Irakere - 1978 - Irakere

Irakere

1978

Irakere

01. Juana 1600

02. Ilyá

03. Adagio On A Mozart Theme

04. Misa Negra (Black Mass)

05. Aguanile Bonkó

Jesús "Chucho" Valdés, piano

Oscar Valdés, vocals, percussion

Carlos Emilio Morales, guitar

Carlos del Puerto, bass

Paquito D'Rivera, alto sax & clarinet

Carlos Averhoff, tenor & baritone sax

Arturo Sandoval, trumpet

Jorge Varona, trumpet

Enrique Pla, drums, percussion

Armando Cuervo, percussion

Jorge "El Niño" Alfonso, percussion

Recorded live at the Newport Festival, New York and at Montreux Jazz Festival by Mountain Studios, Montreux, Switzerland during the group’s tour through the United States and Switzerland during June/July, 1978

North American Latin jazz audiences were knocked out when this LP came out, for it was the first idea many of us had of the explosive power of this Cuban jazz/rock band, which had been letbriefly out of Cuba to tour. Columbia taped them live at New York's Newport Festival and Switzerland's Montreux Jazz Festival, and the result was a noisy, ambitious, frenzied, tremendouslyexciting mixture of everything but the kitchen sink. Co-founder, keyboardist and arranger Chucho Valdes was as thoroughly attuned to the thumping electric bass, the careening buzz of asynthesizer and bell-like electric piano as he was to his homeland's complex rhythms and his own classical training -- and despite the cultural embargo, the 11-piece group was in touch withthen-current developments in American jazz/rock. "Juana Mil Ciento," curiously the only track not available on CD, comes roaring out of the box with an incendiary mix of battering Cubandrumming, Arturo Sandoval's wild trumpet and Paquito D'Rivera's wailing alto. Paquito also contributes a free-floating, sometimes slapstick fantasy on themes of Mozart. The most audaciousnumber is the 17 1/2-minute "Black Mass," which unleashes Valdes' staggering classical piano technique, knockabout rock guitar, Cuban chanting, high-wire brass, and lots of drums withoutsomehow losing its train of thought. All but one of these tracks were reissued on CD as part of The Best of Irakere; admittedly, the LP's raucous sound is a bit more exciting than the cleaned-upCD.

Around 1972, some of the members of the Cuban Modern Music Orchestra decided to form their own group, and by 1973 it had been organized into what is now known as IRAKERE. Whenthese musicians, all impeccable soloists, left the best orchestra in the country, they had but one purpose in mind: to put all their efforts into what could be called 'experimenting,' joining a trendbegun by others who were trying to renovate popular music.

Chucho Valdés (piano) and Paquito D'Rivera (alto sax & clarinet), both composers and arrangers, were, from the beginning, the main inspirers of IRAKERE. Oscar Valdés would be in charge ofgiving a different personality to the percussion section, adding to it his knowledge of ancesteral songs in African language, one of the most important and least known forms of music of the Afro-Cuban musical heritage. Other members of the group also come from Cuban Modern Music Orchestra: Emilio Morales (guitar), Carlos del Puerto (bass), Enrique Pla' (drums) and ArturoSandoval and Jorge Varona (trumpets. Later additions were Carlos Averhoff (tenor & baritone sax) Jorge Alfonso and Armando Cuervo (percussion) to complete the group as it is today.

IRAKERE has two advantages over all the other groups who have a similar musical approach: the virtuosity of its soloists, who are excellent improvisers, and then, the cohesion which comesafter playing together for many years. Chucho, Paquito and Carlos Emilio have been associated almost since the beginning of their professional careers: first in the Havana Musical TheatreOrchestra and later on in a group that was led by Chucho, which had as a vocalist Amado Borcela (Guapacha'), who has since died, and with whom they made a number of records for EGREM,earning quite a lot of popularity in the sixties. Later on they formed different quartets and quintets (with Pla', Oscar and sometimes with Sandoval or Varona) to play at sporadic concerts andfestivals in Cuba and abroad. Their most outstanding performance outside of Cuba was during the 1970 Polish Jazz Festival, where the Cubans were heard and praised for the first time byrenowned jazz artists like Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan.

