A Lorca Soundscape (Sunnyside Records)
Alexis Cuadrado
Released September 24, 2013
2013 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll Best Latin Albums
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mPKoGu8loMb-4TMMRrSieOjc2KTcdg1s0
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/intl-pt/album/35ZJVWKogzQcSVpCze2uad?si=npvrJ0QVSiOYb9EB4kX3bw
About:
Long before
terms like “1 percenters” and “Occupy” entered our current
vernacular, the great Spanish playwright and poet, Federico García Lorca, was
writing in 1929 about the inequality he witnessed while in New York City in.
Bassist and composer Alexis Cuadrado now presents, A Lorca Soundscape, a brand
new cycle of original jazz protest songs drawn from Lorca’s poetry, to be
released on Sunnyside Records on September 24. “In a moment like the one we’re
living in now, with the world economic crisis and movements like Occupy Wall
Street, getting back to Poet in New York is my way of forming a protest. Even
though the book was written over eighty years ago, it baffles me to see how the
inequality, racism and injustice that Lorca describes are still present in our
daily narrative. The characters may have changed, but the plot line is the
same,” says Cuadrado.
With an exceptional band, featuring Claudia Acuña, Miguel Zenón, Dan Tepfer,
Mark Ferber and Gilmar Gomes, Cuadrado creates a groundbreaking dialogue across
time utilizing a unique marriage of jazz, flamenco and new music.
The author and literary critic Melcion Mateu elaborates in the album’s liner
notes: “Alexis Cuadrado is an artist in pursuit of lyricism, a lyricism
that functions as a necessary contrast to the schizophrenic logic of a
sick city and society; like the voice that prevails against chaos and injustice
so as to make its message heard. Perhaps it’s for this reason that A Lorca
Soundscape is an album both clear and complex at once: complex like the city
depicted by Lorca, by means of his accumulation of discordant images, his
rhythms and sounds; and clear by means of the sheer power of his words. On Cuadrado’s
A Lorca Soundscape, the rhythms of the city-which move from swing to bolero,
passing through flamenco and new music, live together with the exigency to
express his message (…) And, there is always an emotion, an “ecstatic truth”,
to put it in the words of the filmmaker Werner Herzog, words that Cuadrado
often repeats, that reveals immediately the moment in which an individual
recognizes him or herself before the agitating great metropolis.”
Advance praise for A Lorca Soundscape:
“Alexis Cuadrado has produced a masterwork of jazz protest that links the
excruciating travails of the Great Depression in New York as viewed through the
eyes of poet Federico García Lorca to today’s cultural inequalities and
injustices. What makes Cuadrado’s creative action so compelling is how he and
his fellow musicians and vocalists deliver his original music—not as a cerebral
or technical exercise but with the deep, soulful wonder of duende, which in the
poet’s notion conjures up a surging of truth and spirit that emanates from the
soles of the feet.” – Dan Ouellette (author of Ron Carter: Finding the
Right Notes and the forthcoming Bruce Lundvall: Playing by Ear)
“Ever inventive and searching, bassist Alexis Cuadrado fearlessly
navigates crosscurrents of modern jazz, Latin and world music to underscore the
relation between today’s economic disparities with those of the past on ‘A
Lorca Soundscape,’ based on Federico Garcia Lorca’s poems about 1929 New York.
Vocalist Claudia Acuña gives the poet’s words a robust and emotional reading
that surge with feeling and an appreciated efficacy. But the heavy lift is
accomplished by Cuadrado, along with a band of sharp-eared and extremely
talented musicians, who gives resounding shape to the material by translating
the fire and passion of Lorca’s language into a work that’s resonant and
sonically engaging.” – Nick Bewsey, ICON, Jazz In Space Blog
“The chaotic times that fed the creation of the poems Federico Garcia
Lorca wrote in ‘Poet in New York’ echoes in the dramatic and compelling music
Alexis Cuadrado constructed for ‘A Lorca Soundscape’. His music surrounds,
caresses and pushes against the harsh, brooding yet often magical images. Like
the words and person that inspired the project, ‘A Lorca Soundscape’ is both
contemporary and timeless.” – Richard Kamins, Step Tempest
“His new protest song cycle A Lorca Soundscape sets García Lorca’s all-too
relevant words to a seductively dark blend of modern jazz and flamenco . .
.” – Shaun Brady, The Philadelphia City Paper
More on Alexis Cuadrado: An award-winning composer, solid bassist, and renowned
educator; Barcelona-born Alexis Cuadrado has become one of the most
sought-after musicians on the New York jazz scene. Cuadrado’s compositions show
a unique voice that draws from the crossover of jazz, flamenco and new music.
His output as a composer has peaked in recent years, with new works such as
Noneto Ibérico, A Lorca Soundscape, Jazz Miniatures for Double Quartet and
Hispalis . Cuadrado has published four CDs as a leader: Noneto Ibérico
(BJURecords, 2011), his most recent recording, and a seminal work that has
received massive critical acclaim. His previous albums, Puzzles (BJURecords,
2008), Visual (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2004) and Metro (FSNT, 2001), document
his compositions and have received excellent reactions from critics, presenters
and fans alike.
Alexis has also exceptional credits as a performer, and has collaborated with
such greats as Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, Grammy Award winner Angelique
Kidjo, Youssou N’Dour, Dianne Reeves, Omara Portuondo, Steve Wilson or Seamus
Blake amongst many others, and he keeps his sideman calendar busy freelancing
with different bands around the world. Cuadrado is a devoted educator and a
current faculty member at the New School in NYC. He also regularly teaches
worldwide as a guest lecturer.
