Word: pianists
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Another kind of agenda is advanced by Danilo Perez's Central Avenue (Impulse!), one of the fall's most passionate and enjoyable albums. Perez wants to broaden the Latin jazz palette beyond Cuba to embrace the entire hemisphere. And why stop there? In one cut, the 32-year-old pianist works in motifs from his native Panama as well as Brazil, Cuba, the Middle East (via Spain) and, thanks to the contributions of a tabla player, India. Perez sees a pendulum effect at work: after a period of retrenchment, jazz, as it often has been in the past...
Terrasson, 32, has always been an original pianist, but the pleasures of his first two albums tended to be clever, surface ones. This CD, recorded live, is a breakthrough, thanks in no small part to the fact that his trio (with bassist Ugonna Okegwo and drummer Leon Parker) has been playing together for more than six years--a rarity in the harsh economic climate of today's jazz world. On a set of standards sprinkled with Terrasson originals, the trio plays softly and sparely, at times swinging as much by implication as by force. Melodies have a way of slithering...
Album titles that sound like Zen koans are almost always a sign of musical vapidity (New Age alert!). But not here. On his seventh disc as a leader, this adventurous 27-year-old jazz pianist justifies the title's paradox with playing that is full of odd stops and starts and tonal shifts, all of which he negotiates with delicacy rather than flash. This is music that manages to be both prickly and soothing--like anxious lullabies (to suggest another unappetizing title). Though Keezer gives himself three solo numbers--a highlight being his gentle deconstruction of Lush Life--the heart...
...video of the Dead's early days, circa 1967, which featured photos of Garcia and Hart and the rest of the band, set to old Dead music. Hart and his wife and his five-year-old daughter danced as they watched. Not long afterward, when Bruce Hornsby--a pop pianist with his own solo career who had played with the Dead off and on--suggested reforming the band, Hart was ready. It was time...
...weeks, Valdes plans stops in Philadelphia, Washington, Los Angeles and St. Paul, Minn. Earlier this year, La Charanga Habanera, a hard salsa act that is considered one of Havana's hottest bands, played its first-ever show in the U.S., at a festival outside Boston. Three years ago, pianist Ruben Gonzales, 79, considered himself retired and didn't even own a piano. This summer he has a solo album out (the smoothly accomplished Introducing...Ruben Gonzales on Nonesuch), and in October and November he will be touring the States. Other Cuban acts, including the dance band...