Year: 2008
Record Label: Blue Note
Style: Straight-Ahead / Classic
Musicians: Gonzalo Rubalcaba (piano and keyboards), Yosvany Terry (alto and tenor saxophone, percussion), Mike Rodriguez (trumpet and flugelhorn), Matt Brewer (acoustic bass), Marcus Gilmore (drums)
Review: Cuban-born pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba began his classical musical training at the age of nine as a pianist at the Manuel Saumell Conservatory in Havana. Subsequent work at the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory eventually led to his earning a degree in music composition at Havana’s Institute of Fine Art. He moved to Santo Domingo in 1992 and then on to the United States in 1996. Among his honors are eight Grammy Award nominations; he has been a winner twice.
Known as a pianist of exceptional technique and fiery style, Avatar is Rubalcaba’s 13th recording as a leader for Blue Note Records. Here Rubalcaba focuses on a group style that harkens back to both the 1950s, with an emphasis on true jazz group dynamics, along with an obvious additional influence from Chick Corea thrown in for good measure. Rubalcaba eschews the trio and Latin jazz format which he has been most associated with of late, and the result is Tutterly fantastic.
For this date Rubalcaba built a traditional jazz quintet, comprised of young and hungry New York musicians, and took it on the road for three weeks of work before heading into the studio to record the music they had worked out live. The ensemble plays with a passion and commonality of expression and purpose that only comes from time spent working out musical associations in tandem over a period of time.
Three of the compositions are by saxophonist Yosvany Terry whose horn voicing style is a direct descendant of the work Chick Corea did with his Return To Forever small big-band lineup. Terry’s “Looking In Retrospective” is a ripper that allows all the musicians plenty of room to stretch out. While everyone plays and solos with distinction, it’s still obvious Rubalcaba is the heavy hitter in the group. His solo combines Horace Silver like left hand punctuations with off-kilter and disjunct right hand melodic lines that fit so perfectly the elimination of a single note would irreparably ruin the work.
Bassist Matt Brewer’s one composition, the ballad “Aspiring To Normalcy,” is sweet and poignant. Rubalcaba’s introduction lays out the harmonic parameters before trumpet/flugelhornist Mike Rodriguez enters with a series of touching melodic motives that give way to a dream-like metered sequence reminiscent of some of Miles Davis’ work on Miles Smiles. Eventually Rodriguez gets an open section to solo and makes the most of it with his warm sound and clearly beautiful lines that include scattered use of tongued articulations to best effect.
The real strength of this recording is the way this group plays like a group. So much of modern jazz recording is just a bunch of guys getting together in the studio to sight-read and record a collection tunes written by the leader. The result is usually lackluster at best. Nothing could be further from the truth with this recording. In the great tradition of Davis, Silver and Blakey, this is a true band and they play like one; giving here, taking there, they find a way to create the perfect Gestalt – the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This used to be common in jazz, but is rarely heard on CDs of today. One can only hope Blue Note will allow Rubalcaba to keep this band together and recording for a long time to come. While one can only speculate as to where this group might end up, the beginning of the journey is about as perfect as any initial voyage can be.
Tracks: Looking In Retrospective, This Is It, Aspiring To Normalcy, Peace, Hip Side, Infantil and Preludio Corto No. 2 For Piano
Record Label Website: http://www.bluenote.com/
Artist's Website: http://www.g-rubalcaba.com/
Reviewed by:
Thomas R. Erdmann
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