But let us leave IRAKERE's past history and come to present times. After having become the most brilliant and solid group within the new stream in Cuban music, they met, during the (one andonly) Jazz Cruise's stay in Havana in 1977, (such luminaries as) Stan Getz, who had come to Cuba often during the fifties, and Dizzy Gillespie, who strangely had never visited the country of hiscollaborator, Chano Pozo. The interest and enthusiasm that IRAKERE stirred up among the members of the Cruise - including musicians, jazz critics and producers - was like a preview of whatwould happen during the group's tour through the United States and Switzerland during June/July, 1978, and outstanding performances at the Newport and Montreux Jazz Festivals.

Japanese Edition

The press reviews that appeared in The New York Times, and San Francisco Examiner and Billboard, were very enthusiastic about IRAKERE, but a few questions arose that showed that therewas some confusion. Is it really jazz that IRAKERE plays? Has it anything to do with "salsa"? Can the group be classified as "Latin-jazz-rock'' or as ''Latin-fusion'' or ''salsa-fusion"?

The truth is that although the majority of the IRAKERE musicians have played jazz for many years, they have more experience and more solid roots in Cuban music. And the presence of Cubain IRAKERE is not only in its percussion, it is also in its way of playing: in the phrasing, in the attack and sense of rhythm of the soloists, as well as in whole passages.

Our novelist, Alejo Carpentier, who is also a renowned authority on music, has said that Cuban popular music is "the only music that can be compared with 'Jazz in the 20th century.' Is it notstrange that these two musical forms have been compared so frequently. Their affinity comes from before the existence of jazz as such. We know all about the history of the beginnings of jazz,but we don't always associate it with the ending of slavery in Cuba, between 1880 and 1889, and the massive immigration of black Cubans, free but jobless, to places like New Orleans. Neitheris it unusual that along with French and English names, one finds among the first jazz musicians names that show their Spanish roots (Lorenzo Tio, Luis Tio, Manuel Perez, Willy Marrero, PaulDominguez), nor that Jelly Roll Morton, when asked about where jazz came from, included Cuba among its places of origin.

More well known are the international influences of the habanera and the rumba, until we come to the 1940s and 1950s, the Cubop era. During this period, the impact caused by the meetingbetween Chano Pozo and Dizzy Gillespie can be added to the influences of Machito, Perez Prado, Mario Bauzá, Mongo Santamaria, Chico O'Farrill and many others. The "fusion'' betweenelements of jazz and Cuban music has a long history having nothing to do with the more recent merging of jazz and rock, which sometimes adds certain so-called ''Latin'' elements which are inreality, Afro Cuban or Afro-Caribbean. As far as salsa is concerned, it is 99 percent Cuban music of the '40s and '50s. This is why if IRAKERE are jazz musicians, they are so in a verysubstantially Cuban way.

If Chucho Valdés was familiar with the piano styles of Horace Silver or Bill Evans more than ten years ago, he also knew the peculiarities of the son, the contradanza and the danzón. At timeswe here reminiscences of Art Tatum in some passages, yet the other side of Chucho's style is given by his mastery of Cuban classical piano: Cervantes and Samuell in the 19th century andLecuona in the 20th, and in a more popular vein, Antonio Maria Romeu. Going down this road, who knows if, with the coming of IRAKERE onto the musical scene, we are getting to the roots andto the redevelopment, with a newer viewpoint, of practically inexhaustible materials.

Chucho's compositions, as well as those of other members of the group, reflect a receptiveness; to what is going on internationally, including free jazz and the so-called European musicalvanguard. They put these to work as a form of personal expression, underlined by the knowledgeable use of rhythms that have African origins and which are mixed and renovated with greatoriginality. One of the contributions has been to incorporate, into a musical context that once only accepted Congo and Dahomeyan elements, the intricate and vigorous Yoruba and Carabalirhythms which have been well known in Cuba but which had not been "integrated'' into the mainstream of our music. Another characteristic of these compositions are the frequent changes intime and atmosphere, a typical element in Yoruba music. "Misa Negra" ("Black Mass"), is perhaps the best example of this, although it can also be heard in "Ilya,''"Aguanile'' and others.

As to the individual contribution by each soloist, we must let them speak for themselves. You can't deny Paquito D'Rivera and Arturo Sandoval owe a lot to Parker and Gillespie, but can there bea more logical debt?

In Paquito's explosive sense of humor, the fierce intensity of Arturo, and Chucho's controlled lyricism, we find very personal facets in their playing. Like IRAKERE, there are many other youngCuban musicians who also play jazz in a style deeply rooted in Afro-Caribbean music and who at the same time have definite personal styles. IRAKERE is an outstanding example within a realmusical 'explosion.' Which is saying a lot.