More on Federico García Lorca: In 1929, already a renowned writer, Federico
García Lorca arrived in New York in search of a change of scenery. Shortly
after his arrival, the stock market crash of 1929 plunged the United States
into The Great Depression.
Poet in New York is Lorca’s poetic response to that experience. In an interview
years after, Lorca would describe his perception of the city: “Impressively
cold and cruel…a spectacle of suicides, of hysterical people and de-moralized
groups. A dreadful spectacle absent of grandeur. No one can imagine the
solitude a Spaniard feels there, and even more one from the south.” Poet in New
York speaks through this solitude: a solitude between alienated multitudes of
Latinos, Jews and Blacks in the face of the poet’s astonishment and vague
recognition of others and of himself; of impossible desire; of abandoned
dreams; of the violence in the night’s intimacy; and of the devastating routine
that carries workers to their jobs like animals to the slaughterhouse. We find
here in the most surreal, experimental and frazzled Lorca, simultaneously, the
most socially-engaged Lorca.
Track Listing:
1. Vuelta De Paseo (Alexis Cuadrado / Federico García Lorca) 06:16
2. Norma Y Paraíso – El Rey De Harlem (Alexis Cuadrado / Federico García Lorca) 07:18
3. Asesinato (Dos Voces De Madrugada En Riverside Drive) (Alexis Cuadrado / Federico García Lorca) 08:16
4. Danza De La Muerte (Alexis Cuadrado / Federico García Lorca) 07:34
5. La Aurora (Alexis Cuadrado / Federico García Lorca) 05:36
6. New York (Oficina Y Denuncia) (Alexis Cuadrado / Federico García Lorca) 04:41
7. Vals En Las Ramas (Alexis Cuadrado / Federico García Lorca) 09:52
Personnel:
Alexis Cuadrado: bass, bombo legüero (1&4), cajón, palmas & background vocals (4)
Claudia Acuña: voice
Miguel Zenón: alto sax
Dan Tepfer: piano
Mark Ferber: drums
Gilmar Gomes: congas (3), djembe, bells, rebolo & pandeiro (4)
Recorded September, 2012 – February, 2013, at Let’Em in Studios, Brooklyn, NY; Systems Two Studios, Brooklyn, NY; Unlimited Media Ltd.
Producer: Alexis Cuadrado
Engineers: Nadim Issa, Joe Marciano, Max Ross
Mixing and Mastering: Max Ross
Photography: Alvaro Felgueroso Artwork: Mario Carrillo
Review:
Rendering poems from a work in which Mr. García Lorca’s magical poetry—expressed with deeply embedded duende in A Lorca Soundscape is almost like attempting to perform Franz Liszt’s concert etudes—particularly the tortured sighs of “Un Sospiro”. And yes, Alexis Cuadrado comes off with flying colours casting the lead voice of the poet in the bass, with Claudia Acuña’s voice sharing in the spoils. So, no, this may not be quite the equivalent effect of Leslie Howard performing Franz Liszt, but the very idea of assigning the voice of Federico García Lorca Poeta en Nueva York to the double bass, with Ms. Acuña being a kind of doppelgänger, with her husky contralto is almost just as good as it deepens and even extends the colour palette of A Lorca Soundscape manifold. It is like having Poeta en Nueva York and La Casa de Bernarda Alba all rolled into one.
Mr. Cuadrado is one of those bassists who eschew the spectacle preferring instead the deep vibrations that come with having a resonating instrument such as the bass violin or contrabass pressed hard against the body so its beat echoes in the depths of each heartbeat of the human body itself. His soli are thus more moving and inhabit the deepest recesses within the woody interior of this magnificent instrument. Notes are imbued with the gravitas and erudition born of virtuosity quite beyond Mr. Cuadrado’s years. The rumble of the bass is magical and animated—the exquisite opening bars of “Asesinato (Dos voces de madrugada en Riverside Drive)” is a fine example—and at times like these the instrument sounds as vocal as it snaps and pops in counterpoint to the exquisite wailing voice of Ms. Acuña. So alive and animated is the bass that it is orchestral and although played pizzicato almost throughout the entire programme, but in playing repetitive figures and dallying over notes until their eventual despairing echo into oblivion is a fine device that covers the missing con arco passages. There are other magnificent aspects of this music and these come in the form of Ms. Acuña vocalising the profoundly beautiful poetry of the originals—some of which have been edited and/or interpreted to allow the music to live lyrically.
Miguel Zenón’s playing is masterful and as beautiful as anything he has put on record. The technical wizardry is reminiscent of his Puerto Rican trilogy that ended with his great record Alma Adentro—The Puerto Rican Songbook and of the epic nature of his storytelling on Rayuela. The enormous good fortune of his presence on this record is best felt on “Danza de la muerte”. Here too is the brilliance of pianist Dan Tepfer heard. The pianist varies the breathless nature of his playing by giving his soli room to breathe in a manner that is rare. Many pianists would not resist displays of dizzying virtuosity, but Mr. Tepfer is much too clever and inventive to allow his technical abilities to get the better of his playing. All of these lead voices—including the principal one of Alexis Cuadrado—display their singular individuality on “Danza de la muerte” and on a very special and elementally melancholic version of the poem, “La aurora,” the lyric of which is sung verbatim from the poem. And it is at times like these that the true memorable nature of the project is felt. It is also at times like these that the depth and majesty of Federico García Lorca’s poetry and the utter beauty of Alexis Cuadrado’s musical interpretations of the poems come together in one mystical puff of smoke.
Raul da Gama (Latin Jazz Network)
