NEW YORK TIMES: LATIN & WESTERN SWING BANDS TOUCHED BY JAZZ Latin bandleaders these days are making music that becomes simultaneously more modern and more ancient. "Jazzambia," by the Puerto Rican percussionist Paoli Mejías, is the latest proof. It includes several other like-minded musicians, including the pianist Luis Perdomo and the saxophonist Miguel Zenón, and it's exciting to see where it goes. There are standard structural elements of Afro-Cuban music here — tumbaos and montuno sections — but there are also rhythm strategies that come from various kinds of new jazz that many would say are not Latin at all. (One track, "Diaspora," culminates brilliantly with Mr.Zenón soloing with more free-jazz gusto than he ever seems to use, over the interlocking patterns of two hand drummers.) The point is that jazz was part Latin from the start, and has become only more so. - Ben Ratliff ******* EDITOR'S PICK (DESCARGA): A historic recording, if onl...