Mark Weinstein - Latin Jazz Underground (CD)

Release Date: 05/19/14

Flutist Mark Weinstein has distinguished himself over the course of a long career going back to the ‘60s as a prolific and accomplished performer with a special affinity for Cuban rumbas and charangas as well as Brazilian sambas, bossa novas and choros. But there is nothing as daring and profound in his 18 albums as a leader as what he plays on on his ZOHO debut release Latin Jazz Underground. A collaboration with the acclaimed rising star pianist-composer-arranger from Cuba, Aruán Ortiz, this adventurous outing organically blends a free jazz sensibility with a churning Afro-Cuban undercurrent. This unprecedented kind of fusion music is intended as both a tribute to the late avant garde icons and important composers Ornette Coleman, Sam Rivers and Andrew Hill and as well as an expression of the classic Afro-Cuban tradition that the Havana-born percussion master Román Diaz comes out of. With Gerald Cleaver supplying the free drumming element, Diaz fueling the clave groove and bassist Rashaan Carter alternating between a deep tumbao feel and an open-ended free jazz pulse, Weinstein and Ortiz practice an intriguing juxtaposition between discipline and the freedom principle on this stirring experiment. Weinstein and Ortiz had met on the flutist’s 2011 recording, El Cumbanchero, and decided to take their shared language to another level on Latin Jazz Underground. “I knew that he was classically-trained and that he would know how to write for strings,” says Weinstein, “so I recruited him to arrange that first album for me. It’s a very luscious album, basically a pretty album. And quite frankly, I wanted to do something to contrast with that for our next project together.” “And I hope that this album will attract the attention of people who know and love jazz and appreciate someone trying to do something different.” He succeeds mightily on all levels with the intriguing, envelope-pushing Latin Jazz Underground. -- Bill Milkowski <br><br>TRACK LISTING: <br>1. Gregorio's Mood 8:05<br>2. Open Or Close 6:22<br>3. Dance Of The Tripedal 9:02<br>4. For Emilio 7:40<br>5. Tete's Blues 8:02<br>6. Nature Boy 5:53<br>7. Mellifluous Cacophony 5:18<br>8. Mark's Last Tune 5:36<br>