Chucho Valdes & The Afro-Cuban Messengers – Border-Free (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:37 minutes | 1,43 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Jazz Village
Border-Free is a companion piece and a doubling-down on Chucho Valdés’ magnificent Chucho’s Steps album from 2010. Valdés has retained most of his Afro-Cuban Messengers (although the drummer and bassist are new, the percussionist, vocalist/bata player and trumpeter return), pays tribute once again to family members and key historical musicians and cultures, and reprises the previous album’s virtuosic hopping and condensing of genres.
But where Chucho’s Steps included a dedication to Chucho’s son, Julian, Border-Free includes tributes to his grandmother (“Caridad Amaro,” which concludes with an excerpt from a Rachmaninoff concerto she liked); his mother (“Pilar,” which interpolates compositions from Bach and Miles Davis that she favored); and his famous, recently departed father, Bebo Valdés (“Bebo,” which, despite the small ensemble, evokes Bebo’s Sabor de Cuba Orchestra from the ’50s).
While Chucho’s Steps featured an overt tribute to the Marsalis family, Border-Free actually brings saxophonist Branford Marsalis onboard for three songs, an inspired addition that bears fruit within the ’50s Cuban ambiance of the Bebo homage and the Afro-Arabic gnawa music of “Abdel.” As its title implies, Border-Free also ups the ante in terms of genre hopping and swapping. Along with the aforementioned forays into Euro-classical, Arab, old-style Cuban and postbop stylings, the centerpiece of the record is the 12-minute “Afro-Comanche,” featuring percussion and chants and dedicated to the mixed heritage Cuban offspring of the Comanches who were deported to the island in the 19th century.
But above all, Border-Free, like Chucho’s Steps, is carried forth on the crests of Valdes’ piano. The notes pour out like a force of nature, conjuring the nightclub and the conservatory, bop and clave, concerto and danzón via heart, hands and soul. The opening number, “Congadanza,” is the musical equivalent of a waterfall kicking up a rainbow in its mist. At 71, he’s found another gear these past two records. –Britt Robson, JazzTimes
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Chucho Valdes – Tribute to Irakere: Live in Marciac (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:09:41 minutes | 454 MB | Genre: Afro-Cuban Jazz, Latin
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Jazz Village
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. Along with the extra fire of his rhythm section, Live broadens Valdes’ Afro-Cuban perspective and the influences brimming in Carribean and Latin American life. ~ Paula Edelstein
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Chucho Valdes – Jazz Batá 2 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 56:05 minutes | 605 MB | Genre: Latin Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Mack Avenue Records
‘Jazz Batá 2′, Cuban composer, pianist and bandleader Chucho Valdés’ first album for Mack Avenue Records, marks a new peak of creativity for the artist, even as it revisits the small-group concept of his 1972 album ‘Jazz Batá’.
That album upon release was originally considered experimental at the time, but the trio project – featuring no drum set and two virtuosi who would subsequently be charter members of Irakere: Carlos del Puerto (bass) and Oscar Valdés (batâ: the sacred, hourglass shaped drums of the Yoruba religion in Cuba) – would now be considered contemporary.
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Chucho Valdés, Paquito D’Rivera – I Missed You Too! (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 49:53 minutes | 876 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sunnyside
In 1962, two of the most influential and talented instrumentalists Cuba has ever produced met. Saxophonist/clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera was invited to hear pianist Chucho Valdés at a local club in his Marianao neighborhood in southern Havana. The two soon became a musical partnership that helped shape jazz in Cuba. Their paths would part in 1980, when D’Rivera left Cuba.
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