Gonzalo Rubalcaba

.. ..
"AVATAR" COMING OUT FEBRUARY 5TH, 2008 GONZALO RUBALCABA:For his 13th Blue Note Records album, Avatar, Gonzalo Rubalcaba again asserts his renown as a pianist with, according to the All Music Guide, “unlimited potential.” In many ways, the album is a departure for Rubalcaba who assembled a quintet of young New York-based musicians—saxophonist Yosvany Terry, trumpet/flugelhorn player Mike Rodriguez, bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Marcus Gilmore—who had never performed together before, took them on the road for three weeks and then settled into the studio to capture the improvisational alchemy of what was by then a truly simpatico group. The result is a fresh, invigorating, lyrical gem of an album, featuring seven tunes that teem with intricate instrumental dialogues.“By the time we got into the studio, we were relaxed and not thinking about the music in our heads,” says the 44-year-old Rubalcaba, a native of Cuba. “We were just playing, which is different than thinking about it. We had gotten to know each other, and we all had a better picture of what we could do together as a band. I love having a group where I don’t have to be the leader who has to push the other guys. Everyone proposed musical ideas throughout our time together. I felt comfortable with this group. We connected right away. From the beginning, everyone understood the direction of musical improvisation each tune required.”As one of jazz’s most imaginative and virtuosic pianists, Rubalcaba has explored a range of music in his nearly two-decade recording career with Blue Note. He has recorded in various settings, including solo, trio and quartet; he has explored music through multiple lenses, from straight-ahead jazz and classical to Afro-Cuban and pop; and while he has largely focused on the acoustic realm, he has also dipped into electronic keyboard territory. He’s a lyrical player who accents his dense phrasings with percolating rhythms and has performed with and been championed by a range of jazz greats such as Charlie Haden and Ron Carter. He was also recently selected to perform at the Monterey Jazz Festival’s 50th Anniversary in a super group that included Dave Holland, Chris Potter and Eric Harland.For his new Blue Note outing, Rubalcaba originally planned to record another trio album with a standards repertoire. But at the last minute, he decided to put together a new quintet, all musicians he had known for a long time but never really had the chance to perform with. "That’s how I arrived at the conclusion to put together a quintet,” Rubalcaba says.Thus, the title, Avatar, which in the broad sense of the word means the embodiment of a concept, a display of the unexpected. In a specific way, Avatar is the name of the studio in New York where Rubalcaba and co. settled into for their four-day sessions. “Recording at Avatar Studios forms part of the link of this album to the city,” he says. “The musicians are all from New York, the music was composed in New York, the studio and the engineer are in New York. Avatar is truly a New York album.” The album is produced and arranged by Rubalcaba.In choosing his band, Gonzalo began with Terry, who, he recalls, was a rising star in Cuba. “Yosvany is younger than me and he used to come to see my concerts in Cuba,” he says. “Everyone knew of his talent there. The next time I saw him was when he was performing in Canada with his own group.” The two kept in touch, as Terry moved to San Francisco, then to New York. “We talked about doing something together for a long time, but we were always in different places working on our own projects.” Terry composed three of the tunes that appear on Avatar.Rubalcaba had the opportunity to work with Rodriguez, whom he first met after the trumpeter and his brother sent him a demo they had recorded. When Charlie Haden asked Rubalcaba for a trumpeter recommendation for his Land of the Sun album, the pianist suggested Rodriguez. “So, we both played with Charlie on tour, and we got to be closer,” Rubalcaba says.Brewer came to Rubalcaba’s attention through Blue Note president Bruce Lundvall. “Bruce gave me a list of young bass players, and luckily Matt was playing with Greg Osby at the Village Vanguard,” says Rubalcaba. “I went there to catch a set and was convinced he was the right bassist for the group.” Brewer also contributes a tune on Avatar.Gilmore came into the fold upon recommendations from Terry and Brewer. “Marcus arrived at the rehearsals and it was as if he had known the music forever,” says Rubalcaba.Avatar opens with a spirited jaunt through Terry’s composition “Looking in Retrospective.” Rubalcaba delivers a searching piano prelude and overdubbed synth colors in the tune’s free moments. “This was the last piece we recorded,” says Rubalcaba. “This song is all about the sound. It’s very personal. I positioned it at the start of the album because it proposed a beginning to build something as a band.”The other Terry tunes include the dance-vibed “This Is It,” that has a direct link to his Afro-Cuban musical heritage, and the deep-grooved “Hip Side,” which Rubalcaba says reminds him of some of his own compositions he was exploring with his own Cuban band in the ‘80s. “I have a very strong connection to this piece. It’s cool to see how we can find parts of our own lives in different people.”The middle section of Avatar features two quiet, lyrical numbers: a gorgeous rendition of Horace Silver’s “Peace,” originally recorded by the composer’s classic early ‘60s quintet featuring Blue Mitchell and Junior Cook, and Brewer’s balladic gem, “Aspiring to Normalcy.”Rubalcaba brings to the session the classical-oriented “Preludio Corto No. 2 for Piano (Tu amor era falso),” by the mid-20th century Cuban composer Alejandro Garcia Caturla (1906-1940). “It’s a beautiful piece that does not contain any improvisation sections,” says Rubalcaba. “I played it in its entirety. This connects to my last album [Solo, 2005]. I like the idea of bringing something from my last record into the new one. When I considered it, I heard different sounds in the music, so I created harmony parts so the quintet could play it and bring something new to the piece.”The sole composition by Rubalcaba on Avatar is the funky and lighthearted “Infantil,” a frolicsome number he dedicates to his good friend guitarist John McLaughlin. “This is a very pianistic tune,” says Rubalcaba. “From the moment I conceived the idea for this I envisioned it through the piano, not for a group, so I had to work with it to fit it into the quintet setting. I’ve known it a long time, but never recorded it. It pays homage to John, whom I feel really connected to musically. This is inspired by the music he did in the ‘70s. Even though this band is an acoustic quintet, I did add in some delicate synthesized sounds to relate to John’s fusion work.”While Rubalcaba celebrates the band spirit involved in the creation of Avatar, it’s his pianistic versatility and integrity that holds the entire affair together. He zigzags oblique lines, pounds out staccato rhythms, launches into spirited runs and eases into pensive explorations, all of which place on exhibit the brilliance of one of jazz’s bona fide contemporary masters.