Year: 2000
Record Label: ALMA records
Style: Latin Jazz / Latin Funk
Review: Canadian bassist Roberto Occhipinti is a virtuoso. He has performed all over the world and even played with legendary saxophonist Sam Rivers. Roberto, playing with the Cuban piano virtuoso Hilario Durán, are the recipients of an award winning album: New Danzon.
Roberto Occhipinti is also known as a classical musician and his talent is recognized worldwide. Four years ago bassist Occhipinti released Trinacria and this CD is still a magic box. The cats playing with them are all genius. Although Roberto is a great composer, he can also bring his group into cool, swinging jazz arrangements of Herbie Hancock's "One Finger Snap" and "Maiden Voyage."
Roberto plays his bass very jazzy and the music is performed in a fresh, free style like on "El Negro Part 2." The cymbals of “El Negro” are freewheeling and the group jumps out it's stall as a Latin jazz band with chord changes and cool, smouldering solos.
"Waiting For the Float" and "Nueva Generacion" are Hilario Duran’s contribution. The magic relationship between the strings of Occhipinti and the finger sounds of Duran leads one to imagine that they really know how well each other plays. Duran's "Nueva Generation" is a funky modal piece strongly passionate, and "El Negro" and "El Negro 2" both have an undulating quality which feel unique with Phil Dwyer sounding like a rather smooth Mulligan. Duran has a beautiful tremelo-esque duet with Occhiponti's arco.
The bass player's own compositions are postbop with sharp corners all over the place, making the free sections always structured and balanced. Trinacria shows how Roberto is an accomplished soloist with an ability to create tension on his bass, sufficiently declamatory for such a purpose.
On Monk's "Well you Needn’t," Yosvany Terry is just perfect and highly aware, able to follow energetic Roberto before taking off on his own beautiful solo.
Occhipinti's music is of high quality and experiences many of the different jazz voices, not only because each one the musicians mastered his instrument but also in a way that it makes this group a total contagious Afro-Latin jazz rhythm. "Waiting For The Float" is an ear gift in tempo and rhythm. Yosvany Terry is magnificent bringing to the music Cuban swing. The musicians on Trinacria are magicians, in that they can explore the classical way and then jump with no problem at all to contemporary jazz, and all that being covered with Latin tinge. Trinacria is a delight for jazz purists as well as for all jazz audiences.
Artist's Website: http://www.robertoocchipinti.com
Reviewed by:
Dr. Ana Isabel Ordonez
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