First Meeting – Live At Dizzy’s Club (5 Passion Records)
Gonzalo / Chris / Eric / Larry
Released July 11, 2025
All About Jazz Best Jazz Albums of 2025
Jazzwise Top 20 Albums of the Year 2025
DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review
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About:
The backstory dates to March 1995, when Jason Olaine – now Vice President of Programming at Jazz at Lincoln Center; then the recently-appointed Artistic Director at Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland, California – booked Rubalcaba and his Cuban quartet for four nights. At the last-minute, the U.S. State Department blocked his bandmates’ visas, placing Olaine in a quandary. Thinking quickly, Olaine swiftly arranged an impromptu duet with saxophonist Joe Lovano. Their dynamic musical chemistry became a defining moment for both the pianist and the eager audience.
“I appreciated that Jason didn’t give up and instead offered an alternative,” Rubalcaba recalls. “Joe said, ‘Should we play some standards?’ I said, ‘I don’t know any of them.’ I had no idea. Then he brought out a chart of ‘Body and Soul’.” Rubalcaba’s breathtaking interpretation left a lasting impression on Olaine. “Gonzalo just destroyed it, beautifully and elegantly,” Olaine remembers. “I’m looking at Joe’s face – he was mesmerized. It was the most gorgeous introduction I could have to Gonzalo’s music and artistry.” Their connection ultimately led to the celebrated 1997 album Flying Colors on Blue Note and cemented Olaine’s commitment to Rubalcaba’s artistry.
Over the years, Olaine continued supporting Rubalcaba’s career, booking him at Yoshi’s in various configurations, including a trio with bassist Brian Bromberg and drum legend Tony Williams, and later with a band featuring Dave Holland, Chris Potter, and Eric Harland at the Monterey and Newport Jazz Festivals. Despite their remarkable performances, the Monterey Quartet’s recording received limited attention—a missed opportunity that Olaine was eager to revisit.
Fast forward to 2022, Olaine proposed assembling Rubalcaba, Potter, Grenadier, and Harland for a special engagement at Dizzy’s. “I felt this was a chance to rekindle something incredible,” Olaine explains. “I found an opening in the schedule, and they all jumped at the opportunity. Everyone was paid the same—this was purely about making great music.”
Billed as “First Meeting,” the band convened for a brief rehearsal on August 21 to reach consensus on the repertoire, which comprises an original piece by each member, along with “500 Miles High” by Chick Corea and “Con Alma” by Dizzy Gillespie. The latter held personal significance for Rubalcaba, as he had recorded it with Gillespie in Havana in 1985.
“I wanted to hear how we sounded together and see how we’d share the space,” Rubalcaba says. “Our communication was easy and fluid. I’ve been playing music for a long time, and I’ve never been sure about myself when I’ve had to face an experiment with something new or revisiting something from the past. The rehearsal made me confident that this would work. Nobody requested that we play a piece the way it was recorded years before or go in a particular direction. What you hear on the album is how we played it together in the here and now.”
From the reflective solo piano introduction to “500 Miles High” to the stately, bata-refracted, descrescendo vamp that concludes Rubalcaba’s “Santo Canto”, the musical flow embodies the mutually intuitive, connected quality that Rubalcaba describes. “Each person in this band can create fireworks at any moment if they want, but that wasn’t the goal,” Potter says. “The goal was to make some serious music together, where the jazz language is now. Gonzalo, Larry and Eric are amazing musicians at the top of their game. It was almost daunting to come to work, like, ‘This is at such a high level; I don’t want to mess it up.’ It was a very focused, intense conversation throughout, with everyone listening deeply. It’s like a high-wire act. Everything is perfectly balanced, and you want everything to continue being that way, but you also can’t play it safe for a second.”
“We approached the music differently every night, getting to know each other organically,” Harland adds. “The beauty of the band is that everybody brought themselves, and no one was pushed away. Everybody gave what they had available for that moment.”
