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featuring CHUCHO VALDÉS

Live at Ronnie Scott’s, Birmingham

The 1995 BBC Recording

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Irakere and Chucho

“I’m just a hick from Quivicán.” quips the pianist.

It’s late 2007 in Havana, and Jesus Dionisio ‘Chucho’Valdés jokes with his Varadero Jam Session audienceabout the provincial country town just outside Havanacity limits, in which a certain three-year old startedplaying piano by ear nearly seventy years before. Thatthree-year old is the same man who has just seguedfrom an Afro-Cuban Orixà theme to Gershwin’sRhapsody in Blue without missing a beat. “Jazz isrecreating without repeating. We play the same musicbut we never, never sound the same.”

That’s why this freshly-unearthed and painstakinglycleaned-up live recording of Irakere is such an importantpart of the Afro-Cuban jazz jigsaw. 1995 was a pivotalperiod for the group. Following frequent personnelchanges over the previous fifteen years, the unit wasnow firing on all cylinders. In between their manyrecording sessions both for Cuban domestic andinternational labels (27 and counting, with Chucho’s

personal album appearances in all capacities, nudging80 by 2013), the live repertoire had gelled into a high-octane journey through traditional Afro-Cuban religiousbatà drumming and social dance music from cha-cha-cha through salsa to timba, bebop and post-bebop,teasingly disguised homages to Ellington and Monk, bitsof Chopin and Liszt, deconstructed Broadway showtunes, Gershwin, Porter and more. Almost all thecompositions here have appeared before and afterIrakere’s live and studio recordings. But on eachoccasion, as Chucho implies above, everything’s differenteach time. That’s why the fan who says “I’ve already gotone live Irakere album, I don’t need another” is, withrespect, completely missing the point. The fact that theband were to break up – cordially – just a few years lateris hardly a surprise. They’d reached the apogee ofperformance in the period 1992-97. There was nothingfurther to say in that format. They all moved on.

Chucho started in earnest around 1965, with thelegendary charanga (flute/violin) dance band OrquestaRevé (still going strong today in the hands of founderElio Revé’s son). In 1967, Valdés, trumpeter Arturo

IRAKERELive at Ronnie Scott’s, Birmingham – The 1995 BBC Recording

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Sandoval, saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera and half adozen others formed the Orquesta Cubana de MusicaModerna. During this period, Fidel Castro was hostingmany conferences in Havana and, stung by theanecdotal criticism in international circles that all jazzand similar non-Cuban music was banned in Cuba, wasmore than happy to encourage Chucho andcompatriots in their search for common groundbetween European classical music, North American jazz,free improvisation, and Cuban traditions of all kinds.

Six years later, Chucho, Sandoval and D’Rivera brokeaway to form Irakere. First recording in 1975, they cameto the attention of Havana tourists Dizzy Gillespie andStan Getz in 1977 when the USA-Cuba political stand-off had temporarily thawed, appearing a few times inthe States in 1978-9 and recording a couple of albums’worth of material for Columbia while there. D’Riveradefected to the States in 1980, Sandoval leaving Cubavia another route the same year but eventually joiningD’Rivera in 1990. In 1998 Chucho himself left Irakere tofollow new paths, his son Jesús taking over onkeyboards, whilst drummer Enrique Plá and guitaristCarlos Emilio Morales (both original members) movedinto Chucho’s former role as co-leaders.

Irakere – Live at Ronnie Scott’s, Birmingham, 27 May 1995

Irakere had developed something of a second home atRonnie Scott’s Club in London since 1985. Flushed withthe runaway success of a series of shows with Machito’sAfro-Cuban Orchestra in the early 80s (the first showsever at this purist jazz club where the audience had beenallowed to dance!), Scott realised that Irakere wouldprovide the ideal combination for both jazz and dancefans, and so they did. ‘The Legendary Irakere in London’(Jazz House 017), recorded October 1 1987, throwsdown the gauntlet for versatility, with Brubeck’s TheDuke, a Count Basie tribute, Stella by Starlight and somestraight salsa. ‘Live at Ronnie Scott’s’ (World PacificCDP7 80598-2), recorded September 1991, is solid jazzalmost from start to finish, with an early version ofMister Bruce and all selections composed by Chucho.

But the performance on this recording, set done a fewyears later at Scott’s then recently-opened Birminghambranch has a consistency and flow that was hitherto absentin most of Irakere’s live recordings. There is no self-conscious attempt to impress by dint of sheer versatility orvirtuosity, although both elements are present in spades.

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Well aware of the UK’s love affair with Latin dance music,the band ease into their set with Marcelino Guerra’splayful crowd-pleaser Pare cochero (Stop coachman).The tune, originally written for a stately salon charangaline-up and most famously recorded decades ago byOrquesta Aragón, has new-wave timba blood pumpedinto it with a sharp horn chart and the wonderfullyrhythmic singing of Leo Vera, whose subsequent workwith timba giants NG La Banda and Charanga Habanerawould mark him out as one of Cuba’s foremost: listen tothe way he comes in on ‘soy un chico delicado’ a splitsecond before the horns on each chorus. That’s not anerror. That’s a singer with an amazing sense of timing.

Mister Bruce, a Chucho composition, is really a Latinisedvehicle for Valdés’ lifelong love of Thelonius Monk.Listen to those loose, desultory, seemingly unrelatedsingle-key notes as he starts his solo, leaving the musicaround them to pull them into shape before carvingthrough the arrangements with some lightning right-hand chord work: pure Monk.

