Caucaravan on RadioCOCOA: ska-jazz at its finest

RadioCOCOA published a review of Caucaravan, the Quito ska-jazz band where Richard Orellana played saxophone. The outlet described them as a musical caravan pushing jazz into unexplored territory, moving between the homegrown and the exquisite.

That phrase captures what Caucaravan was all about: a band that took the language of jazz — improvisation, horns, harmony — and made it dance with rhythms any Ecuadorian would recognize from home. The result didn’t sound like a copy of anything. It sounded like Quito.

For Orellana, this chapter was formative in a very concrete way. Playing ska-jazz live demands two things at once: the technical rigor to hold down demanding horn arrangements, and enough street instinct to make people dance. That double education — the score and the stage — is the same one he applies today as a music producer: well-crafted songs that you can also feel.

The RadioCOCOA review is part of the record of a scene that was finding its voice in those years, with bands bold enough to cross genres without asking permission. Caucaravan was one of them, and Orellana’s saxophone was right there.

The full article is available in the RadioCOCOA archive.