“I was there for every set, every moment of those shows,” Olaine says. “If we’d had the budget, we would have recorded every night. This project documents the final set on the Saturday night, but there were many incredible, jaw-dropping moments throughout the week. I’m grateful that they all wanted to do it and brought such passion and sensitivity. It feels like a family, frankly. We were sad to see the week end.”
Three years since recording and on the cusp of the album release, the group remains eager to reunite. They are set to do so this year, as they embark on a multi-city tour throughout Europe in May, with more shows scheduled throughout the year and in 2026. What started as a singular meeting is now a masterful ongoing musical event.
Track Listing:
1. 500 Miles High (Chick Corea) 16:44
2. State of the Union (Larry Grenadier) 13:55
3. Eminence (Eric Harland) 15:55
4. Con Alma (Dizzy Gillespie) 18:33
5. Oba (Chris Potter) 13:16
6. Santo Canto (Gonzalo Rubalcaba) 14:33
Personnel:
Gonzalo Rubalcaba: piano
Chris Potter: saxophone
Eric Harland: drums
Larry Grenadier: bass
Recorded in Agust 25 – 28, 2022 at Dizzy’s Club, New York, by Jamie Macomber
Mixing Engineer: Akihiro Nishimura
Editing Engineer, Creative Director and Art Direction: Joao Gonzalez
Photography by Tokiwa Takehiko
Executive-Producer: Ariel Lopez
Review:
Let us not beat around the bush or obfuscate the obvious: First Meeting: Live at Dizzy’s Club is as sweet a listen anyone can wish for or expect as simpatico luminaries—pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, saxophonist Chris Potter, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Eric Harland—take to Dizzy’s stage. And command it, but not with a heavy hand or selfish aspirations. A dazzling portent, First Meeting: Live at Dizzy’s Club opens all the doors and windows facing Columbus Circle and lets a most refreshing vibe into the air, the room, the drinks and the super-lucky audience.
A great disc of a superb performance has got to come with an equally grand backstory and, in a thumbnail, the provenance of First Meeting: Live at Dizzy’s Club goes like this: Instigated by Jason Olaine (who now serves as VP of Jazz Programming at Lincoln Center) and recorded over five hot August nights in 2022, Rubalcaba, Potter, Grenadier and Harland set out with only a set list in mind, accomplishing what few can—trust in the other, here and now.
Simply a master class in everything the music is revered, studied, and performed nightly for, First Meeting: Live at Dizzy’s Club kicks off mightily with Chick Corea’s Latin fusion epic “500 Miles High” a ruminatively subtle whirlwind that only maestros can conspire on any given evening. Grenadier’s pliable samba, “State of the Union,” (first heard on 2004’s Fly, Savoy Jazz) is next on the set list, and the once-rehearsed quartet keeps all roads open for collective spontaneity and effortless individual statements. Opening on a percussive flurry, Harland’s “Eminence” is clear-cut mastery and possibly the spotlight track. Bass and piano enter—at first driving, frenetic—slowing into a majestic aria. Potter then breaks through, echoing the long blues lines of Dexter Gordon. Rubalcaba takes it from there, his solo open to inspiration. After a brief clattering storm, Potter emerges again, with the searching spirit of John Coltrane guiding him as “Eminence” closes out on a post-bop high.
Though it has been played umpteen times by a host of greats—Stan Getz, Spike Wilner, Charles Mingus among them—Dizzy Gillespie’s Latin jump anthem “Con Alma” has not been heard like this until now. Spiked by Rubalcaba and Harland’s endless inventions, Grenadier’s elasticity and Potter’s whipping spirals, this “Con Alma” stands on its very own. Potter’s vibrant “Oba” and Rubalcaba’s masterful “Santo Canto” close out the set and leave Dizzy’s howling. Why it has taken nearly three full years for First Meeting: Live at Dizzy’s Club to reach our ears probably comes down to some boring economic reasoning. But it is here now, and a cinch for end-of-the-year-best-of lists.
Mike Jurkovic (All About Jazz)
