Aldo Lopez-Gavilan to play at Carnagie Hall

Dayramir and Habana enTRANCE Aldo López-Gavilán Quartet
Afro-Cuban Jazz: The Younger Generation
Zankel Hall

Two rising Cuban stars bring their bands to Zankel Hall for an evening of music making that gives the audience a glimpse into the future of jazz in Cuba.

This concert is part of Late Nights at Zankel Hall.

And López-Gavilán, whose his father is an orchestra conductor and his late mother was an important pianist and educator, can point to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring as a pivotal piece that he remembers from his childhood, but also talk about family gatherings where they sang Cuban songs and his own interest in “tribal or indigenous musics, be it African, Fernando González on Dayramir González and Aldo López-Gavilán Dayramir González Aldo López Gavilán 27 Indian, Arabic, Celtic … and of course those with Latin roots such as Brazil, Argentina, Colombia …”

Both González and López-Gavilán gravitated towards jazz as a vehicle for self-expression, but neither wants to be boxed into one particular style. González—whose father introduced him to jazz with a cassette of Wynton Marsalis that featured the late Kenny Kirkland—cites Chick Corea, el señor Keith Jarrett, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Chucho Valdés as influences that have helped draw him closer to the jazz tradition. (“I’m so lucky to now to be living jazz,” he says of his experience at the Berklee College of Music in Boston). But he also speaks of his love for Latin pop. “Jazz is a path, but if people think that’s the only thing you can do, that will close doors.”

Meanwhile, López-Gavilán uses the tools of jazz to develop a style “that is closer to world music,” he says. Still, he points out that the rich Cuban music tradition is embedded “in every Cuban.” At this concert, he plans to play his own music, which features influences of Latin jazz, fusion, and world music, but he notes that “it’d be very easy to find passages that breathe the air of Vieja Trova Santiaguera, or composers such as Sindo Garay, María Teresa Vera, or the son of Miguel Matamoros, and Félix Chapotín. The roots of any Cuban musician, regardless of his style, is our traditional Cuban music.”

© 2012 The Carnegie Hall Corporation
Fernando González is an independent music writer and  critic whose work appears regularly in The Miami Herald, JazzTimes, and The International Review of Music.