Cuba – Mitch's Muse

Sounds of Space (Mack Avenue Records), the title of Cuban pianist and composer Alfredo Rodríguez‘ debut recording, evokes images of science fiction. In truth, it’s about a far more personal adventure. The project will be released on March 27.

“It’s about the space that surrounds us,” he says in a news release. “In this record I wanted to introduce myself: Here are the people, the places and the sounds that have surrounded me, and made me who I am.”

A key player in Rodríguez’ extraordinary story is producer Quincy Jones, who co-produced Sounds of Space with Rodríguez.

“He is very special, and I do not say that easily because I have been surrounded by the best musicians in the world my entire life,” said Jones in a news release. “And he is one of the best.”

In turn, for Rodríguez, 26, Jones has not only become a mentor and a teacher but “like a new father.” Still, such priceless endorsement can also create impossibly high expectations. But in Sounds of Space, Rodríguez proves up to the challenge.

The album comprises 11 tracks composed and arranged by Rodríguez. It includes nods to Cuban masters such as Ernesto Lecuona, but also pianistic models such as Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk; it draws on the tradition, but it has a personal imprint. And now and then, Sounds of Space is also shaped by nostalgia for a country left behind, so near yet so far.

Born in Havana, Cuba, the son of a popular singer, television presenter and entertainer of the same name, Rodríguez began his formal music education at seven. Percussion, not piano, was his first choice.

“But…to choose what I wanted I had to wait until I was 10,” he explains. “So I picked piano. By the time I could actually switch to percussion, I knew the piano was my path.”

He graduated to the Conservatorio Amadeo Roldán, and then to the Instituto Superior de Arte. But while his formal musical education was strictly classical, he also learned music “on the street,” or more precisely, on stage.

“I didn’t play with many dance groups, but I played in my dad’s band since I was 14,” he says. “And my dad presented a daily TV show and many famous Cuban musicians came through it and we had every type of music. I was still a kid but had a chance to perform every day, and write arrangements for all kinds of music: boleros, rock ‘n roll, dance music-you name it. It is where I learned the discipline of being a professional musician. That was another great school for me. I was very lucky.”

The momentous discovery during that formative period, however, came packed on a CD.

“When I was 15, my uncle gave me Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert,” Rodríguez says. “That’s when I began to explore the idea of improvisation. Up to then it had been all Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, and I’m thankful to my teachers for it because without that I wouldn’t be the same pianist. But up to that point I didn’t know anything about improvisation. The Köln Concert changed my life. I realized that was what I wanted to do: just sit and play. And not only musical ideas; music doesn’t come only from music. It can reflect and speak to what surrounds us.”

Alfredo Rodriguez Trio perform Cu-bop from Blue Green on Vimeo.

Fabian Almazan‘s debut, Personalities (Biophilia Records), reveals his penchant for musical storytelling with well-crafted originals and well-chosen covers. Born in Cuba, raised in Miami and based in New York City, the pianist and composer, 27, has apprenticed with Terence Blanchard and is a recent fellow of the Sundance Film Composer’s Lab.
iTunes has announced they will feature the track “The Vicarious Life” from Personalities as a weekly iTunes Discovery Download. This is remarkable not only because this is Almazan’s debut recording, but because it is very rare for instrumental jazz to be given such a wide platform.
Almazan’s trio is comprised of bassist Linda Oh and drummer Henry Cole, both Manhattan School of Music classmates.
“They are both very open-minded musicians with a fearless ability to turn on a dime if the music takes a different direction,” Almazan says in a news release. “Needless to say, they have profound command over their respective instruments.” The trio is augmented by a string quartet featuring violinists Meg Okura and Megan Gould, violist Karen Waltuch and cellist Noah Hoffeld.
True to the album title, the music is about people that have impacted Almazan’s life so far. The inspirations for his compositions range from tributes to his grandmothers and mother (“Grandmother Song,” “Una Foto”), overheard conversations about atheism (“Sin Alma”), stage parents at adolescent piano recitals (“The Vicarious Life”) and socio-economic reflections (“H.U.Gs”). About the latter, a tune that finds Almazan unravelling lines on Fender Rhodes, he says, “‘H.U.Gs’ stands for Historically Under-represented Groups. As I understand the acronym, it is used in scientific papers that deal with the environmental conditions in lower socio-economic communities. I wanted to write something that would embody the struggle that generations of abused and manipulated people have had to overcome to achieve equality.”
The evocative narratives on Personalities reflect Almazan’s self-described “international citizen” worldview, as well as his work as a film composer. His relationship to music can be summed up thusly: “I have learned that music has an uncomplicated purpose, which is to make you feel something. There are an endless amount of options on how to achieve that simple purpose.”