Tribute to Chucho Valdés and Irakere / Carlos Miyares

The most universal of all Cubans said it once and forever: "honor, honor." The determination to make value judgments about the album Tribute to Chucho Valdés and Irakere (Unicorn, 2021) brings to mind this Martian aphorism. It seems to me ideal given the certainty that it is a phonogram whose purpose is to revere one of the leading orchestras of Cuban and universal popular music. 

Due to its innovations and inescapable contributions to Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz, one can speak on the Island of a "before" and an "after" of Irakere, one of the most authentic contemporary groups. His proposal, characterized by the experimentation of new orchestral concepts, became a reference and model, revolutionized the national music scene and laid the foundations for a wave of projects that emerged in later stages. 

This CD-DVD Tribute to Chucho Valdés and Irakere is the audiovisual record of a concert held at the Havana National Theater at the beginning of 2020, within the framework of the Jazz Plaza Festival. There, for a few years now, high-flying artistic performances have been taking place that, in addition to providing indescribable pleasure, have the added value of bringing the audience closer, from an updated perspective, to works inscribed in the annals of the musical history of the nation. 

The album is the result of the union of the Unicorn label of Abdala Productions and the National Center for Popular Music, and its manager is the outstanding saxophonist Carlos Manuel Miyares, with an important career in the current Cuban jazz scene. This is preceded by other phonograms with which he acquired notable recognition in the guild: Chucho Valdes introduces Carlos Miyares (Bis Music, 2012), Carlos Miyares & The Cuban Quintet (Egrem, 2017) and one more time (Unicorn, 2019). With that record pedigree, he now returns to cover a handful of musical pieces that, more than their authors, belong to the public that made them their own, in Cuba or beyond the seas, because they have been part of his personal soundtrack.  

For this, he has resorted to the version in its multiple manifestations; a type of production that, although it is old in the course of recorded popular music, has experienced exponential growth in recent years. This is the concept that supports this proposal, totally coherent if we take into account that improvising, composing, arranging or orchestrating, as well as appropriating standard North American or Cuban repertoires, is part of the daily work of the jazz player in Cuba, and the leader of this project does not escape that cultural practice. The result is the updating, transformation, praise or deconstruction of these sound references, among other derived processes.

Miyares, who works as director and musical producer of the phonogram, was part of the ranks of Irakere, and this experience left indelible marks on his professional career. Thus, on the same stage, and with the same purpose, colossi of jazz on our Island, covering a wide generational spectrum, met. The saxophonist was joined by the consecrated Germán Velazco, the trumpeters Alexander Abreu and Mayquel González, the pianists Tony Rodríguez and Harold López-Nussa, the percussionists Yaroldy Abreu and Adel González, the drummer Juan Carlos Rojas The Peje, bassist Rafael Paseiro and singer Mandy Cantero. Some were members of the orchestra in its different stages; others, although they had also received their influences, debuted in the effort to interpret this challenging repertoire, and all of them made the show an unrepeatable event, of inestimable testimonial value.

The occasion became an ideal pretext to revisit six emblematic works from the Irakere catalogue, most of them composed by Chucho Valdés: Juana 1600, Estela is going to explode, Monkey, Bacalao con pan and what is going to happen, to which is added that dare, authored by Ricardo Díaz. It is these that give body to Tribute to Chucho Valdés and Irakere, in whose sound support are incorporated, with the character of bonus track, Iya, by Arturo Sandoval, and a medley of hits which includes fragments of anthological pieces such as Rucu rucu to Santa Clara and I don't want confusion, by Jose Luis Cortes; Throw seed into the maraca and I do have one, by Jesus Morales; Y Let it be known, I am from Havana, whose signature belongs to Oscar Valdés. In this way, the selection of the repertoire took into account works inscribed in both fields: jazz and dance, creative will that from the beginning characterized the style of Irakere. Each of them reflects a critical assimilation of the genre and the insertion of codes that refer to music of African origin, as well as rhythmic and timbre elements of traditional and contemporary popular music in Cuba, always with a high cohesive level.

Added to the benefits of this record production is the logical and coherent ordering of the repertoire, already favored in advance by the arrangements and orchestrations of yesteryear, which here are highly respected in their essence, with hints of contemporaneity. At this point, one might then ask oneself: is Miyares projected as a guardian or as an innovator of our musical tradition? The answer points in both directions. The saxophonist does not intend to subvert the spirit of Irakere; Rather, it preserves it, so that it reaches new generations unharmed, which gives the phonogram a significant cultural value. 

We are facing an artist who assumes and intervenes, in the same language of the original matrices, the canons pre-established by other authors for the Irakere orchestra. The spectacular come-you of all-star musicians who take part here reintegrates those patterns into its rich sound universe, and returns them in a personalized look, the result of the collective training that typifies the field of jazz. Interpretive excellence is the common factor in each theme, nuanced by the improvisational passages that reveal the genius of its executors, who here project themselves as Cuban as they are universal. 

follow the path of cover led Carlos Miyares to face a gigantic challenge: to transcribe each of these works as they were conceived in their time. In this process, recreating the piano scores ─which meant re-editing Chucho Valdés' interpretive style─ was a complicated task, although not impossible. The saxophonist displayed his mastery and practice in this academic exercise and the result was commendable. 

In the staging, the signs of renewal impregnated in the pieces are noticeable, especially in the aggressive performance that characterizes the percussions in the timba, in the perpetual march of the chekeré, as well as in the counter-accentuations and the dynamism of the tumbaos of the piano and bass, offering the listener a new listening experience. To this sonorous magma is added the execution of the metals, precise and virtuous, in the old way, in what became a performance that honored the historic section of wind instruments in Irakere, so revolutionary since the founding times. dance pieces like Bacalao con pan They took us back to historical moments of the group, extremely emotional, by evoking the spirit, charisma and scenic mastery of Oscar Valdés, which came to us translated through the energetic Mandy Cantero. 

Ernest's ingenuity Enzo Estrada left the meeting perpetuated in a magnificent recording, with all the challenges involved in recording a live concert. This was the result of a consensual work in which mixing and mastering became essential, in charge of Javier Valladares, and where it would also be fair to highlight the room sound, monitored by Albert Xangala. For its part, the audiovisual production, led by Marlon Garrigas, and the graphic design, by Juan Carlos Viera, stand out as attributes that enhance the proposal and reflect a coherent thought. 

Carlos Miyares paid well-deserved tribute to Chucho Valdés and Irakere and, in doing so, he is collecting honors. Only time will attest to the effectiveness of his proposal. It would suffice that, by listening to it, future generations manage to evaluate and recognize in its fair measure the considerable legacy of this orchestra, and of this phonogram, a kind of bastion or banner that we display with pride so that other cultures build our identity. So be it!

Listen Tribute to Chucho Valdés and Irakere here.