluidly between earthy Peruvian rhythms and jazz-fusion phrasing, traversing sinuous time signatures and unexpected harmonic terrain. Traditional instruments are treated with both reverence and innovation, never ornamental, always essential, anchoring each piece in cultural memory while propelling the music into exhilarating new territory.
But the album’s true strength lies in its storytelling, its ability to evoke place, history, and emotional nuance through sound. Alegría’s vision as a bandleader is almost literary in scope. His compositions unfold like chapters of a novel, each infused with mood, color, and narrative tension. This is not an album for passive listening. It demands a certain musical literacy from its audience, a willingness to engage, to follow the shifts, and to appreciate the full palette of colors the group has painted with. The rewards for such attention are immense.
In the end, El Muki is more than an album, it’s a manifesto. It affirms that jazz, when cross-pollinated with sincerity and craft, can be both globally resonant and deeply personal. It’s a celebration of roots and futures, of complexity and clarity, of sound as a living, breathing force. And in the hands of Gabriel Alegría and his sextet, it becomes a journey worth taking, again and again.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, July 23rd 2025
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To buy this album (August 15. 2025)
Musicians:
Gabriel Alegría | Trumpet
Laura Andrea Leguía | Tenor Saxophone
Hugo Alcázar | Drums
Mario Cuba | Bass
Freddy “Huevito” Lobatón | Percussion
Jocho Velásquez | Guitar
JF Maza | Saxophone
Tracklist:
El Muki
Luciérnagas / Fireflies
Mala Seńal / Bad Sign
Panabe
Vista Panorámica / Bird’s Eye View
Ausencia / Absence
La Zafra / The Harvest
Despertar / Awakening
Walking On The Moon