Justin Time /

No
Title
Duration
Excerpts
01
U.M.M.G. - Upper Manhattan Medical Group
00:06:08
02
Autumn Nocturne
00:04:54
03
Drume Negrita
00:08:04
04
Harlem Nocturne
00:08:28
05
Esto Si Tiene Que Ver (You Must See This)
00:06:31
06
Moonface (Habana Nocturna)
00:08:02
ogg      mp3      
07
Lada 78
00:08:43
ogg      mp3      
08
Song For Argentina
00:09:52
ogg      mp3      
09
Like Someone In Love
00:07:03

Liner Notes

What becomes a legend most? Since the beginning of the Golden Age of Cuban music in the thirties, people the world over have been enthralled by the music and musicians emanating from that tiny speck of an island in the Antilles. First, it was the son montuno and its practitioners, from Miguel Matamoros to Ignacio Pineira. In Antonio Machin's voice, Moises Simon's "The Peanut Vendor" takes New York by storm. The rumba follows in close pursuit, finding its way into the top big bands of the era. Its ambassadors are Cuban émigrés like Mario Bauza, who makes a name for himself as musical director for Chick Webb and Cab Calloway.

In the forties, Bauza joins brother-in-law Machito in a big band - the Afro Cubans - that cuts across the tangled Manhattan ethnic divide. By the end of the decade, the Latin dance turf is shared with two Titos, Puente and Rodriguez, both of Puerto Rican heritage. With the able assistance of percussionist and showman extraordinaire Chano Pozo, Dizzy Gillespie brings jazz into the mix. Cubop is born. Chico O'Farrill starts writing Afro-Cuban jazz.

The scene shifts to Mexico in the fifties, where pianist / bandleader Perez Prado launches his brassy, sexy mambo amidst a bevy of foxy rumberas. Back in Havana, producers both Cuban (Ramon Sabat) and American (Norman Granz) record tasty jam sessions with Julio Gutierrez, Peruchin, Cachao, José Fajardo, and Bebo (father of Chucho) Valdés. Singer Beny Moré brings the son to maturity with his gifted improvisations in a big band context. He succeeds in eclipsing most everyone in his wake.

Morés reign is far-reaching, if short-lived. He passes away in 1963, taking the glory days of the Big Band Era with him. Salsa becomes the sound of Latin Manhattan in the mid-sixties. Whereas in Havana, Armando Romeu succeeds in establishing the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, breeding ground of first-rate soloists like Paquito D'Rivera and Arturo Sandoval. The two of them, led by another OCMM alumnus, Chucho Valdés, will rewrite the course of Latin Jazz in the seventies with their fusion ensemble, Irakere.

Buoyed by the success of Irakere, other Romeu disciples go it alone. Juan Pablo Torres updates traditional Cuban music with Algo Nuevo. Hilario Durán attempts a fusion of his own, less rooted in the Afro-Cuban polyrhythms of Irakere. In Los D'Siempre, Durán seeks to expand the harmonic range of Cuban music. His avowed musical references - Peruchin (Cuba's answer to Monk) and Chick Corea - hail from both sides of the Atlantic. However Irakere casts a very long shadow, leaving no room at the top.

Shortly after D'Rivera's defection to the U.S. in 1980, Sandoval decides it's time to branch out on his own. He makes Durán an offer he can't refuse. The Havana-born pianist will spend the eighties as the trumpet virtuoso's pianist and musical director. A position of such visibility can be a springboard to a successful solo career. But Sandoval's band is not a collaborative affair. Durán and company are there to frame (and keep up with) the trumpeter, not to stand out on their own. In 1985, at the Havana Jazz Festival, Gillespie takes twentysomething pianist Gonzola Rubalcaba under his wing. Meanwhile, another keyboard wizard, Emiliano Salvador, will spend the last years of his brief life in perfect anonymity.

It is only after Sandoval follows D'Rivera's steps to the U.S. in 1990, that Durán sets out to form another band of his own, Perspectiva, with remaining bandmates and others. It's still a fusion group, but one that is synthesizer-heavy, closer to popular music than to jazz. Havana at the beginning of the nineties is hardly the place to look for cutting-edge pop. Los Van Van and NCB La Banda have seen better days. Durán and Perspectiva languish until Jane Bunnett arrives on the island to record her first landmark session of Afro-Cuban folkloric music and jazz, Spirits of Havana. It's the first of seven albums Bunnett and Durán will make together in the nineties.

