Básico, No Básico y Dirigido (self-production)
Elmer Ferrer
Released September 23, 2019
Juno Award Nominee Solo Jazz Album of the Year 2021
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mohvHO7ZZvbsogrxfNINlfgEXn3Taaci4
Spotify:
About:
Básico, No Básico y Dirigido is the 4th solo album released by Cuban Canadian Guitarist, Music Composer and Producer Elmer Ferrer. Twelve instrumental tracks performed by some of the world’s greatest!
Track Listing:
1. Prólogo 0:47
2. Básico, No Básico y Dirigido 3:27
3. Royal Hut Fiddle – Donnell Leahy, Natalie MacMaster 3:32
4. A 220 Piano, Keyboards – Juan Luis Guerra 3:32
5. Donde vive lo que no passa 4:45
6. El Guilto 6:00
7. Guanibarrana 4:07
8. Trova 5:17
9. Interludia 0:48
10. El Regocijo del Fula 3:37
11. Third Stone from the Sun 4:09
12. Santana (Pasacalle Espirituano) – L’isola Misteriosa 2:10
Personnel:
Elmer Ferrer: electric guitars (1-7, 10-12), tres (1, 7, 11), charango (1,4), synth (1, 3, 10, 12), keyboard (2), baritone guitar (4, 5, 10), classical guitar (8), unplugged electric guitar (9), fretless guitar (10)
Chendy León: percussions (1-7, 11)
Rachel Pomedli: cello (1, 2, 5, 7, 8)
Drew Jurecka: viola, violin (1, 2, 5, 7)
Larnell Lewis: drums (2, 4-8), electric pad (5)
Marc Rogers: synth bass (2, 5)
Yumar Bonachea: trumpet, flugelhorn, flugabone (2, 5, 11)
Natalie Macmaster: fiddle (3)
Donnell Leahy: fiddle (3)
Mark Kelso: snare and spoons (3)
Andrew Stewart: bass (3)
Mac Morin: step dancing (3)
Tomás Eliezer Ramírez: güira, tambura (4)
Rich Brown: bass (4, 7)
Luis Guerra: piano, Rhodes (4)
Lyn Kuo: violin (5, 7)
Rebekah Wolkstein: viola (5, 7)
Taran Plamondon: french horn (5)
Melissa Scott: oboe, english horn (5)
Michael Quigley: bassoon (5)
Rob Christian: soprano and flute (5, 6)
Roberto Riverón: acoustic bass (6, 8)
Michael Shand: piano (6, 8)
Rafael “Cosito” Angel Cos: voice intro (7)
Roni Eytan: harmonica (8)
Kiki Ferrer: drums (11) Alain Perez: bass and vocals (11)
Produced by Elmer Ferrer
Recorded at Jukasa Recording Studios (Ohsweken, ON) & Loud Mouse Studios (Toronto, ON) by Kevin Dietz
Assistant Engineer at Jukasa Recording Studios: Jill Zimmermann
Flute & Soprano (5) and additional Percussions (3, 5, 6) recorded by Taras Blyzniuk at Loud Mouse Studios (Toronto, ON)
Guitar overdubs recorded at The View Lab (Toronto, ON) by Elmer Ferrer
Strings recorded at Small Dog Sound (Toronto, ON) by Drew Jurecka
Alain Pérez Bass recorded by Maykel Bárzagas at MB Studios (Havana, Cuba)
Kiki Ferrer Drums recorded by Adel Gonzalez at El Gao Records (Madrid, Spain)
Tomás Eliezer Ramírez recorded by Abel Gonzalez at VoicesStudio (Santiago, Dominican Republic)
Roni Eytan Harmonica recorded by Arik Finkelberg at The Yellow Submarine Studios (Jerusalem, Israel)
Yumar Bonachea recorded at Yumar Music – Brassing Sound (Mexico City, Mexico)
Mixed by John ‘Beetle’ Bailey at The Drive Shed Recording Studios
Mastered by Peter Letros at Wreckhouse Mastering
Guitar Tech: Jeremy Rose
Graphic Design and Album Art by Daniel Delgado
CG Album Art by Aidan Breit-McNally
Review:
Lying down, lights off… I enter a mined area, a war of sounds that invades. Randomly, because my player decides so, the tracks of Basic, Non-Basic and Directed (me) impact without remedy.
15 years ago I did not listen to Elmer Ferrer doing his thing… and I say 15 because since Mud Dance (2005) had not accessed a production of his authorship conceived with such levels of creativity and audacity.
It seems that as time passes he lets himself be pushed further towards the edges. Because if we are sure of something when we finish listening to this album, it is that everything fits in the wide musical register that this composer and arranger takes and molds to his liking. Without fear. Because only then one has to launch to create.
