Hilario Duran & His Latin Jazz Big Band - Cry Me A River (CD)

Release Date: 09/08/23

Duráns 'Cry Me A River' big band album presents a fusion of Afro-Caribbean influences, exceptional improvisation, and genre-bending arrangements.

Hilario Durán brings the full scope of his artistry, the depth of knowledge of musical genres in the perfect storm of big artistry on Cry Me A River. The celebrated Cuban-Canadian composer and piano-master Hilario Durán leads his nineteen-piece ensemble featuring special guests Paquito D'Rivera and Horacio 'El Negro' Hernández in a stellar big band recording - the first in 17 years.

Through the course of the album the Grammy-nominated and Juno Award-winning Durán actively throws overboard melodic, harmonic, and structural hooks that have become expressively blunted through overuse, building big band charts that bloom in color and texture and atmospheric beauty.

Durán integrates a myriad of genres into his singular style on the album - traversing innovations that have made his music uniquely breathtaking. He points to Claudia , a song he arranged while he was touring as Musical Director with Valdés, and features D'Rivera on alto saxophone, as Dizzy Gillespie's Night in Tunisia. Fantasia Impromptu is a kind of jazz-meets classical, via Brazil and Cuba, featuring D'Rivera on clarinet.

Of the title song, Cry Me A River Durán says: ' Elizabeth Rodríguez is just fantastic on violin. In her solo she plays deep in the Cuban tradition and follows that with an incredible improvisation!' he says. ' Pacá por Juanito is a tribute to Juanito Márquez ,' Durán explains, 'He was one of the greatest musicians of Cuba the conductor of Orquesta de la Radio y Televisión in the 60's. I learned how to arrange for big band, by studying his scores for that orchestra.' Another original is Mambo y Tumbao . 'Here, I highlight both traditional forms (mambo) and the revolutionary innovators of Cuban music - the great Bebo Valdés , who invented the 'batanga' rhythm, and the influential bandleader Pérez Prado . And of course, I Remember Mingus is a tribute to Charles Mingus , the great composer, bassist, and bandleader. Check out Marc Rogers ' solo here,' Durán says enthusiastically.

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