Martinez is the only name
here that’s new to me. Sanchez has been Pat Metheny’s drummer of choice for a
while (and should have had an Oscar for the Michael Keaton film Birdman) and League is one of the big dogs in Snarky Puppy. For this album the
three have come together to celebrate Cuban music and acknowledge its roots in
West African soil. A celebratory time is had whilst the cause of the music’s
uprooting of the rhythms that survived the ‘Middle Passage’ in slavery’s
triangular trade is also acknowledged in the music’s shadows and the fervent
protestation in every boldly declaimed word.
By and large, Martinez and Sanchez provide the rhythms and League fills in any gaps as necessary. This creates a sort of prog-Afro-Latin mash up with synth washes and occasional rampaging guitars over layers of romping drums. Mi Tambor is probably the most explicit example of this. Full of fury, it’s almost Led Zeppelin-esque in the breadth of its attack. The frantic congas and pummelling drums are supplemented by an insistent, driving keyboard bass line whilst fuzz guitars add stabs that break up the chanting. Overwhelming, says this writer.
Opener, Obbakaso captures a furious sadness,
combining the driving percussion with washes of deep voiced keys. There is an
underlying tragic aloneness, blue notes, if you like, before League’s keys take
off on a wild ride that conjures up wide open spaces, but cannot fully escape
the melancholy that preceded it. Next up comes the rousing drama of Caminando with Martinez’ wailing vocals to the front cutting through a chorus of
his own layered voices. What sounds like a programmed bass provides the
heaviest of solid foundations, driving through like a sonic boom.
Variant
is
more subdued, underpinned by a rolling, probing bass behind ghostly vocal
chants. Suuru is stripped down to
just congas and an African chorus, expanded by an almost symphonic layering of
voices for much of its time before a creeping daylight as the keys bring
illumination and added colour that grows in waves, reminiscent of the sort of
things that Lyle Mays used to do on the early Metheny albums.
Congo
No Calla mixes high stepping afro-funk with a guitar attack
straight out of the best of 70s guitar rock, six strings set to stun with added
wah-wah. (Think Blue Öyster Cult at their loudest). It’s a an absolutely joyful
ending to the album, which at just over 32 minutes in length is just starting
to bring its most powerful muscles to bear when the plug is pulled.
Over the last few years we have seen more and more jazz artists incorporating music from far beyond jazz’ traditional home land. What this album shows is that jazz is no longer politely borrowing from other genres but is feasting far and wide on whatever catches its ear with all the subtlety of a Donald Trump foreign policy. Dave Sayer
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