DownBeat Magazine

Pianists Rubalcaba, Valdés Take Center Stage in Barcelona Posted 12/3/2015

The centerpiece of the 47th Voll­Damm International Barcelona Jazz Festival transpired between Nov. 20 and Nov. 24, with four concerts by the two most prominent pianists to emerge internationally from Cuba’s ever­expanding musical diaspora: Irakere founder Jesus “Chucho” Valdés, 74, and Gonzalo Rubalcaba, 52.

On Nov. 23, Rubalcaba played at the sixth Monvinic Experience, an event conceived in 2010 by the festival’s artistic director, Joan Cararach, around the notion of inviting a musician to Barcelona’s “wine cathedral” to play a suite of compositions in response to a diverse selection of wines.

Rubalcaba performed before 98 patrons, who paid 175 euros for the privilege of tasting eight vintages, among them a smooth, citron­flavored Toro Albalá Pedro Ximénez 1946 dessert wine, a lustrous 1989 Château Léoville­Las­Cases Malbec, a Salon Blanc de Blancs 2002 champagne and a grappa that tasted like fine brandy.

The pieces were framed around themes of Intelligence, Youth, Maturity, Surrealism and so on. Preceded by a vignette including recorded music and sound effects, each was introduced, illuminated and signified upon by the popular Catalan comedian Carlos Latre and wine purveyor Quim Vila.

Bunny Berigan’s iconic 1936 recording of “I Can’t Get Started” accompanied the pouring of the first glass (an Emilio Rojo Ribiero Viniteca Colección 75 Aniversario 2007—Treixadur, Lado, Loureiro, Albariño). As the sound of Berigan’s trumpet faded, Rubalcaba put forth a sequence of wistful chords that gradually coalesced into a reharmonized “Autumn Leaves,” which he developed quietly, playing one tempo in the right hand, another in the left. He morphed into a bright passage built on jumping, ascending octaves, then concluded with the core melody, complemented by left­hand variations.

Parade music (perhaps from a Spanish street band), a bellowed “Go­oa­al!” from a soccer broadcast, the National Velvet theme and Spanish lounge music introduced the second wine selection, inspired by a 2013 Alsace Gewürztraminer. Rubalcaba put forth a gentle, contemplative ballad, developing a pellucid treble­register refrain that evoked the quality of raindrops, juxtaposed against an intermittent two­note bass motif.

After a minimalist miniature provoked by “Intelligence” (the grappa, a 2006 vintage), Rubalcaba responded to the champagne with “El Cadete Constitucional,” a jaunty danzon by Jacobo Rubalcaba, his grandfather. It’s a staple of Rubalcaba’s repertoire, and he followed his long­standing arrangement, interpolating into the flow John Philip Sousa’s iconic “hooray for the red, white and blue” passage from “The Stars And Stripes Forever,” then shifting into a slow, stomping blues animated by rippling right­hand lines grounded by a percussive bi­bomp counterrhythm to which he imparted a stride feel.

A wine of three days vintage was poured. Rubalcaba signified with a slightly skewed, lullaby­like refrain, which he sustained in the bass register in counterpoint to a blues­ tinged melody that became ever more involved, juxtaposing vocabulary drawn from baroque and Thelonious Monk. The piece concluded with a harmonious, discreetly stated resolution.

Gonzalo Rubalcaba performs at the Voll­Damm International Jazz Festival in Barcelona on Nov. 23.

(Photo: Lorenzo Duaso/Voll­ Damm Festival Internacional de Jazz de Barcelona)

Introducing the “Maturity” episode was a cheesy lounge band playing Basie chords, which segued into “Send In The Clowns.” The patrons were blindfolded; wine (the 1989 Malbec, decanted for 2½ hours) was poured. They remained blindfolded while sipping to Rubalcaba’s ruminations on “Blue In Green.” When he was done, mad­ scientist synth chords boomed through the speakers and the waitstaff handed out port­filled ampules and spoons. Latre did an impression of Salvador Dali, bellowing, “Surrealismo!” Rubalcaba responded with portentious chords, then trilled a rumbly refrain in the bass while interpolating right­hand passages that mirrored the process of thought. There were mercurial, precisely calibrated clusters, pointillistic sound­ space postulations, a Spanish theme with flamenco hints, an inflamed dance.

The dance resumed the next night at L’Auditori in Barcelona’s Liceu (Conservatory) with the all­star quartet Volcán, consisting of Rubalcaba on piano and Korg synth, José Armando Gola on electric bass, Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez on drums and Giovanni Hidalgo playing sticks on his five-conga, two-timbale setup because of injuries to the middle fingers of both hands.

Through seven selections, mostly drawn from the eponymous 2013 CD, Volcán, the ensemble operated with complete synchronicity and mutual intention. They traversed a century of Cuban musical expression, switching on a dime at any moment with barely a cue or visible signal to ideas suggested by the codes of danzon, son, mambo, guaguanco, rumba, songo and timba.

A rendering of “El Cadete Constitucional” ranged freely through the aforementioned timeline, followed by an indescribably intense guaguanco on which Hernandez sound­painted against Hidalgo’s endlessly inventive, dynamically nuanced iterations of the clave. Rubalcaba dervish­danced on piano and synth with drum­like, harmonically erudite lines, executed with a jaw­dropping array of attacks. He opened “Sin Punto” on Korg, bending the notes like a guitarist.

