{"id":6293,"date":"2017-01-20T20:23:02","date_gmt":"2017-01-20T20:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=6293"},"modified":"2017-01-20T20:23:02","modified_gmt":"2017-01-20T20:23:02","slug":"bohemian-trio-leaps-across-borders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2017\/01\/20\/bohemian-trio-leaps-across-borders\/","title":{"rendered":"Bohemian Trio Leaps Across Borders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/strong>
\n

\"Bohemian<\/a>
Bohemian Trio: from left, Yosvany Terry, Yves Dharamraj and Orlando Alonso. PHOTO: LAURA RAZZANO<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nIn the midst of Havana’s Jazz Plaza festival in December, I took a break with Yosvany Terry, who has lived in New York City since 1999 and whose music helps define a cutting edge there. He grew up in the Camag\u00fcey province, where his father, Eladio \u201cDon Pancho\u201d Terry, was a violinist with Maravilla de Florida’s Charanga Orchestra and a master of the cheker\u00e9<\/i>, the beaded gourd used for percussion. Yosvany and I drove to Havana\u2019s Mariano neighborhood, a quiet, almost rural area where his father and mother now live. There, Don Pancho sang old boleros while Yosvany played piano. Don Pancho demonstrated the \u201critmo guiro<\/i>,\u201d an innovation of his that lent a more folkloric flavor to the charanga sound by the highlighting the raspy sound of the guiro, a serrated gourd that is scraped with a stick. \u201cAll of this music,\u201d Yosvany said, \u201chas influenced my music.\u201d
\nAnd much more, not to mention Terry’s work with saxophonist Steve Coleman.
\nBohemian Trio, Terry’s latest endeavor, is a collective with\u00a0pianist Orlando Alonso\u00a0and cellist Yves Dharamraj, in which Terry plays soprano and alto saxophone and cheker\u00e9.
\nHere’s my Wall Street Journal review<\/a> of the group’s genre-defying debut CD,\u00a0\u201cOk\u00f3nkolo.”
\nChamber Music Without Borders<\/strong>
\nBy LARRY BLUMENFELD
\nWith \u201cOk\u00f3nkolo\u201d (Innova), Bohemian Trio offers welcome liberation from the baggage of expectation. This ensemble\u2019s instrumentation\u2014saxophone, piano and cello\u2014offers few, if any, reference points. Substituting saxophone for violin makes for a quite different ensemble than Ravel envisioned when composing the Passacaille from his Piano Trio in A minor, which arrives near this recording\u2019s end. The trio\u2019s chamber music adheres to no conventions.
\nClassical music figures into Bohemian Trio\u2019s repertoire, yet jazz\u2019s influence looms larger\u2014less in terms of improvisation, which occurs only fleetingly, than through harmonic orientation and rhythmic drive. Jazz has a modest history of drummer-less piano trios, yet nothing quite corresponds.
\nTwo Bohemian Trio members\u2014soprano and alto saxophonist Yosvany Terry, who plays percussion on a few tracks, and pianist Orlando Alonso\u2014are Cubans who live in New York. The trio\u2019s setup seems foreign to their native island\u2019s traditions as well. Cellist Yves Dharamraj, who was born in the U.S., is of French and Trinidadian descent. Together, these musicians honor heritages that blur more than reinforce borders: the blend of European and African traditions that centuries ago amounted to a New World; and the sweet spot sought by many contemporary composers, especially in New York, grounded more in creativity than genre.
\nBoth by necessity (there simply aren\u2019t pieces for this instrumentation) and a commitment to new music, Bohemian Trio turned to colleagues; this repertoire includes one piece by Cuban pianist\/composer Manuel Valera, and two from Argentine bassist\/composer Pedro Giraudo. Mr. Alonso, a precise and distinctive pianist, plays with great emotive force. Mr. Dharamraj, whose tone is alternately lustrous or biting, has a clear mastery of microtonal suggestion. Mr. Terry\u2019s intensity and technique have made him a rising star on New York\u2019s jazz landscape. Yet the three impress mostly for their cohesion: effortlessly passing around the theme of Mr. Giraudo\u2019s \u201cPush Gift\u201d while losing neither continuity nor drama; and maintaining the potent rhythmic impulses within Mr. Terry\u2019s \u201cBohemia (Recuerdos de Infancia)\u201d through chiming chords, roughly bowed passages, and staccato soprano saxophone tones.
\nStill, \u201cOk\u00f3nkolo\u201d is also the latest showcase for the imagination of Mr. Terry, who has already expanded the possibilities of Afro-Cuban expression through various jazz-based groups. He composed roughly half of these pieces; each delves into his past, in Cuba. The lively themes of \u201cTarde en la Lisa\u201d are meant to evoke the colorful characters of one Havana neighborhood. The title track is named for the smallest of three bat\u00e1, the two-headed drums of Afro-Cuban religious rituals, with the ok\u00f3nkolo pattern here carried chiefly by Mr. Alonso\u2019s piano. Mr. Terry\u2019s \u201cPunto Cubano de Domingo\u201d segues directly from Mr. Alonso\u2019s performance of Prelude No. 5 from Andr\u00e9 Previn\u2019s \u201cThe Invisible Drummer.\u201d As such, the track first suggests a clave, the elemental five-beat pattern of Cuban music, hidden within Previn\u2019s piece. Through Mr. Terry\u2019s composition\u2014by turns meditative and raucous, stately then bluesy\u2014that clave then develops into something brand-new, and beyond expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 In the midst of Havana’s Jazz Plaza festival in December, I took a break with Yosvany Terry, who has lived in New York City since 1999 and whose music helps define a cutting edge there. He grew up in the Camag\u00fcey province, where his father, Eladio \u201cDon Pancho\u201d Terry, was a violinist with Maravilla … <\/p>\n

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