{"id":11646,"date":"2022-07-13T00:00:54","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T04:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/?p=11646"},"modified":"2022-07-12T16:28:25","modified_gmt":"2022-07-12T20:28:25","slug":"nasobuco-oliver-valdes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/nasobuco-oliver-valdes\/","title":{"rendered":"Nasobuco \/ Oliver Valdes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The paths, the paths were not made by themselves, they have to (un)walk again and again. This seems to be the maxim that Oliver Vald\u00e9s suggests to us with his album <\/span>mask<\/span><\/i>. For those, like me, who accessed these songs live for the first time during his presentation-concert at the Sala Covarrubias of the National Theater of Cuba, last January, it must have been quite an experience.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although it is true that I always make time to listen to contemporary Cuban jazz \u2014 one of those ineffable practices that I update with each new phonogram or <\/span>jam<\/span><\/i>\u2014, I confess that I had no idea of the compositional course of Oliver, whom I have followed, for more than 20 years, in the various collective projects or collaborations with creators of different generations and dissimilar musical proposals of which he has been a part. Obviously he assumed jazz as a matrix, since already in <\/span>Drums Havana<\/span><\/i> (2013) had seen something of his together with Rodney Barreto, but what other genres he would incorporate in this, his first production, was always unknown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

mask <\/span><\/i>It has nine songs, seven authored\/arranged by Oliver and another two in which he shares the credit with Julito Padr\u00f3n (<\/span>Peanut<\/span><\/i>) and Alejandro Delgado (<\/span>mask<\/span><\/i>). However, much of what shines on the national music scene (not only jazz) sounds on this phonogram. The extensive list of collaborators includes Germ\u00e1n Velazco, Jorge Reyes, Barbarito Torres, Yosvany Terry, Jorge Luis Vald\u00e9s <\/span>boyy<\/span><\/i>, Carlos Alfonso and Ele Vald\u00e9s, Gast\u00f3n Joya, Jorge Arag\u00f3n, Roberto Carcass\u00e9s, Tony Rodr\u00edguez, Rolando Luna, Julito Padr\u00f3n, Jamil Schery, Juan Carlos Mar\u00edn, Alejandro Delgado, Eme Alfonso, Yaroldy Abreu, Adonis Panter, Ram\u00f3n Tamayo and Adonis Panter Jr. What makes this album a sort of sound \u201cdatabase\u201d of experienced performers, each contributing at the time, with relish and dedication.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite having been an album recorded at the Ojal\u00e1 Studios during the pandemic \u2014which is why its name and cover design are irreducible signs of a reality and suffered contexts\u2014, as the author himself said in a previous interview, it had been in the making for a long time. several years. One feels that there is little chance and a lot of thought in the way it was structured. From the <\/span>beat<\/span><\/i> initial of <\/span>Peanut<\/span><\/i> with its atmospheric keyboards, and the trumpet marking, making way for the expansive drums, we cross a porch where the laughter and voice of Julito Padr\u00f3n take us back, to Bola de Nieve, to Louis Armstrong, in the joyful way of inviting, <\/span>old jazz style<\/span><\/i>. So for almost immediately, in <\/span>Chekerson<\/span><\/i>, pay homage to a great Cuban percussionist, Pancho Terry. This is a tasty song, and its performance at the concert was a real shock: from a frenetic march we swung towards a graceful bolero-son, which later, when the chekere (Yosvany Terry), brass, piano and drums are released, gives way to the melodic sax to, in the final descent of this musical roller coaster, end up \u201ctimbeando\u201d all together. To \u201cdance with the drum\u201d, just as the choir requested.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the height of the third <\/span>track<\/span><\/i>, we have an unexpected cut: <\/span>Gbadura Elegba<\/span><\/i> (Yoruba chant to Eleggu\u00e1). An initial minute where the clear voice of Carlos Alfonso, accompanied by Ele Vald\u00e9s and his daughter Eme, opens by filling the space, and this is one of the paths that Oliver proposes to us, since he knows conscientiously that the main rhythmic base of Cuban music it comes from that African root, and it's going to come back twice more in this phonogram. In effect, themes 3, 6 and 9 \u2014a whole intrinsic mathematics\u2014, are sound stages connected by the same voices but dissimilar in projection. not just because <\/span>Gbadura Elegba<\/span><\/i> comes from the Yoruba root and <\/span>Afra Egan<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Ophakarate<\/span><\/i> (sixth and ninth <\/span>track<\/span><\/i>, in that order) do so from the Arar\u00e1 culture, less well known but where Eleggu\u00e1\/Afra is just as important, but because the arrangements are particular to the extent that they function as pivots in the general structure of the phonogram.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n