Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods

Performer: Dizzy Gillespie
Artist: Mario Bauza; Chico O'Farrill
Producer: Chico O'Farrill; Mario Bauza
Distributor: Fantasy (distributor)

Notes: Personnel: Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet); Frank "Machito" Grillo (Clavinet, maracas); Chico O'Farrill (arranger, conductor); Mauricio Smith (alto saxophone, piccolo, flute); Mario Bauza (alto saxophone, clarinet); Mario Rivera (tenor saxophone, alto flute); Jose Madera, Sr. (tenor saxophone, clarinet); Leslie Yahonikan (baritone saxophone, bass clarinet); Manny Duran, Raul Gonzalez Jr., Victor Paz (trumpet, flugelhorn); Jerry Chamberlain, Jack Jeffers, Lewis Kahn, Barry Morrow (trombone); Don Corrado, Bob Stewart, Brooks Tillotson (tuba); Jorge Dalto (electric piano); Dana McCurdy (synthesizer); Carlos Castillo (bass); Mickey Roker (drums); Julito Collazo, R. Hernandez (African drums); Mario Grillo (bongos, cowbell); Pepin Pepin (congas); Jose Madera Jr. (timbales). Recorded in New York, New York on June 4 & 5, 1975. Originally released on Pablo (2310-771). Includes liner notes by Chico O'Farill. Here we have a summit meeting late in the careers of the pioneering titans of Afro-Cuban jazz -- Dizzy Gillespie fronting the Machito orchestra on trumpet, with Mario Bauza as music director, alto saxophonist/clarinetist, and organizing force, and Chico O'Farrill contributing the compositions and arrangements. This could have been just a nostalgic retro gathering 25 years after the fact, but instead, these guys put forth an ambitious effort to push the boundaries of the idiom. The centerpiece is a 15-minute trumpet concerto for Dizzy called "Oro, Incienso Y Mirra," where O'Farrill melts dissonant clusters, electric piano comping, and synthesizer decorations together with hot Afro-Cuban rhythms into a coherent, multi-sectioned tour de force. Dizzy, who apparently had never been in the same room with synthesizers before, is magnificent as he peels off one patented bebop run after another over Machito's band and in the gaps between. There is also an equally sophisticated suite of O'Farrill pieces grouped under the title "Three Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods," which mixes rock elements into the rhythms. Parts of "Pensativo" sound as if O'Farrill had been carefully listening to Santana, the teacher learning from the student, as it were. It adds up to a paltry 32 minutes of music, yet one can forgive the short weight, this being all there is of a historic recording session. ~ Richard S. Ginell

If Charlie Parker was the chief architect of the bop revolution of the 1940s, Dizzy Gillespie was its standard-bearer, an evangelist who battled public hostility and incomprehension with rapier wit. A trumpeter of dazzling virtuosity, he matched Parker's rhythmic innovations with deft harmonic ingenuity. He also functioned as teacher, putting his vast knowledge of harmony at the disposal of younger musicians like Miles Davis, who were trying to get a handle on the new sound. His historic big band featuring Chano Pozo was the first large-scale attempt to combine Latin music with jazz, and the unflagging excellence of his subsequent career was a tribute to the integrity of his original vision. He died in 1993.

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