Habana

Latin Beat Magazine, August, 1997 by Jesse Varela

ROY HARGROVE'S CRISOL

When Roy Hargrove went to play the Havana Jazz Festival in Cuba last year, he didn't know what he would find. Immediately he was pulled into the frenesí of Afro-Cuban popular music and like Dizzy Gillespie and others before him, began to dissect and ask questions about structure and rhythms with an insatiable curiosity. The legendary pianist Chucho Valdés, founder of the Cuban jazz ensemble Irakere, became a willing mentor and as their relationship grew both poured their distinct musical souls into a Crisol and forged a stellar partnership that results here.

At 26, Hargrove is one of the premier jazz trumpeters of his generation. Habana is a musical awakening for the horn man that enlists top contemporary jazz stylists (Gary Bartz, Frank Lacy, David Sánchez, John Benitez, and guitar wiz Russell Malone), and an all-star Cuban rhythm section (Horacio "El Negro" Hernández, Miguel "Angá" Díaz, José Luis Quintana "Changuito," and Chucho Valdés). All create a stream of fine solos with a strong scintillating rhythmic foundation.

Valdés' ripping Mambo For Roy features Hargrove soaring, with blue tonalities and intrepid phrases. Sánchez and Bartz tag back and forth after trading riffs with exquisite style. A finale of percussive wonder closes the piece as the drummers splash! There's a comparison here to the jazz Latin experiments of Hargrove's fellow Texan Kenny Dorham, whose Bluenote album Afro Cuban set the standard for small combo in the '50s. Una Mas and Afrodisia (richly voiced by Don Sickler) are pulled from the Dorham book for a straight-ahead romp. A cool landmark album for Hargrove, adding him to a growing list of young jazz people reaching out to today's Cuba for inspiration.