Brian Lynch/Various Artists
Released September 26, 2016
Grammy Nominee for Best Latin Jazz Album 2017
Record of the Year 2017 Jazz Journalists Association Awards
YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nhOJOXxFYU_26A3K2-VSXlflHXjRASuPY
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1fqvDkrXryhSwwzXim5oKH?si=Ub89o5XNQGOnnJmP3aLKuw
About:
Four years in the making, Grammy® Award winning trumpeter Brian Lynch’s “Madera Latino” (Latin Wood) project, exploring the music of jazz innovator and master trumpeter Woody Shaw in a Latin Jazz format, is finally out on Hollistic MusicWorks!
The music of the late, great Woody Shaw (1944-1989) – an innovative and highly individual musical lexicon, expressed through both his chosen instrument of trumpet and his equally distinguished compositions – set a standard of excellence and modernity for Black American Music that has not been surpassed in the 50 years since he first came onto the jazz scene. Madera Latino is an exploration of this giant’s music as viewed through the lens of authentic Afro-Caribbean rhythm and framed by the loving treatment of his compositions in virtuosic Latin Jazz style by Grammy© Award winning trumpeter Brian Lynch. It is also a heartfelt tribute to the genius of Woody by a all star lineup of today’s top trumpeters: Lynch, Sean Jones, Dave Douglas, Diego Urcola, Michael Rodriguez, Etienne Charles, Josh Evans, and Philip Dizack.
In trumpet combinations from duo to quartet, these eminent horns explore Shaw classics including In A Capricornian Way, Tomorrow’s Destiny, Zoltan, Song Of Songs, Sweet Love Of Mine, and more, along with two original pieces – one a extended suite – written by Lynch in salute to the profound influence Woody has had on him as a player and composer.
The band for Madera Latino fulfills the promise of Lynch’s audacious concept with élan, precision, and joyous creativity. Percussionists Pedrito Martinez and Little Johnny Rivero, along with bassist Luques Curtis, were integral to the success of Lynch’s 2006 CD Simpático, a Grammy Award winner in the Latin Jazz category. Add drummer Obed Calvaire, percussionist Anthony Carrillo, and pianist Zaccai Curtis, and a mighty rhythm section emerges to spur and challenge the trumpeters to their utmost efforts in praise of Shaw. “The combination of Woody’s music and the Afro-Caribbean clave concept was always a natural to me”, states Lynch. “I’m very happy, after many years of thinking about this idea, to finally be able to actualize this tribute to my musical hero, Woody Shaw, in the distinguished company of these amazing trumpeters and my musical family.”
“I am very proud of what Brian has done with this project, and particularly of the depth of sincerity and the meticulousness with which he has treated the re-interpretation of Woody Shaw’s original works within the Afro-Latino idiom. My respect and gratitude go out to the musicians on this recording for keeping the spirit of this music – and of one of its last great innovators – alive and strong in the 21st century.”
Woody Louis Armstrong Shaw, III
Track Listing:
Disc 1
1. Zoltan (Woody Shaw) 10:24
2. Sweet Love of Mine (Woody Shaw) 7:32
3. Time Is Right (Judi Singh) 11:17
4. Just a Ballad for Woody (Woody Shaw) 8:27
5. In a Capricornian Way (Woody Shaw) 8:34
6. Blues for Woody and Khalid (Brian Lynch) 9:08
Disc 2
1. Tomorrow’s Destiny (Woody Shaw) 9:06
2. Joshua C. (Woody Shaw) 9:57
3. On the New Ark (Woody Shaw) 8:28
4. Song of Songs (Woody Shaw) 11:11
5. Madera Latino Suite (Brian Lynch) 15:18
Personnel:
Brian Lynch: trumpet
Sean Jones: trumpet (3, 6, 7)
Dave Douglas: trumpet (1, 5, 9)
Michael Rodriguez: trumpet (2, 4, 8, 10)
Etienne Charles: trumpet (1, 9-11)
Diego Urcola: trumpet (1, 11)
Josh Evans: trumpet (4, 8, 10)
Philip Dizack: trumpet (3, 6)
Bryan Davis: trumpet (11)
Zaccai Curtis: piano
Luques Curtis: bass
Obed Calvaire: drums (2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10)
Pedrito Martinez: timbales (1, 5, 9, 11), congas (3, 6, 7)
Little Johnny Rivero: congas (1, 2, 4, 5, 8-11), percussion (11)
Anthony Carrilo: bongo, campana (1, 5, 9, 11)
Recorded August 2012 at Systems Two, Brooklyn NY
Mix Consultant: Tyler McDiarmid
Produced by Brian Lynch
All music arranged by Brian Lynch
Associate Producer: Woody Shaw III
Design: Brian Lynch
Review:
Woody Shaw was an artist endowed with two of the greatest qualities a musician could ever dream of: perfect pitch and a photographic memory. In his short years on earth, Shaw was not only an influence and an inspiration for legion of trumpeters, but he left a lasting imprint on the instrument like no trumpeter has ever done. Shaw extended the vocabulary of the instrument by innovative use of wide intervals of fourths and fifths that defied the architecture of the trumpet. In both his writing and in performance he introduced polytonality, often using highly complex permutations of the pentatonic scale. He was a master of modality and used a wide range of harmonic color, generating unusual contrasts, using tension and resolution, dissonance, odd rhythmic groupings, and “over the barline” phrases. Shaw had a rich, dark tone that was distinctive with a near-vocal quality to it; his intonation and articulation were highly developed, and he greatly utilized the effects of the lower register, usually employing a deep, extended vibrato at the end of his phrases.