The drummers commenced a dark, intense, elemental rumba. Rubalcaba resolved the tension with percussive clusters, stacking the rhythms. After Gola’s understated, elegant bass solo, on which he refracted complex rhythmic equations into pungent melodies, Rubalcaba continued to dance with the drummers using a lighter touch and more linear phrasing. Hernandez constructed endless permutations; Hidalgo deployed sticks on congas in a way that made them sound like a new instrument.

Pianists Rubalcaba, Valdés Take Center Stage in Barcelona Posted 12/4/2015

After “Salt Peanuts,” conceived as a volcanic drum chant, came a songo­like piece on which Rubalcaba functioned coequally as a pianist and as a drummer. His long lines referenced Paul Bley and Herbie Hancock in a manner analogous to Picasso’s refraction of Spanish Old Masters Velázquez and El Greco.

The encore was the classic son “El Manisero (The Peanut Vendor),” which Rubalcaba opened with hints of “I Got Rhythm” and then completely deconstructed with percolating lines, each proceeding to a different rhythmic cadence. He reharmonized to the point of atonality, even interpolating a cadenza that signified on Cuba’s classical music canon, concluding with phantasmagoric, violin­like shapes on Korg.

The Picasso­Old Master analogy is an interesting way to contrast Rubalcaba with Chucho Valdés, whose Nov. 22 solo concert was a model of continuous two­part invention. On a wide­ranging program that addressed Bill Evans (“Waltz For Debby”), Monk (“Blue Monk”), Art Tatum (“Yesterdays”), Rodrigo (“Saeta”), Gershwin (“Embraceable You”), Bach, the danzon (“Besame Mucho”) and the bolero, Valdés expressed himself more through his authoritative mastery and juxtaposition of a multiplicity of styles—which he references with idiomatic panache in his own voice—than through a search for new meaning within them.

He played with extraordinarily precise articulation and profound rhythmic mojo, informed by a sensibility as deeply rooted in Afro­Cuban religious aesthetics as in jazz piano languages ranging from Jelly Roll Morton to Cecil Taylor and several centuries of the Euro­canon. It would have been interesting to hear Valdés play original repertoire like “Son No. 2” from his probing 2007 trio CD Jazz Bata, but it was not on the evening’s agenda.

Two nights earlier, Valdés presented a concert by a quintet co­led by his daughter, the 34­year­old pianist Leyanis Valdés, and his son, the 29­year­old trapset drummer Jessie Valdés, in Sant­Cugat. Before they took the stage, he offered a brief solo recital, beginning with Liszt­to­Cecil Taylor variations to introduce “My Romance,” from which he segued to “The Duke.” On a Tatumesque “Yesterdays,” he offered Earl Hines trills, dissonant crashes, more Lisztian flourishes and bluesy stride.

Then Valdés brought his progeny onstage to join him for the Cuban classic “El Cumbanchero (The Rumba Dancer)” by Rafael Hernandez. He began with a playful solo, referencing, among other things, “Birks Works” and “Summertime.”

Ms. Valdés followed with a logical, percussive improvisation. Père Valdés exited, and the youngsters got down to business with a modal trio number. Ms. Valdés uncorked a declamation on which she carried the melody through a sequence of permutations with technique worthy of her surname, then constructed a vamp to set up Jessie Valdés’ thinking­man’s drum solo, dynamically nuanced, chock­a­block with imaginative rhythmic designs, incorporating a broad range of drumkit timbre. He opened the next selection with a polyrhythmic, clave­centric solo that set up a long Joe Henderson­esque

Chucho Valdés at the Voll­ Damm International Jazz Festival in Barcelona.

(Photo: Lorenzo Duaso/Voll­ Damm Festival Internacional de Jazz de Barcelona)

theme upon which tenor saxophonist Emir Santa­Cruz declaimed with a voice that evoked the sound of Oliver Nelson on “Stolen Moments.” Harold Gonzalez Canovas’ well­organized bass solo led to a piano vamp that set up yet another trapset invention that did not need volume to convey its message.

On the next selection, a quartet on which Santa­Cruz played clarinet, Ms. Valdés demonstrated how closely the fruit has fallen from the family tree with crisp montunos, corruscating chromatic passages, deft voice leading and command of form. On the following quintet piece, an attractive theme propelled by a 7/4 bass ostinato, she followed the line with deliberation, allowing the melody to breathe, inexorably building the dramatic arc, playing a different time signature with each hand.

The concert concluded with a father­daughter dialog on Antonio Romeu’s piano solo on his iconic danzon “Tres Lindas Cubanas.” After they traded variations for a while, Chucho laid out, allowing Leyanis a final opportunity to showcase her orchestral chops and impeccable touch as she ratcheted the intensity from chorus to chorus. The process reached an apogee when Chucho returned with dissonant clusters.

For the mandatory encore, they essayed Chucho’s “Claudia (Guajira For Bebo).” After several minutes of intense ripostes with her father, Leyanis took the solo spotlight, improvising a wave of a cappella variations, including a stride passage that elicited a broad smile from Chucho. He reentered the mix for more sparkling conversation until the end.

—Ted Panken