From its title and image —by Daniel Delgado—, Basic, Non-Basic and Directed (2019) announces that this is a flight at risk, pure imagination. A trip in which we will not be in control and we will rise at the mercy of the winds in an airplane yet to be assembled, almost as if we were taking it out of its box for the first time: the central body as a stylized projectile, the wings and its propeller as it’s conformed. Image that suddenly brings back those of us like Elmer who knew (and suffered) in the “golden” 80`s the normalization of the sale of toys with those coupons (basic, non-basic and directed) whose classification intrigues today and already belongs to the domain of the ridiculous, but that was the carelessness of our parents trying to buy more (with less) and that we were “happy here”…
It took Elmer ten years to re-produce a record almost entirely his own—on the phonogram, except Third Stone From The Sun (Jimi Hendrix) and Santana/L’Isola Misteriosa from arrays to snippets Santana (Alfredo Varona) and The Mysterious Island (Gianni Ferrio), or Royal Hut Composed by Elmer Ferrer, Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy, the rest of the songs were composed and arranged by the solo guitarist. Despite being one of the Cuban musicians with the greatest collaborations in studio sessions, from no guitars allowed (2009), of which I confess I just heard some songs on-linehadn’t decided on it. Let us remember that part of his good work can be heard in Cuban productions nominated for international awards and in others no less magnificent, although not as recognized. Given the diversity of his timbre and the genres he manages to play with equal dedication, he leaves the (traditional) Cuban rhythms and becomes “individual… [because he also] likes rock and he likes blues and he likes jazz”.
However, unlike no guitars… which included the voice and collaboration of the Canadian singer of Nigerian origin Ndidi Onukwulu, Essential… he returned fully to the instrumental. And it is surprising how this album becomes a kind of melodic canon, compared to his previous productions. In fact, it is possible to find lines from one production to another that speak of dialogue and at the same time of structural and compositional variations.
Because how not to follow the threads that lead us from Bonus track (Blackout) in Mud… a Interlude by Essential…; or of e-blues by Mud… to the here inside of No guitars…; or of Pimpao by no guitars … to the guanibarrana by Essential… How not to notice the phrasing, the syncopation and the related melodies, and at the same time different in scale or compass, in themes such as the homonyms no guitars allowed, Basic, non-Basic and Directed and the arrangement of Third Stone From The Sun by Essential…? As a canon, the recent record production is the natural counterpoint heir to three decades of work, in which this interpreter has emulated the work of composer and arranger with equal relish.
Elmer, trained in classical guitar although with an electric mind, could almost say that he molded himself from the most diverse influences. It was not until almost the mid-1990s that the ENA, from where he had graduated in 1992, founded the specialty of electric guitar and invited him as a teacher. However, throughout the 90s until he founded his Elmer Ferrer Band (EFB) in 2004, he was part of several groups such as the legendary Estado de Ánimo (along with Roberto Carcassés, Descemer Bueno, Ruy López-Nussa), accompanying the great Santiago Feliú, to Temperamento (by Roberto Fonseca), Habana Ensemble (by César López), and later collaborating with X Alfonso, those of Habana Abierta and Interactivo. Yes, each one had its mark, but it is not the same.
Thinking and making your own music and contributing takes time. In 2003, Metropolis (Unicornio) came out of his hands and, as expected, was awarded Best Jazz Album at that year’s Cubadisco. Impulse that would follow Mud Dance and that would close the decade with no guitars allowed.
The exact date on which I stopped seeing the EFB announced in the jazz spaces of Havana escapes me, I don’t know if it was before or after 2012, the truth is that it is strange. It is known that jazz rock and its derivatives have not had as many followers in Cuba, and the EFB with its ineffable quality promised (and fulfilled) to fill that void. The new scenarios for the production and circulation of his music, after settling in Canada, further broadened his horizons in terms of musical collaboration, visibility and creation conditions. It is not that his work did not show the influence of various musicians from around the world with whom he shared the stage inside and outside of Cuba, but listening Essential… that bank of references and sonorities feels broader than the one he uses with ease and joy. From Cuban rhythms and timbre to riff blues/rocker, from chords and Celtic metrics to an almost Dominican merengue, all capable of being dissected, re-composed.
Hearing how hybrid this volume sounds, it seems like Elmer dropped and glided all the way down to the ground. From the succinct prologue (just 47 seconds) we feel that the structure is going to explode, and thus the presumed framework of jazz (the essential) will see, in what follows, its “limits” detonated. Percussion and bass marking the beat of this track opening, which is superimposed by the clear and precise almost atonal guitar, is rarefied by an expansive sound effect as if we were being bombarded, and when we least expect it, a string quartet colors the ending with hasty apocalyptic tones. To immediately move on, without time to recover, to the theme that gives this album its title. as expected Basic, non-basic and directed It’s a bomb… Jazz (latin) good rock with a frenetic syncopation marked by the congas and that firm battery that harmonizes now with the trumpet or the lead guitar. Fingers that decisively go up and down that endless, electric arm: the guitar alternates in strong solos with the drums that move forward or backward, depending on how you look (or listen). Tight, just thight. The orchestration uses all the “coupons” at its disposal, adjusting to its rhythm, guiding us from the dark to the light.