Shaw was not only open to ideas, but he was capable of incorporating a staggering array of them so as to enable him to play in any idiom and style from Jazz to classical and had he lived longer he would probably have also developed a significant Afro-Caribbean repertoire. Why? Quite simply because Woody Shaw was a student of living music and – according to his son and executive producer of this disc under review, Woody Shaw III – had an astute ear for traditional Japanese music, Indonesian Gamelan, Indian classical music, Brazilian music, and various other musics of the world. Picking up the slack, the younger Shaw has come together with the fiery trumpeter Brian Lynch to produce a masterfully shaped Latinized repertoire of Shaw’s classic songs. Lynch had released two other albums where he has paid tribute to trumpet masters: Unsung Heroes – Volumes 1 and 2; albums that were substantial projects themselves. However neither of them approached the size and scope of this homage to Shaw entitled Madera Latino – A Latin Jazz Interpretation On The Music Of Woody Shaw. Not only is the disc just shy of 2 hours long but it brings together two – probably three – generations of trumpeters, all of whom have made their mark individually. Even more remarkable is the fact that some of these musicians are playing way out of their comfort zones.
Add to that a rhythm section comprising probably the most sought after piano-bass tandems – the Curtis Brothers, Zaccai and Luques. And as if that could not be topped, Lynch has a barnstorming percussion section led by the thunderous Obed Calvaire, who eggs on an inspired Pedrito Martinez, Little Johnny Rivero and the already-legendary Anthony Carrillo. One might speculate how much more of an Ekpe/Abakuá encounter this might have been with Román Díaz, but barring the absence of vocals in the monumental Brian Lynch composition ‘Madera Latino’ dedicated to Woody Shaw, the music is as close to the bluest part of the Afro-Caribbean flame as Lynch could possibly bring it without burning itself out. As it happens, few trumpeters could have put their minds to furthering the already fecund imagination of someone as widely-read as Woody Shaw. Brian Lynch seems to have the perfect credentials for the job. He is one of the most brilliant technicians on the instrument and even if he is not as endowed with the gifts that Shaw was, Brian Lynch is easily as intrepid as his honouree. It is hard, in fact, to think of anyone who is such a rank outsider by birth to be considered as close to a blood-relative of cultural geography of South American (i.e., Latin-Jazz) music.
Brian Lynch is clearly a mystically-inclined instrumentalist. He proves this, time and again, with growing intensity, and with every new recording he makes. Lynch seems to have reached the height of his powers on this performance. He plays with superb intonation and velvet power, and he displays an amazing range, spatial definition and Shavian manners. Moreover, the trumpeter has digested Woody Shaw’s music spontaneously, as if he were a ‘method’ trumpeter along the lines of a trumpet-playing James Dean. The results are immediately and consistently compelling, as if Lynch’s response to an Afro-Caribbean Shaw were primarily to his relationship with the composer as some sort of kindred spirit. In song after song, beginning with ‘Zoltan’ Brian Lynch identifies the musical elements and colours of Shaw’s music with a deeply concrete curiosity. As the music develops it becomes increasingly infused with warmth and resolve. Much of this has to do with the overarching performances of Sean Jones, Dave Douglas, Michael Rodriguez, Etienne Charles, Diego Urcola, Josh Evans, Philip Dizack, Bryan Davis, and, of course the great Lynch himself. Unbelievably, in the imagination of each of the individual trumpeters – playing dreamily at times – the lyrical flow of the music is captured as rapturously as when Woody Shaw first felt these emotions and wrote them down in music. Only now Brian Lynch has, through ingenious arrangements, relocated this intimacy to the soundscape of Latin Jazz. The culmination of this extraordinary osmosis finds its pinnacle in ‘Madera Wood’ into which Lynch pours his own spatial dimensions to rewrite the Woody Shaw musical script with his (Lynch’s) own distinctive shape, shading and personality, always vividly alert to the tonal and emotional colouring of Latin polyrhythms, even as he breathes expansive new life into the fervent phrases of the music. As a result of all of this – the re-imaginings of Woody Shaw’s work, as well as the two original compositions by Brian Lynch – the results clearly form a distinct musical vision that, no matter how adventurous a particular piece may be in terms of timbral or technical requirements, never loses sight of the sheer joy of playing Woody Shaw’s music all over again.
Raul da Gama (Latin Jazz Network)
