![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/kaleid_new_horizons.jpg\")
<\/p>\n2017 was a busy year for Jimmy Palafox. Not only did he graduate from high school; he launched two new bands: Santa Cruz Latin Collective and The New Horizons. \u201cI had been writing original material,\u201d he recalls, \u201cand it was a kind of psychedelic rock. So I put a band together to perform all the songs I had written.\u201d<\/p>\n
Palafox grew up knowing Mexico City-born drummer Adolfo \u201cFito\u201d de la Parra. A member of the classic lineup of blues rock legends Canned Heat, de la Parra was with that band when they played at Woodstock. An active musician since 1958, de la Parra remains active today, leading a current lineup of Canned Heat. And Palafox considers the drummer a friend and mentor. \u201cHe and I go back to when I was just 11 years old,\u201d Palafox says. \u201cCanned Heat had such an influence on me; their whole thing was to play the boogie and honor blues music. And that has had a lot to do with the development of The New Horizons.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But while The New Horizons draw inspiration and influence from music of yesteryear, Palafox says that the group is very much focused on the here-and-now. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to be a cover band,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe want to make original music that sounds like something from the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
The band\u2019s music casts a wide stylistic net, and the fluid, ever-changing lineup of the group reflects that open-ended character. \u201cWe\u2019ve always had people coming in and out of the band,\u201d Palafox says. \u201cWhen I started the project, my idea was to have music of many colors; that\u2019s why our album is called Kaleidoscope<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
While The New Horizons concentrate on Palafox\u2019s original compositions, the group’s choice of select covers \u2013 and the manner in which they treat those songs \u2013 provides clues as to its collective mindset. \u201cOne day we were performing at a gig in Santa Cruz, and we ran out of songs,\u201d Palafox recalls. \u201cOur bass player said, \u2018Do you guys know Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cSlow Train\u201d?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The other band members replied with a shrug and collective \u201cYeah, sort of.\u201d So they spontaneously launched into an off-the-cuff reading of the Christian-era Dylan tune from 1979. In the hands of The New Horizons, the song took on a reggae character. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know what we were doing,\u201d Palafox laughs, \u201cbut I had a tape recorder running.\u201d After the gig, Palafox played back that recording; he and his band mates found that they liked it. \u201cWe should add that to our album,\u201d one of them said.<\/p>\n
And so they did. But for the studio recording \u2013 made just three days after that gig and featured on Kaleidoscope<\/i> \u2013 the band made a point of actually learning the song. \u201cWe were literally learning it in the car on the way to the studio,\u201d Palafox admits.<\/p>\n
The band\u2019s debut album was released in January, and Palafox says that he and his band mates are pleased with the results of their recording sessions. \u201cThe music has a Fito style of drumming: very heavy, kind of jungle-sounding,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd then a little touch of psychedelia, like Canned Heat was doing back then.\u201d facebook.com\/Thenewhorizonsband831<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2017 was a busy year for Jimmy Palafox. Not only did he graduate from high school; he launched two new bands: Santa Cruz Latin Collective and The New Horizons. \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,39,41],"tags":[5390,5395],"class_list":["post-27296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-indie","category-interview","tag-santa-cruz","tag-the-new-horizons","cat-9-id","cat-39-id","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27298,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27296\/revisions\/27298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}