Customer Reviews

Prietos

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. . . gloriously set forth on Pictures of Soul, Ayaguna, A New Life, and his brilliant new solo disc Aleatoric (not available, sadly, through Amazon.com at this writing), but this disc from 2000 is important because it represents the Cuban world jazz pianist coming into his full powers as composer, player, arranger, and bandleader, reaching their apex--at lest in terms of his large-palette works--in 2002's Sentir.

He's pretty much got things going at full roar here, and although I do prefer him in more pared down settings, there's a kind of ritual majesty and chthonic power to his synthesis of African urban diaspora mapped onto various world musics filtered through a genuine jazz ezzthetic. In fact, the more I listen to this glorious music, I have to say that it has so much raw power and primal beauty, with its swirling, mesmeric vocals, driving pianisms, nervous electric bass, gumbo percussion, and blaring winds, that it almost trumps his more recent excursions into world-jazz minimalism.

Almost, but not quite.

Really, though, it's pretty much a matter of personal taste as to which is better. In truth it's all good.

Another gem from certainly the most important world-jazz figure of his generation.