El Conde Negro (Destiny Records)
Pete Rodriguez
Released May 19, 2015
DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review
YouTube:
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About:
Trumpeter,
vocalist and percussionist Pete Rodríguez draws on his heritage as the son of
Nuyorican salsa royalty as well as his rigorous classical training and career
at the forefront of latin jazz on his latest Destiny Records album, El Conde
Negro, a mix of elegantly melodic vocal and instrumental numbers as well as
reinvented jazz versions of salsa classics originally sung by his legendary
salsero father, crooner Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez. As with the
younger Rodriguez’s previous, critically acclaimed album, Caminando Con Papi,
this new release features his longtime pianist Luis Perdomo along with Ricky
Rodriguez on bass, Rudy Royston on drums and Robert Quintero on percussion.
It’s a continuation of bandleader’s career taking the tradition of Afro-Cuban
jazz to new and exciting places.
Pete Rodriguez literally grew up onstage, playing trumpet and percussion, singing
coros and giving cues to his famous father’s band. At fifteen, he was playing
classical music with a symphony orchestra in Puerto Rico, where he would be
inspired and encouraged to take up jazz by his classmate David Sanchez. At
nineteen, Rodriguez took over as music director of his father’s salsa
orchestra. He’s gone on to sing on Tito Puente’s Grammy-award winning Mambo
Birdland album, and supplied percussion on Eddie Palmieri and
Brian Lynch’s Grammy-winning release, Simpatico. As an instrumentalist,
he’s shared the stage with legends as diverse as Celia Cruz, Eddie Palmieri,
Chico O’Farrill, La India, Kenny Garrett, and Bebo Valdez. As a sideman, his
credits also include Eddie Palmieri, Brian Lynch, David Sanchez, Chucho Valdes,
Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Carlos ‘Patato’ Valdez, among others. As a bandleader,
Rodríguez draws on this wealth of influences to create his own instantly
recognizable, high-voltage, cross-pollinated brand of Afro-Cuban jazz.
On El Conde Negro, Rodriguez reaffirms his prowess as composer, improviser and bandleader. His imaginatively reworked versions of classic Nuyorican hits by his dad include a lilting, dancing version of Soy La Ley, on which Rodriguez supplies both understated vocals and moodily spiraling, soulful trumpet. He elevates Catalina La O with a dark, neoromantic majesty fueled by Perdomo’s rippling phrases, and hazy cloudbanks of trumpet. On Sombras Que Paso, he switches out the original’s noirish bolero tinges for a moody, suspenseful rhythmic tension that never quite resolves. One of the album’s most electric moments is Convergencia, a moody, enigmatic, atmospheric bolero ballad. And his vocals imbue his take of Guaguanco De Amor with a tenderness and sensuality absent in the original.
Rodriguez’s original compositions include the balletesque Stolen Changes, with its coy shifts between straight-up swing and edgy postbop; Gravity, which pairs Rodriguez’s sober midrange lines with Perdomo’s rapidfire spirals; Ten Fe, propelled by Ricky Rodribuez’s misterioso, kinetically pulsing, slinky bsss and Perdomo’s stern block chords; Perdomo’s Blues, an animatedly circling showcase for piano-drum interplay; and the album’s epic title track, which stunningly contrasts brightly bubbling swing and scampering Afro-latinisms with a hauntingly stark, ominously stairstepping piano melody that closes the album with an unexpectedly elegaic intensity. This new album is Rodriguez’s second on Destiny Records, established by University of North Texas alumni Michael Shields, Cameron Mizell and George Shalda, the latter of whom is responsible for the impeccable recording.
Track Listing:
1. Soy La Ley (Ramon Castro / Ramon Rodriguez) 07:30
2. Stolen Changes (Pete Rodriguez) 06:00
3. Catalina La O (Johnny Ortiz) 07:31
4. Gravity (Pete Rodriguez) 05:55
5. Convergencia (Alberto Dominguez) 07:43
6. Ten Fe (Pete Rodriguez) 08:24
7. Sombras Que Paso (Catalino “Tite” Curet Alonso) 07:00
8. Perdomo’s Blues (Pete Rodriguez) 04:59
9. Guaguanco De Amor (Catalino “Tite” Curet Alonso) 06:03
10. El Conde Negro (Pete Rodriguez) 10:18
Personnel:
Pete Rodriguez: trumpet, vocals
Luis Perdomo: piano, Fender Rhodes
Ricky Rodriguez: bass
Rudy Royston: drums
Robert Quintero: percussion
Recorded February 8 – 10, 2014, at Beardog Recording in Austin, TX
Produced by Pete Rodriguez
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by George Shalda
Executive Producer: Mike Shields
Cover Photography, Art Direction and Design by Rebecca Meek
Review:
Critics typically mouth descriptors like “grooving,” “hard-charging” and “rhythmic” when referring to Latin or Afro-Cuban music. And trumpeter/vocalist/composer Pete Rodriguez certainly brings the burn to El Conde Negro, the follow-up to his dynamic debut, Caminando Con Papi. Rodriguez is part of modern-day and historic Latin jazz royalty, after all, having barked cues while playing trumpet and percussion on the bandstand of his legendary salsero father, crooner Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez. But by the age of 15, Pete was also playing classical music with a symphony orchestra in Puerto Rico. These varied experiences help explain music that is not only instrumentally ferocious, but texturally rich and at times, profoundly intimate. Accompanied by a band of ringers—pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Ricky Rodriguez, drummer Rudy Royston and percussionist Robert Quintero—Rodriguez creates compositions rich in musical depth, tone and beauty, as well as rhythm and melody. An equally exceptional singer, Rodriguez conveys passion and longing in every phrase, giving his music an appeal beyond genres. Rodriguez’s trumpet playing is colorful, both hot blooded and pastoral, winsome and charged. “Stolen Changes,” for example, darts like battling fireflies, from Afro-Cuban to straightahead, with through-composed sections where Royston and Quintero tumble together, hand in glove. The song hits a breakdown, percussion and trumpet leading the charge, supported by Perdomo’s cerebral comping. Throughout, riches of texture and atmosphere mark every song on this exceptionally clear and cliché-free album.
Ken Micallef (DownBeat)
