The weekend of July 06-08, 2012 – a sampling of Caribbean Jazz from the Woodshed

The Miguel Zénon 4tet is now on a jam-packed swing through Europe, one that has taken the Puerto Rican saxophonist to Belgium for the Gent Jazz Festival, Rioja Alavesa, Spain to be part of the IX Big Band Festival, and weekend gone, Ducs de Lombard, Paris, France for a two-night stay from July 07-08.

Akcentuatethepositive.over-blog was on hand to see Zénon live at Ducs de Lombard one year ago almost to the day and blogged about it. Here is a composite translation of that piece as it appears on the French language blog.

Duc des Lombards opened its summer festival “Nous n’irons pas à New York” (“We won’t go to New York“), bringing the finest jazz musicians from New York to Paris.

Miguel Zenon offered a musical journey that is indelibly etched in the memory. This young musician and composer, gifted and humble at the same time, allowed us the opportunity to discover a number of tunes from “Alma Adentro” (released in August / September 2011).

Not only did he play challenging, melodic and beautiful music, but he reminded everybody that many of the most cherished standards in Jjazz were born as popular songs.

Miguel Zenon played many tunes at Duc des Lombards, each of them evoking a personal story.

“Incomprendido“, composed by Bobby Capo, was made famous by the Salsa singer Ismael Rivera. Miguel Zenon rearranged this song – one of his dad’s favorite – and played it as a ballad.

“Perfume de Gardenias“, composed by Rafael Hernandez, is Miguel‘s tribute to his first saxophone teacher, Angel Marrero.

“Tiemblas“, composed by Catalino “Tite” Curet Alonso, was arranged in order to illuminate the melody, driven by the tempos and textures of the rhythm section.

Harold Lopez-Nussa

C.U.B.A., a thirteen-member orchestra from Havana, teamed up with Mexican guitarists Rodrigo y Gabriela at North Sea Jazz Fest on July 07. The duo and C.U.B.A. have a new studio release, Area 52, on the shelves now. It is a no-brainer that this material was the collaborator’s musical centrepiece at Ahoy Rotterdam, Ahoyweg 10, Rotterdam, Holland, ground zero for North Sea Jazz.

The Harold Lopez-Nussa Quintet (Lopez-Nussa: piano, Fender Rhodes; Ruy Adrian Lopez-Nussa: drums; Felipe Cabrera: double bass; Irving Acao (tenor saxophone); Michael Gonzalez (trumpet) threw down their Latin Jazz at North Sea on Saturday as well.

The Surinam Music Ensemble drew Bennie Maupin in to help deliver their Fusion and Jazz Rock/World Music – at NSJF. Maupin (flute, bass clarinet, saxophone) joined Ronald Snijders (flute); Franky Douglas (guitar); Glenn Gaddum (piano, keyboards); Pablo Nahar (double bass); Eddy Veldman (drums); Carlo Hoop (percussion) in Rotterdam, Sunday, July 08.

Finally, Dominican Republic pianist Michel Camilo and his “MANO A MANO” TRIO (Camilo: piano; Lincoln Goines: double bass; Giovanni Hidalgo: percussion) moved on from The Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival in New York weekend before last to North Sea this past weekend.

The week in Caribbean Jazz ending July 06, 2012 – a sampling from the Woodshed

The first week of the month of July was relatively quiet in the Caribbean, but as active as ever for Caribbean Jazz artists abroad.

Guadeloupean saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart promoted his newest CD, The Art of Dreaming, at New Morning (7 Rue des Petites Ecuries), Paris on July 3. In concert with Schwarz-Bart was Baptiste Trotignon on piano, Thomas Bramerie playing bass and Hans van Oosterhout behind the drum kit.

Back in the Caribbean, on the same Tuesday, Blue Culture presented Jazz Quarters – Dean Williams at La Casa de Ibiza, 163 Tragarete Rd., Woodbrook, Trinidad.

The namesake author of The Chantal Esdelle Caribbean Jazz Corner weblog was at La Casa and published a critical account of the show, reproduced below.

