Una Nave (Sunnyside)
Guillermo Klein
Released May 10, 2005
New York Times Best Jazz Albums of 2005
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kEO5t_LmJXOYmpAiRldXpeA8l0lBiZnGw
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/7q0EEXzJs6ryq0J7DJKRTm?si=DhijyjLuRaWiXzZyu0zBrQ
About:
Here is a musical postcard from Guillermo in Barcelona. Unfortunately for the New York jazz scene the Argentinian pianist is one of the latest to have joined the ranks of top jazz musicians moving to Barcelona. But before that Klein studied at the famous Berklee College of Music, and in 1995, after settling in New York, he started up a big band that began playing at the Smalls club, a pillar of the jazz scene, where, thanks to musicians like him, the most contemporary jazz was cooking. Arranger and composer like no other, Klein brings together influences that range from Gil Evans to the melodies of Argentina itself.
Track Listing:
1. Argentina (Guillermo Klein) 03:21
2. Nave (Guillermo Klein) 03:53
3. Fiu 01:49
4. Venga (Guillermo Klein) 06:22
5. Flores (Guillermo Klein) 04:34
6. Luminarias (Guillermo Klein) 05:20
7. Piernas (Guillermo Klein) 02:39
8. Niza (Guillermo Klein) 03:38
9. El Fin (Guillermo Klein) 04:12
10. La Ultima (Guillermo Klein) 03:18
11. Luci (Guillermo Klein) 01:54
12. Miminashi Yama 07:30
13. El Rio 02′ (Guillermo Klein) 09:04
14. Fascinating Rhythm – Moliendo Café (George Gershwin) 03:11
15. Ojos Cerrados (Guillermo Klein) 02:45
16. Flores (Guillermo Klein) 02:32
Personnel:
Juan Cruz De Urquiza; trumpet
Richard Nant: trompet, percussion, vocals (14), fius
Ricardo Cavalli: saxophone tenor
Rodrigo Dominguez: saxophone tenor, soprano and clarinet
Nahuel Litwin: guitar
Matias Mendez: bass, chorus, vocals (14), fius
Guillermo Klein: piano, Fender Rhodes, guitar, vocals, fius
Daniel “Pipi” Piazzolla: drums
Sergio Verdinelli: drums (6, 12), third drum (1)
Alvaro Torres: Fender Rhodes (7)
Pablo Klein: guitar (5)
Silvia Aramayo, Matias Conte, Javier Calequi: chrous (7)
Tsai: tablas (5)
Saindevi: vocals (5)
Recorded February – August, 2002, at Estudios Lon, Buenos Aires, Argentina and Kosmicstudio, Madras, India
Produced and recorded by Enzo Buono
Mastering: Osvaldo Acedo, Tony Paris
Mixed by Tony Paris, Pablo Acedo
Executive Producer: François Zalacain
Review:
Composer/bandleader
Guillermo Klein left New York City in 2000 to return to his native Argentina
(he has since relocated to Barcelona), but his seven years in Gotham
undoubtedly made an influence—on his fellow musicians, anyway. His large
ensemble groups Guillermo Klein Big Band and Los Guachos were criminally
under-recorded considering his remarkable musical talent.
Maybe that will change with the release of Una Nave, which was recorded in
2002 in Buenos Aires with a core septet of Argentinean players plus a
comparable number of guest vocalists, percussionists, and other miscellanea
(see personnel listing at right). Klein plays piano, Fender Rhodes, and
guitar—and he sings in an unvirtuosic and perhaps nicotine-weathered voice made
no less affecting by its weathering. This is Latin-saturated music, often with
an Afro-Cuban or Argentinean flavor, built on the robust, propulsive powerhouse
kit drumming of Daniel “Pipi Piazzolla and the rock-inflected electric
bass playing of Matias Mendez. Yet those seeking any sort of traditional music—from
Argentina, Latin America, or anywhere on earth—will be confounded by the
staggering eclecticism and sprawling reach of Klein’s compositions. Klein’s
work is as traditionally Argentinean as Caetano Veloso’s is traditionally
Brazilian or, for that matter, Charles Mingus’ is traditionally black gospel.
And Mingus is really the only musician to whom I feel compelled to compare
Klein—not that their musics sound a thing alike. They do not. But the sheer
audacity of grasp demonstrated by Una Nave can only be compared to as
brash and fearless a musical personality as Mingus. There’s so much to marvel
at: the contrapuntal twin-trumpet knotting of “La Ultima ; the dizzying
reed ensemble parts of “El Rio ’02 ; Klein’s percussive vocalizing of the phrase
“Fascinating Rhythm-Moliendo Café on the song of the same title;
“Venga, with its hard, sideways Latin swing (MVP Piazzolla always
prominent) under the interweaved, angular lines of Klein’s piano and Mendez’s
bass.
The delicacy of “Nave —with its doubled Klein vocals, crisp, breezy
acoustic guitar, and near-perfect static horn ensembles—should fit in horribly
on the same CD as the violently rhythmic “Argentina, with its stacked
percussion and pounded piano. Yet it all fits together fine; this is the rare
CD where plentiful musical variety only gives an impression of hungry and
far-reaching giftedness—not arrogant hubris or lack of focus.
It’s important to note that Klein’s own playing, be it on keyboard or guitar,
is hardly the focus of these compositions. Certainly, the aforementioned
“Argentina features his iron-fingered piano playing, but “Niza
(milonga) may be more typical in its song-serving twinning of his piano with
the bass line of Mendez (not unreminiscent of what Joe Zawinul loved to do in
Weather Report). Outside of the rare solos, the music feels pretty
through-composed; free improvisation this is not.
Una Nave is an album of huge ambition, and its ambitions are all pretty
much realized. I can only hope he’s recording right now in Barcelona.
Paul Olson (All About Jazz)