Born out of a vamp around Love for Sale, La Explosionenters the fray sounding like a Johannesburg townshipjazz session before moving onto solo introductions for thehorns – first Alfredo Thompson who, in his long tenure atIrakere filled Paquito’s shoes more than adequately,

followed by trumpeters Juan Munguía and Adalberto Lara– then back to Cole Porter’s deathless piano theme: wecan almost see Billie and Ella nodding in approval.

Chucho’s sister Mayra is one of Cuba’s foremost scat-singers (there have never been many, and she’sprobably the only current female practitioner). Her skillmakes one forget that Yemayá has a lyric of little morethan two words – ‘Yemayá Olodùm’. The band’s gear-changes at three and five minutes respectively are asthrilling as they are unanticipated and, by 6 minutes,Mayra is truly possessed by the restless Yoruba sea-spirit. The first horn solo – Alfredo again – is pure SonnyRollins. Three years later, this song found its way ontoa great Blue Note studio album ‘Yemayá’ (BN 98239).

And in a blinding twenty-odd minute segue from Temadel gordo (Theme of the Fatty) to Lo Que Va a Pasar(What will happen) we’re reminded forcefully that we’rein 1995 – and Cuba is gripped by the first thrilling stirringof timba. Although Irakere never regarded themselvesas a timba band the fact remains that timba was moreor less invented by Irakere: their 1978 recording ofBacalao Con Pan, for instance, is unblinking witness tothe fact, whilst several former Irakere members went onto form the kernel of the ‘metales de terror’ hornsection of timba-maestros NG La Banda.

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This is Irakere at their very best as an Afro-Cuban jazzensemble. Afro-Cuban music has always cast high andwide for its themes, and in this sense Irakere’sconsummate heritage is no different from the youngCuban pop and hip hop bands, all of which Irakerewould meet with Irakere’s approval. ‘Is music strongerthan politics? I don’t know…’ was Chucho’s replyrecently to a journalist’s question about his plans toplay again with his nonagenarian, Miami-based fatherBebo, ‘…but we’re going to make music’.

It’s reassuring to know that that much, at least, hasn’tchanged since 1995.

© 2013 John Armstrong

This CD is an example of Irakere in the second part ofthe 90s, when the band was focused a little more ondancing rhythms.

It was a great experience!!!

Chucho Valdés, 2013

Issue Note

This concert was originally produced and broadcast liveby BBC Radio 3 on the evening of Saturday 27 May 1995but surprisingly the BBC did not record theperformance. The audio used by FHR for theremastering of this concert was eventually sourcedfrom The British Library, who, from the 1960s, capturedkey radio broadcasts for their archive (this system ofrecording off air broadcasts ceased in 2000). By the1990s, these captured broadcasts were digitised ontoVHS tape using a PCM encoding unit. In tandem withthis, the British Library also recorded an analogue feedonto the Hi-Fi channel of the tape as a back-up. For thisCD release, the analogue back-up was used forremastering, the digitised version being unusable dueto large amounts of interference and noise.Unfortunately, interference was also present on theanalogue feed back-up. Though most of these soundproblems have been repaired, there is still theoccasional instance where a complete fix was notpossible and small blemishes in the sound may be heardon the recording.

David Murphy (FHR)

Irakere is supposedly the Yoruba translation of theword ‘vegetation’ or ‘forest’

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1 Pare cochero 8:402 Mister Bruce 9:233 La Explosion 10:264 Yemayá * 9:145 Tema del gordo 9:166 Lo Que Va a Pasar 14:39

All compositions by Chucho Valdés except Pare cochero, which is by Marcelino GuerraAll arrangements by Chucho Valdés

IRAKEREChucho Valdés piano & directorLeo Vera vocalCarlos Manuel vocalMayra Caridad Valdés vocal *José Miguel Meléndez vocal & percussionJuan Munguía trumpetAdalberto Lara ‘Trompetica’ trumpetCésar López alto saxophoneAlfredo Thompson tenor saxophoneCarlos D’l Puerto bassEnrique Plá drumsAndrés Miranda ‘El Negrón’ congas

Recorded at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, Birmingham, UK, 27 May 1995

Thanks to Andy Bratt, Peter Bromley, César López,Nan Melville, Tom Ruane (British Library), Lorena Salcedo, Nick Staines, Eddie Stewart,Jonathan Summers, Jonathan Swift & Chucho Valdés

BBC Broadcast produced by Derek DrescherRemastered & edited at Abbey Road Studios, London, by Ian Jones in 2013Issue produced & edited by FHRTransferred, edited and remastered at 44.1kHz 24bit

Booklet note by John ArmstrongCover/inner tray photo: City of Birmingham, UK, taken in 2011 by Jonathan SwiftRear photo: Malecon, Havana, Cuba taken in 2006 by Nan Melville

Graphic design & layout by David Murphy (FHR)Typesetting by Nick Staines

Recordings used by kind permission from The British LibraryReleased by arrangement with BBC Worldwide � 2013 The copyright in the originalrecordings is owned by the BBC� 2013 First Hand Records Ltd.www.firsthandrecords.com

The BBC wordmark and the BBC logo are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. BBC logo © BBC 1996