“Beautiful people on stage and in the audience, that was my first thought as I entered Casa de Ibiza last night. Guitarist Dean Williams and the three young men, Rodney Alexander (bass), Alpha Simpson (drums), Anthony Woodroffe (sax) were definitely worth a second look….  I found myself thinking, “this sounds like Stevie Wonder”, “this sounds like Marcus Miller”, “this sounds like Steve Coleman”, “this sounds like the horn lines from Etienne Charles’ Douens”, “this reminds me of Omar Hakim”, “that calypso soca groove sounds like Kid Creole”.  These references were not necessarily a good or a bad thing, simply and interesting one.

In the first set these musical styles and references were more apparent since Dean presented standard material first and they actually played Stevie’s “Isn’t she lovely” into John Legend’s “Ordinary People”, followed by Ralph MacDonald’s “Just the two of us”, and ended with Gershwin’s “Summertime”. They played all of these in Funk/R&B style so it would be hard to navigate away from the style of drummers like Hakim, bassists like Miller and guitarists like Benson who have defined that style of improv for decades, or to resist quoting themes from popular songs like Maniac from Flashdance.  So they stayed close to the flight plan and did a good job of it.  The problem, though, was balance.  Bass, drums and guitar is a hard rhythm section format.  The middle/chords/colour that we get from an extra guitar or keys can easily be and, in this case for me, was missed.  I tried to figure out why [and] settled on a few possibilities.  Maybe the bass took up too much and the guitar took up too little of a presence in the mix; maybe the obvious skill gained by the drummer and bassist from study and transcriptions should now be harnessed into thinking well about establishing a smoother and less static underlying groove when playing together in this combination.  Anthony’s solos on sax and his and Dean’s singing on “Just the two of us” and “Summertime”, respectively, took my attention away from the thinking and allowed me to enjoy the last two pieces in this set.

After the break…, we were treated to originals.  Dean let us know that they were his originals re-arranged by Jesse Ryan.  Jesse joined Anthony in the sax section for the second set.  The additional sax made a marked difference to the sound.  Perhaps the background lines and solos gave Dean a chance to fill in the middle.  Whatever it was it did change things.  Although most of the originals were clearly built around familiar musical examples – Dean’s song for his daughter, was reminiscent of Stevie Wonder’s song for his daughter (Isn’t she lovely) in several respects, the horn lines in Tanzania were a bit too close to the ones Etienne wrote for his original Douens, and the Kid Creaole take used to establish the groove for Dean’s Caribbean inspired piece was a bit shaky (timewise) – I was glad to have them.  I was glad to have them because I could feel the enjoyment and excitement that the group and the audience felt in experiencing them.  Rodney and Alpha had a really good time with their solos in this half, especially in the last piece, Super Speed, and I really appreciated their approach to playing with the time.

All in all it is clear that these musicians are listening and transcribing and I believe that they will come more and more into their own.  They also have a really nice audience to grow with….”

Festival Internazionale del Jazz della Spezia, Italy, was home for a day to Puerto Rican bassist Eddie Gomez and Cuban traps man Francisco Mella with Dave Kikoski and Dave Liebman, July 05. Created in 1969,International Jazz Festival of Spezia is into its 43rd edition.

Meanwhile, Miguel Zenon 4tet was in Gent, Belgium for the Gent Jazz Festival. That was just the beginning of Zenon’s foray into Europe. The very next day, July 06, the Quartet was in Rioja Alavesa, Spain to be part of the IX Big Band Festival.

Then it is on to Ducs de Lombard, Paris, France for a two-night stay, July 07-08, before jetting off to the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Angola and on and on.

Related articles

• The week in Caribbean Jazz ending June 29 – a sampling from the Woodshed (woodshedentertainment.wordpress.com)
• The week in Caribbean Jazz ending June 22 – a sampling from the Woodshed (woodshedentertainment.wordpress.com)
• The week in Caribbean Jazz ending June 15 – a sampling from the Woodshed (woodshedentertainment.wordpress.com)