CARIBBEAN JAZZ PROJECT JOINS THE AFRO
BOP ALLIANCE IN A POWERFUL LATIN JAZZ COLLABORATION
New Recording Features Big Band Arrangements Of Classic
CJP Tracks
The Caribbean Jazz Project, the Latin jazz collective of vibraphonist
David Samuels, steel pan drummer Andy Narell and saxophonist
Paquito d’Rivera, crafted their first recordings on
Heads Up International in the 1990s and immediately captured
the imagination of audiences and critics worldwide. In the
years since, the GRAMMY® Award winning ensemble CJP led by
Samuels has recorded subsequent albums on the Concord label
and a few of the faces in the group’s roster have changed.
Nevertheless, Samuels and company continue to explore and
test the commonly accepted boundaries of Latin jazz –
and jazz in general – via innovative compositions and
exciting arrangements.
The
Caribbean Jazz Project-Afro Bop Alliance, set
for worldwide release on Heads Up International (HUCD 3137)
on March 25, 2008, recasts nine CJP signature pieces –
some by Samuels and others by Coltrane, Monk and other jazz
luminaries – in a fresh new light via full-bodied arrangements
by the Maryland-based Afro Bop Alliance, one of the most exciting
new bands on the Latin jazz scene today. Since their inception
less than five years ago, the brassy and high-energy Afro
Bop Alliance has electrified audiences at the Kennedy Center
for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Jazz Café,
The W. C. Handy Jazz Festival and many other music and cultural
festivals.
The genesis of the project was more organic than top-down
conceptual, says Samuels, who first encountered the Afro Bop
Alliance a few years ago and enlisted trombonist Dan Drew
to rearrange some CJP tunes originally written for the small
group setting. “Dan very cleverly and artfully took
these songs and orchestrated them for big band,” says
Samuels. “Then I thought, ‘Why don’t we
try to record this and see what happens?’ So the whole
idea evolved from the music outward, as opposed to the concept
coming before the music.”
The results were eye-opening, even for the musician who composed
the original pieces. “Repackaging something that had
been played a lot in a smaller group was a way to see it and
hear it in a new light,” says Samuels. “You react
differently to it. It’s a different ball game. It’s
the difference between playing on a five-man team and a fifteen-man
team. And if you’re the listener, you may have heard
these tunes with the small group, but it’s a completely
different experience hearing it with this big band.”
The set opens with light-hearted and energetic “Rendezvous,”
a composition penned by Samuels that originally appeared on
The Gathering (2002). The Afro Bop horns bring a
level of energy that complements yet never crowds the CJP
rhythm section of bassist Max Murray drummer Joe McCarthy
and percussionist Roberto Quintero.
The followup track is a breezy but solid rendition of Coltrane’s
classic “Naima,” with a horn and vibe counterpoint
that moves the piece along toward a coda that eventually stretches
the limits of melody and percussion to the limits of tonality
and rhythm.
Further in, “Picture Frame” showcases Samuel’s
vibe virtuosity from the opening measures, positioning him
in the midst of a luscious horn arrangement that maximizes
the potential of both voices.
In the final stretch, “Afro Green” opens with
a mysterious sounding marimba/percussion mix that underscores
a majestic horn arrangement, then segues into a more traditional
jazz groove. The closer is an intriguing rendition of Monk’s
well-known “Bemsha Swing” that – like “Naima”
several tracks earlier – takes the jazz classic beyond
its traditional moorings into a more experimental realm.
While the
Caribbean Jazz Project Afro Bop Alliance
clearly reaches for the bigger sound, none of the original
CJP nuance or subtlety is lost in the more layered and elaborate
big band context. Their trademark groove is just as edgy and
innovative as earlier incarnations – perhaps more so
in many respects.
“The level of creativity is not defined by the borders
or the lack of borders,” says Samuels. “The creativity
comes in the vocabulary of the artists who are playing the
music. You create music not by reading the notes on the page,
but rather by reinterpreting the notes and giving them an
emotional quality – just like an actor does with lines
of dialogue. The process of keeping the notes alive comes
from the musician imbuing them with some kind of emotion,
some kind of attitude, something that is evocative and personal.”
Join the alliance. The Caribbean Jazz Project is on the move,
and the direction is always forward.
