Chucho Valdes

In 1962, two of the most influential and talented instrumentalists that Cuba ever produced were brought together. Saxophonist/clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera was invited to hear pianist Chucho Valdés at a local club in his Marianao neighborhood of South Havana. The two soon became a musical partnership that helped shape jazz in Cuba. Their paths would separate in 1980 when D’Rivera left Cuba.

Veteran Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes pays tribute to many of his mentors and peers on Chucho's Steps. The first hint of his intention comes with the instrumentation of a sextet also featuring Juan Carlos de Castro Rojo Blanco on drums, Lazaro Rivero Alarcуn on bass, Yaroldy Abreu on percussion, Carlos Miyares Hernandez on tenor saxophone, and Reynaldo Melian Alvarez on trumpet.

Chucho Valdés is at the top of his game here, on Tribute to Irakere (Live in Marciac). There is a visceral excitement in the performance, where the music is played in the idiomatic vein of Irakere. This means the creation of an attractive, edifying atmosphere in Marciac with the celebrated collision of African polyrhythms together with a polyphony born of Cuban folk forms that Chucho Valdés is so well known for adapting to his electrifying style.

The billing (Irakere "featuring Chucho Valdés") illustrates what a draw the leader-pianist Valdés has become in his own right, and Yemayá does indeed showcase his prodigious talents as a keyboardist, albeit on an electro-acoustic instrument and with a set designed as much for the American jazz audience as for his Cuban roots. The opening title cut with Valdés's sister Mayra Caridad on vocals is a killer Latin-soul-jazz workout, while track 2, with blistering solo work from Valdés over a crisp, percussion-led rhythm, sets the tone for the remaining seven extended cuts. This is not so much Cuban music as jazz with a Latin base–complex, disciplined, but swinging hard. Yemayá represents a new phase for Irakere and is Latin Jazz of the highest caliber, full of virtuosity and passion.

With the exception of one song left off due to lack of space, this single CD reissues the music from two LPs featuring Chucho Valdes in Cuba. 1972's Jazz Bata, the first five selections, features the great pianist in a rhythm section with bassist Carlos del Puerto and Oscar Valdes on congas. The originals, which are straight-ahead jazz that utilizes Cuban polyrhythms, show off Valdes' wondrous technique well, and include one song named after Valdes' famous group "Irakere." While "Laureen" is an emotional out-of-tempo ballad, some of the other songs find the pianist making a great deal out of very little including the lengthy vamp piece "Son No. 2." He never seems to run out of ideas. The final five selections are from 1982 and have Valdйs leading a five-piece rhythm section plus guest German Velasco.

Chucho Valdes, Cuba's most famous jazz musician, has rebalanced the repertoire of his Afro-Cuban Messengers on Border-Free, mixing its American-jazz agenda (the group's name deliberately references both Valdes' roots and the late Art Blakey's classic soul-bop Jazz Messengers group) with more extended Latin-American input, and some Native American and Andalusian connections, too. Saxophonist Branford Marsalis, guesting on three tracks, is warmly romantic on tenor on the loping Tabu, agile and fluent on the Cuban dance-shuffle Bebo, and mercurial on a soprano-sax break full of north African microtonalisms on the hurtling, horn-hooting finale, Abdel.

Cuban music legend, Jesus "Chucho" Valdes is fiery hot and still impacting the jazz world with his diverse musical elements. Riding the new wave in Latin jazz fostered by the pianist's critically acclaimed 3/4le Bele en la Habana on Blue Note in 1998, Valdes reserved enough energy to excite his fans with an exquisite blend of technique and soul on Live. The CD, an infectious, collection of cubop grooves and rhythms, further develops the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz collective Chucho has been pulsating for the past 25 years as musical director of Irakere, the award-winning band he co-founded to play both music styles. "Tumbao," and "Blues a Puerto Rico," feature a variety of moods, melodies, syncopation and the signature solos of Chucho's formidable piano.