![\"Photo:](\"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/files\/2015\/11\/PJ-CE314_chucho_P_20151130170046.jpg\")
<\/a>\nChucho has revived the spirit and format of Irakere, 40 years past its founding. I heard them recently at Manhattan’s Town Hall (set list below for notetakers), and was struck by how current the band sounds. That’s because, in the true spirit\u00a0of Cuban music and American jazz, Chucho never sits still, always leans forward.
\n(You can find a video of the group at the Lugano Jazz Festival here<\/a>.)
\nAs I wrote in my Wall Street Journal review<\/a> of Chucho’s new CD, “Tribute to Irakere (Live in Marciac)”:<\/p>\n
When pianist Chucho Vald\u00e9s presented \u201cIrakere 40\u201d at Manhattan\u2019s Town Hall earlier this month, he rekindled the sound of a band with which he changed the course of Cuban music four decades ago. Older audience members might have attended Irakere\u2019s U.S. debut at Carnegie Hall during the 1978 Newport Jazz Festival. Appearing unannounced on a program that featured jazz pianists Mary Lou Williams, McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans, Irakere stole that show.
\nThen, Mr. Vald\u00e9s introduced New Yorkers to a bold and subversive music, both a response to Cuba’s post-revolution rejection of American jazz and rock and a seed for Cuban dance music now known as timb\u00e1. His tight band with a huge sound expressed a sweep of influences that ranged from Afro Cuban folkloric music to bebop, from Mr. Vald\u00e9s\u2019 father, Bebo (a towering Cuban pianist and composer in his own right) to Blood, Sweat & Tears.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nand as I point out:<\/p>\n
With this project, Mr. Vald\u00e9s neither takes a victory lap nor looks back. At 74, he remains a musician of restless and searching ambition….
\nMr. Vald\u00e9s call this album a tribute to Irakere. It sounds more like testimony to the continuity and vitality of a vision that has always spanned borders and genres, conflated centuries, defied politics and, by now, having influenced generations, is bigger than any one band.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nChucho Valdes Irakere 40 at Town Hall<\/b>
\nNov. 10, 2015
\nset list:\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
Juana 1600<\/b><\/span><\/div>\nTab\u00fa<\/b><\/span><\/div>\nMisa Negra<\/b><\/span><\/div>\nEstela va a estellar<\/b><\/span><\/div>\nQue te pedi (Roberta Gambarini, vocals)<\/b><\/span><\/div>\nContradanza<\/b><\/span><\/div>\nLorena’s Tango<\/b><\/span><\/div>\nAbdel<\/b><\/span><\/div>\nCaridad Amaro<\/b><\/span><\/div>\nLas Dos Caras<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n(encore) Bacalao con pan<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n\n\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n\nLineup<\/strong>
\nChucho Vald\u00e9s (Piano)
\nGast\u00f3n Joya (Bass)
\nRodney Barreto (Drums)
\nYaroldy Abreu (Percussion)
\nDreiser Durruthy Bombal\u00e9 (Bat\u00e1s & Vocals)
\nManuel Machado (Trumpet)
\nReinaldo Meli\u00e1n (Trumpet)
\nCarlos Sarduy (Trumpet)
\nAriel Bringuez (Tenor Sax)
\nRafael \u00c0guila (Alto Sax)
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“I was a privileged child because Havana was a center for both Cuban music and jazz when I was a boy,” Chucho Vald\u00e9s told me several years ago,\u00a0at his home in Havana’s Miramar section, where congas sit alongside the grand piano and photographs of Cuban musical heroes hang next to a 1998 proclamation of … <\/p>\n