Time to time -a friend told me, the first time I heard Real Project live. I remember it was during a presentation at the Casa del Alba Cultural back in 2017. At the height of 2023 we are not the same, the planet is not the same, Cuba is not the same and of course the band I am writing about today is not the same either.<\/p>\n
Sailing for just over nine years, Ruly Herrera<\/a> and Jorge Luis \"Yoyi\" Lagarza<\/a> have established themselves in the Cuban music scene, overcoming mistakes and obstacles. I emphasize in the music scene and not only in the jazz circuit because their new album goes beyond any generic pigeonholing.<\/p>\n Mutaci\u00f3n<\/i> (Bis Music, 2023) is an album of balance and movement, eclectic. Although to the public's ear it may seem simple, it contains complex musical dynamics. The sensation it leaves from the first minutes of listening is like when we close our eyes to enjoy the smell of a good seasoning.<\/p>\n On the other hand, the complete line-up of the album is: Ruly Herrera (drums), Jorge Luis \"Yoyi\" Lagarza (keyboards), Rafael Aldama (bass), Rasiel Aldama (trumpet and keyboards) and, as a guest, Theo Crocker (trumpet). In the masters<\/i>Luis Dur\u00e1n and other foreign collaborators participated in the recording and sound.<\/p>\n The composers on the album draw from a gigantic musical stream, from Chopin and the Gymnopedies <\/i>from Erik Sati\u00e9 to Mac Miller or The Weeknd. They take Robert Glasper, the Cuban jazz school and international bands such as Snarky Puppy or Hiatus Kaiyote as central references. They manage to link jazz with the drill<\/em>, the funky<\/em>, the latin jazz<\/em>, the reggae<\/em>some touches of calypso and much groove<\/i>At the same time, they are distinguished from their peers by their unique style and meticulous work prior to the recording studio.<\/p>\n Real Project has a lot to say in 12 tracks (in my opinion the right number). No more and no less, so as not to saturate the audience; enough to make one point clear: mutation is real. When we think of something mutating, we think of transformation, ceasing to be to become a new existence. Something similar happened with these guys; when guitarist Roberto Luis G\u00f3mez left the lineup, it was as if by leaving, he left the door open to new possibilities. This is where the Aldama brothers came into play. The first mutagen was to give melodic leadership to Rasiel's trumpet. The second, to incorporate Rafael's bass, which diminishes the rhythmic protagonism of Ruly Herrera's drums, allowing both of them to alternate functions in the songs.<\/p>\n New points of view and corrections calibrated the course of Real Project, leaving virtuosity for live performances and focusing with more serenity on transmitting emotions. Yoyi, Ruly and Rafa play with our feelings -musically speaking- in such a subtle way that serotoniza<\/i>to a whole audience, so to speak. That is the effect of change. Change that reconfigures his style, without losing the essence, but with new horizons.<\/p>\n A sample of the above are: Mutaci\u00f3n<\/i>, Influence, Rafa's Mind<\/i>, Change<\/i>, Ocaso<\/i> and Conversation<\/i> in the<\/i> lobby<\/i>The rhythmic dynamism, the confluence of two or more genres in the jazz base and the way in which they take advantage of the potential of each instrument characterize these six themes. The rhythmic dynamism, the confluence of two or more genres in the jazz base and the way in which they take advantage of the potential of each instrument characterize these six themes. Although the album is a jewel in every sense of the word, these stand out for being the thematic skeleton on which the work is based, with Mutation, Change <\/i>and Rafa's Mind<\/i> as a central axis.<\/p>\n Mutaci\u00f3n<\/i> and Change <\/i>are the most representative songs of the discourse of the album. The first one describes the maelstrom of transformation and narrates from its harmonic changes the evolution of Real Project in the pre-pandemic period, the necessary re-evolutions to adapt to a new reality. I would dare to say that it is a testimonial song; although to speak of testimony in jazz is, to say the least, daring.<\/p>\n Change<\/i> has a more social slant; oriented towards the Cuban reality, to the harshness of the crisis we are going through. This theme was the single <\/i>presented by the group, accompanied by a video clip. It was conceived with the renowned American musician Theo Crocker (trumpeter) as a guest, which allowed the piece to transcend into a kind of dialogue between the Cuban (Rasiel Aldama) and American (Theo Crocker) schools. The conversation vibrates with the hope it conveys, reflecting not only the need for change in our land, but also the dialogue that this transformation requires.<\/p>\n Rafa's Mind<\/i> is a hurricane funked<\/i> of harmony and tonal changes. This song perhaps coincides with Rafael Aldama's role in the creative process of Real Project. It evolves in a spiral and drops us into an unexpected ending, as much as the thought itself, where every new action distracts and cuts off the previous lines of thought, making us lose concentration. It is a complex theme that allows Rafa to take several lines of thought out of his mind. alone<\/i> from under the sleeve.<\/p>\n Reaching a good port, Real Project disembarks and starts to say goodbye with Occasion, <\/i>where they experiment with the atmospheres of the environment <\/i>that acclimates to jazz virtuosity. The mental caprioles behind the album are noticeable. Fine work -some of my friends say when they hear it-; because Ruly and Yoyi's squad describe their journey from the natural fiber to the artificial, and from the individuality to the social collective.<\/p>\n There is a lot of content born from the abstractions of Real Project, but I want to close with Truth<\/i>the last track of the album. It is a monologue of the band about itself, where all the instruments have the same weight, a sort of affirmation of the album. The closing of the process, as if what at some point were sporadic snippets of a dream became a reality: from larva to cocoon, from cocoon to chrysalis and from there to butterfly.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sailing for a little more than nine years, Ruly Herrera and Jorge Luis \"Yoyi\" Lagarza have settled in the Cuban music scene, overcoming mistakes and obstacles. I emphasize in the music scene and not only in the jazz circuit because their new album goes beyond any generic pigeonholing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1587,"featured_media":13814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[6681,840,9845,9751,9847,9556,66,843,9846],"coauthors":[9388],"class_list":["post-13813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resenas","tag-cubajazz","tag-jorge-luis-lagarza","tag-mutacion","tag-nuevo-album","tag-rafael-aldam","tag-rasiel-aldama","tag-real-project","tag-ruly-herrera","tag-theo-crocker"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/magazineampm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/mutacion_web.png?fit=1816%2C830&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1587"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13813"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13818,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13813\/revisions\/13818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13813"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}