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// Chucho Valdés
© D.R.
Chucho’s Steps
On his new album, Chucho’s Steps, legendary Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés (son of Afro-Cuban jazz pioneer Bebo), pays tribute to another musical colossus, John Coltrane. The title honours Coltrane’s masterpiece Giant Steps, the visionary album which opened the way to new harmonic and rhythmic horizons, a revolutionary quest in sound. Chucho makes a panoramic commitment to jazz on this album, and he is playing as if his life depended on it, at the super-charged cross-roads where American jazz history meets Afro-Cuban traditions. There’s an elegant nod to Cole Porter and George Gershwin (‘Begin To Be Good’) and a swinging homage to the Marsalis family (‘New Orleans’) and also to the late Joe Zawinul (‘Zawinul’s Mambo’). All the while Chucho celebrates the immeasurable contributions artists have made across geographical divides. And he does it through a heady process of Latinisation – he drenches themes in Mojitos and marries Blue Note with danzon and cha cha cha. One track, titled ‘Las Dos Caras’ signals the meeting of American and Cuban sounds, but Chucho goes way beyond this duality. His rhythmic range is phenomenal, and his inspiration takes on mystical dimensions on ‘Yansá’, with batá drums calling to the orishas. There is a sense of sublime restraint in his work. This master musician who writes, arranges and creates the most complex patterns describes the process as a simple one; “You don’t think, you play”. But to play like this you must draw on the alchemist formula described by the pianist Horace Silver: strength, intellect and emotion. That’s how you find the spirit of jazz, an art which is always new because it is in constant flux, the sound which Chucho calls “freedom, made into music”.
Chucho Valdés & The Afro-Cuban Messengers – Chucho’s Steps is out now on World Village/Harmonia Mundi
Anne-Laure Lemancel
(22 votes)
// ALSO
- Chucho Valdes
- 80s World Music Classics
- Pernett
- Quantic and his Combo Barbaro album launch tour starts Friday 5 June at the ICA
- Joe Bataan & James Pants live at Cargo 11 June plus dates in Leeds and Birmingham
- Los Van Van live Sat 7 March + competition!
- The Cuban diaspora, Buena Vista Exile Club
- Zim Ngqawana, Repairing the Vandalism
- World Audio Foundation, Sacred sounds
// ALL CHUCHO VALDéS'S REVIEWS
Chucho’s Steps
16/08/2010
// DISCOGRAPHY
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Omara & Chucho (Album)
Doble gigante the latin jazz sides (Album)// LINKS
RELATED ARTISTS
>> Richard Bona
>> Ibrahim Ferrer
>> Jimmy Bosch
>> Bebo Valdés
>> Buika
REPORTS
// CONTACT
Blue Note (Label)
Tel : (33) 1 46 29 20 20
FRA
Chucho Valdés's Website
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