Durán turns forty-two, days after recording his first solo outing, the minimalist gem Francisco's Song (1995), where jazz meets Cuban music with the piano as the only percussion instrument. A splendid calling card, it wins him a following among the initiated. Killer Tumbao, recorded almost two years later, is a loose Havana jam session with Canadian pals (Jane Bunnett, Larry Cramer, Roberto Occhipinti) mixing amiably with Cuban all-stars, young and old.

Habana Nocturna showcases Durán's talent as an arranger. The band is a jazz ensemble with a string quartet that provides the orchestral shadings and on three occasions actually becomes a charanga (the Cuban traditional string and flute formation). It's a classy, trans-cultural proposition.

"Upper Manhattan Medical Group" becomes a guaracha, "Like Someone In Love" a danzon, "Autumn Nocturne" is recast in ritmo macuta, a Cuban cousin of Brazil's baiao and Puerto Rico's bomba. The legendary cradle song "Drume Negrita" seamlessly shifts locales from Havana to Harlem, while "Harlem Nocturne" makes it a fun-filled, round-trip excursion. Durán's own "Moon Face (Habana Nocturnal)" goes through three tempo changes, from 6x8 afro to reggae and finally to straight-ahead. It's a mini lesson in (acoustic) jazz fusion of the highest order.

Not every tune is a hybrid. Duran's "Esto Si Tiene Que Ver" is as classic a danzon as they come. Bunnett's "Song From Argentina" is one of the loveliest jazz ballads of the nineties.

The elegance of the writing is anything but conservative. Listen to "Lada 78", a barnburner dedicated to the Russian car he inherited from Sandoval. Ladas are notorious clunkers, but in Cuba, a set of wheels is worth its weight in gold. Who would have thought the man had a madcap sense of humor? Hilarious Hilario.

As featured guest, Bunnett continues to develop along parallel lines. On flute, her Cuban phrasing is on the money: her timing belongs to jazz. On soprano, she summons from a timeless melody its fullest expression, a reminder that jazz is more than improvisation. When she and Durán join forces, it's a relay conversation among best friends: one begins where the other leaves off, gaining eloquence and intensity as they challenge one another and swing merrily along. Their musical partnership is one of the most rewarding in Latin jazz since Claudio Roditi locked horns with D'Rivera in the mid-eighties.

Rounding out the ensemble, Larry Cramer brings a touch of Miles Davis to "Drume Negrita" and draws lovely circles around Bunnett in "Song For Argentina". El Negro displays his versatility riding the cymbals gracefully or doing cascara (keeping time on the side of the snare or timbal) like the Old Masters. On bass Roberto Occhipinti steps out in "Drume" and "Song". Second violin Hugh Marsh solos wisely on "Lada 78" and "Like Someone". On congas, Rodolfo Terry is a very able timekeeper.

At heart, Durán is a classisist. Every tune has its own intro, a nod to Erroll Garner, one of his father's favorites. Durán Sr. (he's also Hilario) was a rising star of the filin movement that brought Cuban song closer to Nat King Cole and the Great American Ballad. Durán Jr. is said to be an introvert, but you wouldn't know it from his playing, which is in the grand Cuban tradition, but informed by an arsenal of fresh and witty, well-developed ideas. In "Autumn Nocturne", he quotes from "Stormy Weather", Ravel's "Bolero" and "Salt Peanuts" in a single, seamless phrase. Baden Powell's "Canto de Ossanha" finds its way from Brazil to "Song From Argentina". Elsewhere, Durán will tag for good measure.

Apparently, introspection also gives way to euphoria. The pianist / arranger/ composer has found a second home in Toronto with wife and daughter Yailen (who does all three voices in the chorus of "Esto Si Tiene Que Ver"). If the music is any indication, he is one very happy camper who won't let the good times go. "Lada 78" comes to a natural close not once but twice, only to keep going. The album fades out as Duran rides his tireless montano into the sunset. "Like Someone I Love", indeed.

Habana Nocturna's roots in Cuban music are Guillermo Rubalcaba's Charanga Tipico de Concierto and the trailblazing danzones composed by Cachao and Macho Lopez for Arcano y sus Maravillas. In jazz, Gonzalo Rubalcaba paid tribute to his father's music in Mi gran pación (1987). But Durán's Nocturna is a round-trip ticket from Cuban music to jazz and back: a landmark album of Cuban Jazz in the nineties.

As the genre approaches the new millennium, Rubalcaba has successfully crossed over to the mainstream. About the only thing that Chucho Valdés won't do is take a break. The late bloomer comes of age: Durán won't be denied any longer. His Habana may be Nocturna, but it shines brightly with a light of its own.
Nat Chediak is the author of Diccionario de jazz latine (SGAE, 1998)