{"id":5210,"date":"2015-07-21T16:18:24","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T16:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=5210"},"modified":"2015-07-21T16:18:24","modified_gmt":"2015-07-21T16:18:24","slug":"embassies-reopen-in-washington-and-havana-two-jazz-orchestras-wave-banners-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2015\/07\/21\/embassies-reopen-in-washington-and-havana-two-jazz-orchestras-wave-banners-high\/","title":{"rendered":"Embassies Reopen in Washington and Havana; Two Jazz Orchestras Wave Banners High"},"content":{"rendered":"

On August 21, one month and one day after the U.S. and Cuba reopened long-closed embassies<\/a> in Washington, DC and Havana, Cuba,\u00a0two new recordings will be released that hint at a cultural connection elemental to jazz\u2019s legacy yet long\u00a0choked off by political barriers, as well the promise suggested by a new era of engagement during the Obama administration.
\n\u201cCuba: The Conversation Continued\u201d<\/strong> (Mot\u00e9ma Music) is the fruit of a December 2014 Havana residency by Arturo O\u2019Farrill and his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra<\/strong> that involved performances at the Havana International Jazz Festival, a collaborative project with the Havana-based Malpaso dance troupe, and the sessions at Havana\u2019s Abdala Studios that led to this new CD.
\n\u201cLive in Cuba,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0from\u00a0Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra<\/strong>\u00a0documents the orchestra\u2019s performances at Havana\u2019a Mella Theater, which highlighted a five-day Cuban residency in September 2010. This CD also inaugurates Jazz at Lincoln Center\u2019s newest venture, Blue Engine Records. (I covered that five-day residency in two Wall Street Journal pieces,\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The unexpected joint announcement from Presidents Barack Obama and Ra\u00fal Castro of a\u00a0stunning policy shift came in the middle of O’Farrill’s 2014 residency.\u00a0\u201cWith this incredible news of political normalization,\u201d O\u2019Farrill said, \u201cwe went into the studio with a cast or acclaimed Cuban and American composers to record an album of a lifetime.\u201d\u00a0O\u2019Farrill and his orchestra gathered most of the musicians involved in this project for a May concert at Manhattan\u2019s Symphony Space, about which I wrote in The Wall Street Journal<\/a>.\u00a0O\u2019Farrill told me then: \u201cAll this began in 2002, when an idea took root in my heart,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to create an ongoing conversation between musicians, to continue the one started decades ago by Dizzy Gillespie and [Cuban percussionist] Chano Pozo. People think revolution and ideological differences put an end to this conversation, but we\u2019re pursuing this thing that Dizzy called a \u2018global music,\u2019 which has a multiplicity of opinions.\u201d (Here\u2019s a Village Voice piece<\/a> about a 2010 trip to Cuba I took with O\u2019Farrill that offers\u00a0yet more background about this mission.<\/div>\n

\"20150721_L\"<\/a>
Wynton Marsalis in Havana in 2010\/ photo: Frank Stewart for Jazz at Lincoln Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nTwo months before that 2010 trip I was in Havana, covering the five-day residency by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra<\/strong> that gave rise to \u201cLive in Cuba.”<\/strong>
\n“This is about music first and foremost,” Marsalis told me in Havana. “And it’s a way to be among extended family. It is a dream come true on many levels.”
\n“I think people forgot what the bridge between Cuba and the U.S. looks like,” said Carlos Henriquez, a Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra bassist who is of Puerto Rican descent and grew up in the Bronx, and who was tapped by Marsalis as the project’s music director. “We’re here to remind them.”
\nThe Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra includes Bobby Carcass\u00e9s<\/strong>, a beloved Havana figure for his many musical talents, singing a rousing version of Ernesto Duarte Brito’s “Como Fue.”
\nI\u2019ll write more about these recordings once I dig into them.
\nAnd I\u2019ll hope that they\u2019re the beginning of a watershed of new CDs, born of flags raised and barriers dropped.
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\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On August 21, one month and one day after the U.S. and Cuba reopened long-closed embassies in Washington, DC and Havana, Cuba,\u00a0two new recordings will be released that hint at a cultural connection elemental to jazz\u2019s legacy yet long\u00a0choked off by political barriers, as well the promise suggested by a new era of engagement during … <\/p>\n

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