Suite Caminos (5Passion)

Gonzalo Rubalcaba

Released March 4, 2015

Grammy Nominee for Best Latin Jazz Album 2016

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=K4o_Q3Ag104&list=OLAK5uy_m1iW1SHrD8LUpwkoC9ZyqEyXoj0AymZ5I

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0cRNBNVEUu3BAafamJKdzg?si=ZbTeOmmYTHKGizelnFeocQ

About:

My point of departure for everything is almost always the experiences I’m having in life, on the path I’ve decided to take. It’s a path of information, a path of experience, a path of confrontation, and it often is a path full of empty spaces. We don’t exactly know what we’re about to see, and we’re ignorant of what’s already happened. We don’t know it all. This is what makes me think that we should never stop researching, searching, listening, reading and being curious.

Cubans go to a Catholic mass, then leave the mass and go to a tambor de yuka, or a toque de santo. When we listen to this oddun the “letter” of divination that the babalao, or ritual expert, must interpret after consulting the oracle Ifá and when we hear what each of your santos says, it applies in a personal way. It’s not a static, inflexible, non-dynamic order that requires we all inform ourselves the same way going in, no? It’s an instruction that doesn’t lose sight of who each of us is, that is to say, of individuality. And that’s the concept of camino

This is not a first attempt to bring the tradition to a symphonic context, a context of listening. In the 70s, in Cuba, this phenomenon was consciously brought about by Irakere and later in the ‘80s, other groups came up, like Afro cuba, Opus 13, or Proyecto, which I formed after I left school. The objective was precisely to establish an intellectual order in the creative process of this music composed of elements that were born of an attraction of folkloric elements, among other things. And I don’t want to simply go back to that idea, but to continue developing it, continue expanding that idea.

There isn’t a complete sequence of all the santos, but with the santos who are being saluted, I have created a sequence that is more or less a religious sequence. I see it as a suite, because I see it as a group of pieces whose discourse ultimately shares an idea. [That idea] was precisely

what the songs say, what the songs defend. There’s a contrast of tempos, a contrast of spirits, a rhythmic contrast, a formal contrast, a personalization of each of the pieces.

Gonzalo Rubalcaba

Track Listing:

1. Sendero de Aliento 9:10

2. El Hijo Mensajero 9:21

3. Destino Sin Fin 10:02

4. Sendero de Espuma 14:48

5. Santa Meta 10:59

6. Alameda de Vientos 9:29

7. Via Prodigiosa 6:36

8. Ronda de Suerte 13:41

Personnel:

Gonzalo Rubalcaba: piano (all except 1), synths, palmadas and tambor (7)

Matt Brewer: upright bass (all except 1)

Adam Rogers: guitars (all except 1 and 6)

Ernesto Simpson: drums (all except 1)

Gary Galimidi: electric guitar (5)

Will Vinson: alto saxophone (2, 4, 5), soprano saxophone (6, 7, 8)

Alex Sipiagin: trumpet (2, 4, 5, 6, 8), flugelhorn (7)

Seamus Blake: tenor saxophone (2, 4, 5, 6)

Pedrito Martinez: lead vocals (6, 8), chorus, percussion, palmadas (7)

Philbert Armenteros: percussion (all except 3), lead vocals (2, 3, 7, 8), chorus

Mario Hidalgo: lead vocals (1)

Sonyalsi “Sonia” Feldman: lead vocals and chorus (4, 5)

Special Guest

John McLaughlin: electric guitar (6)

Recording Engineer: James Anderson

Assistant Recording Engineer: Katsuhiko Naito

Edited by Mario Garcia Haya, Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Gary Galimidi

Mixed by Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Gary Galimidi

Special thanks to Katsuhiko Naito for mixing guidance

Mastered by Alan Tucker

Graphic Design: Dayne Dupree of 5passion Design

Review:

Gonzalo Rubalcaba has sojourned all over the topography of music ever since his performing days in Cuba and the rest of the world, and ever since he was discovered by Charlie Haden. He might be said to have blazed brave new trails between Afro-Cuban music and Afro-American. His extraordinary virtuosity as a pianist and his unbridled genius as a musician has been brought forth on a number of recordings from the earliest days to his magnificent album Fé/Faith (5Passion, 2011). Throughout the course of his career the Afro-Cuban idiom has defined his music in overt as well as more subtle ways when he was playing jazz. But on Suite Caminos he delves much deeper into his origins. As a result the music on this album addresses Santeria in a more direct manner.

At first blush it appears that Rubalcaba is less audible on the album. He seems to play less piano, a tad more keyboards than on other albums including on that seminal recording Mi Gran Pasion (Messidor, 2008). But this is more an album about Rubalcaba the composer and that too one exploring the depth of his African rhythmic side. Moreover returning to his African roots Rubalcaba has crafted a work of greater significance than anything he might have done in his entire career. Suite Caminos translates literally as “The Roads Suite” but a slightly metaphorical view of the music tells of the “routes” that Rubalcaba has travelled all his life including that part that involved not so much music as the worship of African deities. So the performance no longer becomes a mere display of gratuitous virtuosity but rather an exploration of the soul of Rubalcaba’s entire existence as an artist.

Chanting is heard throughout the album. Happily, those voices also include Pedrito Martinez on two sequences; more happily Martinez is not the only vocalist on the album. There are others – Philbert Armenteros, Mario Hidalgo, Sonia Feldman – all of whom chant to various deities as soloists and in a heavenly choir as well. Rubalcaba often resorts to the organ to channel his African harmonics through a European church setting rather than in a more secular fashion, on the piano. This is unusual but seems to work seamlessly with the African rhythms belted out by the conventional drum set, by Ernesto Simpson as well as by the battery of percussionists on the album.

But it is the gripping drama and involvement in large-scale works that recall the brilliant musicianship of Rubalcaba and the legacy of his pianism throughout his career. Rubalcaba’s captivating direction and intensity, complete with an almost hypnotic abandon, is a touch more measured in Rubalcaba’s (organist’s) hands but no less effectively communicated. The music is less florid and more ingeniously compressed into lines that poke and jab at the music in the keyboardist’s inimitable style.

Sendero de Espuma and Ronda de Suerte are arguably the most ambitious creations on the album. Truly symphonic in grandeur, the works are harnessed impressively by the exceptionally experienced Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Granite-like blocks of intensely chiseled harmonic progressions from start to finish are studiously laid down, as if for posterity, and yet there’s an underlying immediacy and restlessness in Rubalcaba’s rhetoric which leads to thrillingly choppy waters in the music. I can’t think of anything finer in terms of what Rubalcaba does on this or any of his previous recordings. There is a grandeur, flair and emotional risk here and happily it is on a record that has also been recognized as one of the best in 2015.

Raul da Gama (Latin Jazz Network)