CD available for purchase from Sunnyside Records!
Paquito D'Rivera - Alto Sax/Clarinet
Diego Urcola - Trumpet/Valve Trombone
Ed Simon - Piano
Alon Yavnai - Piano
Fernando Otero - Piano
Oscar Stagnaro - Bass
Mark Walker - Drums
Pernell Saturnino - Percussion
Pablo Stagnaro - Cajon
Hector del Curto - BandoneonTracks:
Pere
What About That?
Revirado
Contradanza
Milonga
Last Waltz
Funk-Tango
Mariela's Dream
La Yumba/Caravan
Como un Bolero
Giant Steps
2007 FUNK TANGO Sunnyside Records/Paquito Records SSC4551 Paquito D'Rivera Quintet?
Reviews:June 13 - Rated "CD of the Month for June" on jazz89 radio station in Denver, Co.
May 31 - Rated "Album of the Week" by blogger and jazz musician Chip Boaz (Bass) on "Latin, Jazz, and the Bass."
May 21 - The New York Times reviews Paquito D'Rivera Quintet's new Funk Tango album in the New CDs Critics' Choice column.
About the Album:
“Two plus two?... it equals whatever I want,” replied Albert Einstein to a smart-ass journalist trying to pull the leg of the celebrated scientist. On the other hand, you don’t have to be a great mathematician to notice that the main characters from Alexandre Dumas’s acclaimed novel “The Three Musketeers” are not exactly three, but four: Athos, Portos, Aramis, and d’Artagnan. The same principle could be applied to my working quintet, basically comprised of a typical jazz rhythm section, front-lined by two horns. This is the format that became my favorite vehicle of expression from my early days with Hilton Ruiz and Claudio Roditi while gigging around that breathtaking New York City of the 1980s. But for me, the Be-Bop quintet, pretty much popularized by Bird & Diz four decades before, is just a basic instrumentation that might shrink to a duo with the versatile pianist Alon Yavnai, or with bassist extraordinaire Oscar Stagnaro, or with Mark Walker’s and Pernell Saturnino’s tasteful percussion, as well as form a chamber-jazz trio with cello and piano; or expand to a big-band, the Panamericana ensemble or even a symphony orchestra. It’s what we call “the extended quintet”– all depending on the needs of the music to be played, the budget to be shared, and especially the considerable amount of friends willing to sit in playing the most dissimilar instruments imaginable, as well as contributing an eclectic variety of musical styles to our repertoire, ranging from cheering Cuban danzas and Brazilian sambas to Peruvian festejos, Venezuelan waltzes, and the dark melodies of impassionate tangos.
In addition to being our first self-produced CD, the present release also marks Diego Urcola’s brilliant recording debut as a valve trombonist. Those memorable days of recording at Manfred Knoop’s state-of-the-art studio also gave us the opportunity to reunite the current musicians of the quintet with former members and dearly appreciated old friends of the group, like Ed Simon, Daniel Freiberg, and Hector del Curto, as well as welcome-to-the-club newcomers, Pablo Stagnaro and Fernando Otero. In other words, the Funk Tango project could work as a good answer to that famous question posed to Dave Brubeck while checking into a hotel on an early morning back in the ‘50s:
– How many in your quartet, sir?
– Whatever I want, my dear!!!
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