Shortly after, it comes upon us Royal Hut: a polyphonic cyclone that drags the Cuban key first on tiptoe to later make it flow fully in the metric and speed of Celtic violins. Tone and color of each tradition surprisingly amalgamate here, creating something else. I confess that when I heard it for the first time it seemed audacious, I would almost say suicidal. Because to this also add a certain southern air that emanates from melodically imitating the clapping of gospel or step dancing North Americans, to suddenly fall into the middle of a ¿circus?: there are sounds that resemble the trotting of animals, or an elephant ¿screaming? Percussion—like violins, like guitar, like bass—struggles to be heard, exhibited, in this music fair where we can also dance and (un)mark the time. A real download. Yes indeed.
And as if the download shouldn’t stop, at 220 He gives us the next theme, which may be a tribute to Juan Luis Guerra, but also to that festive and overwhelming Caribbean, of which we are a part. Here the bass, percussion and guitar also incorporate, although not directly, airs from the steel bands Caribbean. And the piano joins the “tumbao” with the special timbre of the Rhodes. Round.
After such a release, it’s time to level. and a theme like where lives what does not happen it is an unexpected cut, but necessary. The calm and serious tone of the winds and the strings from the first minute, feel the mood which will irradiate the part completely. The guitar, like the bass and the drums, embedded in the melodic line, will gently sing, plucking here or there, but the trumpet will be the protagonist in this displacement towards the unfathomable —that non-place (of memories, perhaps)— and the percussion goes down closing, like someone touching land/port. The end.
At the height of the sixth track, and already close to himself, Elmer arrives home. As if it had never left, Guilt It is that jazz with which we will move rhythmically in each “section”, in which the guitar asks and the piano answers, or the flute gently reels off a tasty dialogue with the (thick) acoustic bass in the background and the rhythm marked by the battery sure yes. Everything announces a “school” apprehended and metabolized gracefully… something that could well become a standard of Cuban jazz to which each new performer will add their mark.
Arriving home is for this guitarist to return to his native Sancti Spíritus, and guanibarrana as Trova are proof of it. The first is a new type of Cuban point, because this area of the Cuban geography has a long tradition of peasant music, and it is fixed from the introductory voice of the theme. Cubanía that is felt on the guitar and on the tres with its characteristic timbre, although the melody is fragmented, accelerated or calmed down, delighting with the strings, drums and bass behind it. Here, meter and rhythm unravel/recompose a sound landscape in which, as we are immersed, the tapping tickles our feet.
With Trova, we went down to the city. The clean but heartfelt sound of his “perjured” classical guitar is entertaining note by note that troubadour vein that almost all of us carry inside. When they enter the drums, the cello and the bass next to the philharmonic, we feel that Elmer once again walks through streets and alleys, squares or small squares known by heart. And we flow carried in the melody to retrace the afternoon-night or before dawn. With the light soul of someone who has seen his oasis.
And lo and behold, when we are more relaxed, after an “interlude” that feels like a coda (or in this case, a transition) we move on to another universe in less than a minute. What happens is The joy of the fula, a theme that in exponential dialogue with the prologue extremes what is rarefied (co)inhabits around it. Psychedelic and twelve-tone track it is worthy of an electroacoustic music laboratory: sounds of diverse origin and intensity, repetitive, synthetic and percussive, sometimes executed against the hand, with tremendous bad vibes. If the jubilation of evil is to sound like this, i nailed it.
At the end, we tasted a re-interpretation of the Third Stone From The Sun of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, in the hands of a “big” Cuban jazz band, where everyone breakea his bit (among them, Alain Pérez is heard on bass and voice) and joins the resounding orchestration. Elmer’s arrangement, much more harmonic than Hendrix’s original, is a disturbing tribute that the tumbadora (Chendy León), like the drums (Kiki Ferrer), charge with sustained intensity, and that the guitar and trumpet (Yumar Bonachea) they achieve spice a little.
However, despite the actual closure of this album, Santana (Spiritual Parade) – L’isola Misteriosa, is also an emotional reinterpretation of Elmer on the work of another composer —and it is understood in this third part of the volume, where the track previous— does not close me. If it had been stated as a bonus track, as it was Blackout for Mud Dance, perhaps I would appreciate it in another light. For tastes… you know.
The truth is that in that island mysterious that is the music of the Elmer Ferrer Band, off the basic, we are the target: infinite receivers where what does not die vibrates.
Nahela Hechavarria Pouymiro (Magazine AM:PM)
