Carambola

EDITORIAL REVIEWS
AMAZON
With 60 years of music making under his belt, the Cuban-born composer, arranger, and bandleader Chico O'Farrill reigns as the dean of Latin jazz. After arriving in New York in 1948, he worked with Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Machito. Carambola, the maestro's first CD of the 21st century, finds him in rare form. Old tunes like "Carambola," "Havana Blues," and "Crazy City (.But I Love It)" charge with a mambo-bebop fire. "Waller Exercise" is a ragtime-stride, New Orleans second-line ditty recorded to sound like a scratchy 78, while "Rhapsody for Two Islands" is a Cubop shout to George Gershwin. The timeless vocals of Graciela, the sister of Machito and wife of Mario Bauza, grace "Oye Mi Rumba." The CD's high points, though, are O'Farrill's extended compositions--his 1950 masterpiece, "The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite" with its mercurial, millennial mood, and "The Aztec Suite." Composed in 1959, the latter is featured on CD for the first time. Both numbers indulge peppery rumbas, bebop lines, boleros, and Afro syncopations with the touch of a master. Trumpeters Phillip Michael Mossman and Jim Seeley, trombonist Papo Vazquez and alto saxophonist Mario Rivera add their improvisations to the mix and make this aural offering one tasty Cuban-American dish. --Eugene Holley Jr.

REVIEW
The symphonic sweep of Chico O'Farrill's exuberant Afro-Cuban jazz sensibilities suffuses Carambola, further testimony to the Havana-born, New York-seasoned composer's understated mastery of the Latin big-band sound. For five decades O'Farrill has worked with the best in the business: Mario Bauza, Machito, Dizzy Gillespie, Chano Pozo, Candido, Patato, and many more. Two well-known extended works, "Aztec Suite" and "Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite," garner fresh hearings. Then there's the title track's mambo-bebop sass, the mellow bolero "Delirio," the straight-ahead clave swing of "Havana Blues," the brassy Broadway cha-cha of "Vanna's Song," the frenetic mambo tribute to New York, "Crazy City (But I Love It)," and the speakeasy foxtrot feel of "Waller Exercise." There's no arguing either with singer Graciela's resonant cameo on "Oye Mi Rumba," the suave jazz trio setting of "Enamorado," or the Gershwin-tinged "Rhapsody for Two Islands" (Cuba and Manhattan, naturally). Says O'Farrill, "I get a kick out of the promiscuity of Cuban and American sounds and I think that maybe what we began doing years ago was destined to be." Sublimely so. -Michael Stone -- From Rhythm Magazine

Number of Discs: 1

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