{"id":9797,"date":"2022-03-04T00:00:07","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T05:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/?p=9797"},"modified":"2022-04-30T15:34:03","modified_gmt":"2022-04-30T19:34:03","slug":"tributo-a-chucho-valdes-e-irakere-carlos-miyares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/tributo-a-chucho-valdes-e-irakere-carlos-miyares\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribute to Chucho Vald\u00e9s and Irakere \/ Carlos Miyares"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most universal of all Cubans said it once and forever: "honor, honor." The determination to make value judgments about the album <\/span>Tribute to Chucho Vald\u00e9s and Irakere<\/span><\/i> (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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This CD-DVD<\/span> Tribute to Chucho Vald\u00e9s and Irakere <\/span><\/i>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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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: <\/span>Chucho Valdes introduces Carlos Miyares<\/span><\/i> (Bis Music, 2012), <\/span>Carlos Miyares & The Cuban Quintet<\/span><\/i> (Egrem, 2017) and <\/span>one more time<\/span><\/i> (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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 Germ\u00e1n Velazco, the trumpeters Alexander Abreu and Mayquel Gonz\u00e1lez, the pianists Tony Rodr\u00edguez and Harold L\u00f3pez-Nussa, the percussionists Yaroldy Abreu and Adel Gonz\u00e1lez, the drummer Juan Carlos Rojas <\/span>The Peje<\/span><\/i>, 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

The occasion became an ideal pretext to revisit six emblematic works from the Irakere catalogue, most of them composed by Chucho Vald\u00e9s: <\/span>Juana 1600<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Estela is going to explode<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Monkey<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Bacalao con pan<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>what is going to happen<\/span><\/i>, to which is added <\/span>that dare<\/span><\/i>, authored by Ricardo D\u00edaz. It is these that give body to <\/span>Tribute to Chucho Vald\u00e9s and Irakere,<\/span><\/i> in whose sound support are incorporated, with the character of <\/span>bonus track<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Iya<\/span><\/i>, by Arturo Sandoval, and a <\/span>medley of hits<\/span><\/i> which includes fragments of anthological pieces such as <\/span>Rucu rucu to Santa Clara<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>I don't want confusion<\/span><\/i>, by Jose Luis Cortes; <\/span>Throw seed into the maraca<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>I do have one<\/span><\/i>, by Jesus Morales; Y <\/span>Let it be known, I am from Havana<\/span><\/i>, whose signature belongs to Oscar Vald\u00e9s. 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.<\/span><\/p>\n