Chucho: "When I Play Solo I Feel Totally Free"

(Prensa Latina – Cumbancha) His hits with Irakere are a little in the background today while his presentations with his Latin Jazz quartet are fresher. The recent recordings along with his father, the great Bebo Valdes, still ring in our ears, but watching and listening to maestro Jesus Chucho Valdes in a piano recital is a chance to experience his talent in its full dimension.

On the first of the six performances at Hollywood’s Catalina’s Bar & Grill, the Cuban pianist brought an LA audience a small part of what he did at New York’s Lincoln Center some years ago. “When I play alone I feel totally free,” Valdes said once, while talking about his recitals. It is the same feeling he transmits to the audience.

The precision of each of his movements, his ability to play a melody with his left hand and freely improvise with the right, makes him a giant on his solo piano. His inspiration emerges after an introduction like “Bésame Mucho,” which opened the presentation.

Alternating the soft movements with the strong and grave sound Valdes improvises with his own style, not exactly the classic jazz approach starting with melody, then improvisation and later returning to melody.

The illustrious Cuban pianist does not abuse the length of each song. An exquisite jazz version of Somewhere over the Rainbow demonstrates the particular music personality of the Cuban pianist, a beautiful mix of sounds perfectly matching with the song that sometimes leads one to feel that there are pieces of other well-known songs in it.

The excellent technique of going over the keys from the high to the low notes, with an unusual speed or suddenly with a soft calm, is the style of the founder of Irakere; many specialized critics still can not define.

Although Valdes himself admits his influences from Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson. The truth is that while playing jazz Chucho Valdes is himself and nobody else. He has been able to make the piano the polyphonic instrument he thinks it is and on which he makes the notes and tones he wants for his compositions and improvisations.

Much acclaimed, the great figure of piano returned to the intimate Catalina’s to play his always welcomed version of Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona’s “La Comparsa.”

It is said that for solo piano concerts the artist has to have a very special fame and a very strong personality to keep an audience interested during an entire set. Chucho Valdes is not a stranger to the world’s most famous stages and he is considered one of the best jazz and Latin jazz pianists.

Buy chucho Valdes’ CDs
New Conceptions,
Solo Piano,
Briyumba Palo Congo,
Fantasia Cubana: Variations on Classical Themes, Yemayá, Afrocubanismo Live!, Bele Bele en La Habana,  Live at the Village Vanguard, Babalu Ayé, and Desafios (with Omara Portuondo,
Solo: Live in New York ,Lucumí,
Pianissimo,
Unforgettable Boleros
Live in Cuba,
Cuban Jazz Pianissimo, Indestructible (Irakere), En Vivo (with Irakere and Ivan Lins), Invitacion, and Canciones Inéditas