Roberto Fonseca: ABUC
Author: Nick Hasted
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Carlos Calunga (v) |
Label: |
Impulse! |
Magazine Review Date: |
October/2016 |
RecordDate: |
date not stated |
Unguessable sea-changes are sweeping towards post-embargo Cuba. Fonseca remains loyal to its jazz legacy, though, on his eighth solo album. Philly pianist Ray Bryant's 1956 anthem ‘Cubano Chant’ has its Cuban-American bond broadened by Trombone Shorty's rasping blast of New Orleans. Fonseca's piano responds, dancing then percussive, and resumes the tune at ABUC's end in a fleet-fingered solo recalling Horace Silver's latin leanings. He marshals a telling variety of his island's sounds, from the vintage vinyl crackle of ‘Afro Mambo’ to the stately beachside sway of ‘Habanera’, where bass and piano notes seem to step down the stairs of a basement club, and female choral cries suggest a Spaghetti Western, or 1940s Ellington harmonic colour. Fonseca switches to Hammond for ‘Family’'s funk, ‘Soul Guardians’ places Cuban rap in a classic call-and-response setting, and ‘Después’ is a bereft torch song. Modestly content to nestle in the rhythm section's heart for much of the time, Fonseca remains a resourceful, charismatic figurehead for Havana's hugely danceable, shifting traditions.
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