Three-time Grammy nominated Plena Libre, a 13-member orchestra from Puerto Rico has been praised for liberating the plena and saluting the masters with their 10th anniversary recording ¡Estamos Gozando!  Plena is a traditional Afro-Rican rhythm and musical genre, and Plena Libre means free-form, or liberated, plena.

Plena Libre was formed in 1994 by bassist and bandleader Gary Nuñez, whose mission was to reinvent and update the genre, taking it from its present folkloric status — which relegated its performance to holidays and folk revivals — and turning it into a living and breathing, popular, evolving form. To the pandero ensemble he added a lineup that includes bass, keyboards, timbales, congas, four trombones, miscellaneous percussion as well as some of the best plena singers (soneros) found in Puerto Rico. With a style that draws on both the traditional and the modern, and arrangements that mix other Caribbean rhythms and sizzling dance-floor charts with plena, Plena Libre topped the charts with one hit after another on commercial radio stations in Puerto Rico.

Plena Libre’s core lineup includes seven musicians: Founder, composer, arranger and bassist Gary Nuñez, whose entire career has been devoted to preserving and developing Puerto Rican music with ensembles such as Moliendo Vidrio, Caribe Jazz and currently, Plena Libre; Israel Velez is the son of one of Pleneros de Quinto Olivo’s original members. He was raised in the plena and is one of the top requinto players in Puerto Rico today; Victor Muñiz is a master plena singer, looked up to by the new generation of singers for style, creativity, and approach to singing traditional plena; conga player Gina Villanueva has been playing plena since the beginning of her career and is also one of the few female conga players in Puerto Rico; Brothers Keyvan Vega (singer and trumpet player) and Kevin Vega (percussion) and also singer Kali Villanueva represent the new generation in Plena Libre.

Listen to the NPR Interview with Gary Nuñez

Listen to NPR’s "Here and Now" Latin music critic review the new CD Plena Libre.

Listen to excellent music samples.

REVIEWS

--Juan Carlos Perez Rodriguez,
The Miami Herald

   "Plena," a festive, farcical and intensely danceable Afro-Puerto Rican folk music genre, had been put out to pasture by Puerto Rico's music industry for decades when the gifted bass player and bandleader Gary Nunez founded Plena Libre in 1994.

He set out to renovate "plena" with new songs and creatively arranged classics, delivered by a big band that, in addition to the "requinto," "punteador" and "seguidor" hand drums that form "plena's" percussive core, also included instruments such as horns, piano, bass, congas and timbales.

Nunez bet that, far from being a sclerotic and exhausted genre, "plena" had the potential for massive commercial appeal and for artistic exploration and advancement. 

- Fernando Gonzalez
Jazziz, Beyond Salsa

   On ¡Estamos Gozando! (Times Square), Plena Libre, arguably the leading group in the bomba-y-plena revival, pays its respects to some of the most influential creators in the history of the genre.  The results are both instructive and eminently danceable.  The set includes nods to trumptere César Concepción (who during the 1960s, gave plena a big-band setting); Corjito (a medley featuring “Perfume de Rosas” and “Maquinolandera”); Manuel “Canario” Jimenez, the first plena singer to be commercially recorded; and Mon Rivera (listen to the homage to his four-trombone arrangements in this version of “Lluvia Con Nieve”).

Since the emergence of the world-music phenomenon during the 1980s, recordings that once would have been considered of interest only to ethnomusicologists have found a broader audience—and with good reason.  Often these recordings offer the beauty and power of these styles stripped of the standard commercial wrappings.  Moreover, these performances often broaden our perspective by suggesting surprising insights about the links between contemporary, commercial styles and their traditional sources. . . .