... several very good jazz outings over the last year, but this one was on a different (hyper)plane. Rubalcaba's virtuosity on the piano was never gratuitous, and rebounded off an incredibly skilled ensemble. Ernesto Simpson with a crisp, airy command of the drums and Yunior Terry with an insistent deep rumble on the bass spread out the piano's rhythmic sparks into space-filling creations (that...
Cuban superstar Issac Delgado walked across the Mexican border to Laredo, Texas, with his family three years ago to defect to the United States. He had no illusions that he’d pick up where he left off back home.In Cuba, Delgado was considered a musical treasure. He joined pianist GonzaloRubalcaba’s jazz band in Havana at age 18, before going solo and winning fans and awards in the United...
... On Saturday we saw Savion Glover and his outstanding band. Wow. Edge of the seat work, like with GonzaloRubalcaba the other day. Except that one can get a whiff of Rubalcaba on recordings, while Glover has to be seen. Glover's dialog and debate with his band members (all amazing, but Tommy James on piano and Patience Higgins on saxophones had especially rich interactions with...
Chucho Valdés (born October 9, 1941), born Jesús Dionisio Valdés, is a Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger. He was born in Quivicán, Cuba. In 1972 he founded the group Irakere, one of Cuba's best-known Latin jazz bands. Together with pianist GonzaloRubalcaba, Valdés is revered as one of Cuba's greatest jazz pianists. His father is the famed...
More musical events on my calendar the next couple of months than anytime since the legendary Gulbenkian Foundation festivals in Lisbon in the late 60s-early 70s. Coming week: Oct 21: Anonymous 4 Oct 23: GonzaloRubalcaba
... but a jazz traditionalist may not enjoy him, because his music is not acoustic. I recently heard GonzaloRubalcaba live, and his music is a good example of what is possible but not as popular. I plan to go and hear with and on Friday night and big band Saturday, and that is where the main direction of “jazz” is heading (or is) for me, for the most part but again — the sky’s the limit!...
