|
  Mark Weinstein
Algo Más (Jazzheads JH 1148, 2005)
Mark Weinstein isn't likely to be the first name on anyone's list of Latin jazz
legends. Still, his 1967 album Cuban Roots did much to reunite Latin jazz with
the deep, unfiltered Afro-Cuban drum rhythms that gave rise to it two decades
earlier. At the time, Weinstein was a trombonist and composer with an
adventurous creative streak.
By the mid-'70s he'd forsaken the trombone for the flute, though his pursuits
for the next 20 years or so were more academic than musical. Today he's a
university professor who, lucky for us, still finds time to make music. And what
stunning, spine-tingling music it is.
Algo Más (Something More) features Weinstein on soprano, alto and
bass flutes, joined by percussionist/vocalist Pedro Martínez, electric guitarist
Jean-Paul Bourelly, acoustic bassist Santi Debriano and percussionists Nani
Santiago, Gene Golden and Skip Burney for an hour of exhilarating, mesmerizing
sounds that are part Latin jam, part praise session for the African deities who
figure prominently in much Afro-Latin traditional music and part musical
conversation in which the players speak the same language with flawless fluency.
The guitar has never been a staple instrument in Latin jazz, but it's the
first sound heard here. Bourelly begins "Ellegua Abierto" (an ode to the Yoruba
god of the crossroads) with wispy, almost offhanded soloing. Out of nowhere,
Martínez breaks in with a vocal chant and it's pure magic from there to the end
of the disc.
The percussionists create a wall of intricate, shifting beats, a perfect
atmosphere in which the guitar, bass, flutes and vocals feed into and off of one
another, sometimes all together but frequently in solo sections that allow for
some amazingly symbiotic excursions of sound. It's difficult to describe the
sort of euphoria this album brings about. It soothes and caresses but cooks as
well. And in a way it takes Latin jazz to where it's always been and to where
it's never been, combining timeless rhythms and extemporaneous spirit like
nothing else. Absolutely indispensable for Latin jazz aficionados, very highly
recommended for all others.
[Buy
Algo Más].
|
