I bring you an invitation to be transported to a place and times, where falling in love, brings all of us closer to an Artform!
Pianist Yamilé Cruz Montero performs Ernán López-Nussa, José María Vitier, Andrés Alen, Aldo López-Gavilan, Ernesto Lecuona, and Zequinha de Abreu, enriched by the percussion of Christos Asonitis.
THIS PAIR HAS GOT STORIES
Yamilé Cruz Montero and the Greek jazz drummer Christos Asonitis are a couple in life and also in music.
Although they come from two different musical worlds, they have found a common language as it appears on their first album “Rapsodia Cubana” released by Naxos World Music.
It combines multiple references that draw associations between past and present, tradition and contemporaneity, classical universes and the worlds of popular music, all of which define the artistic vision that Yamilé Cruz Montero and Christos Asonitis created.
RAPSODIA CUBANA features pieces of composers such as José María Vitier (1954), Ernán López-Nussa (1958), Andrés Alén (1950), Aldo López-Gavilán (1979) and Ernesto Lecuona (1896).
All represent a broad spectrum of contemporary Cuban piano, and showcase the technical expertise of classical pianism, integrated with popular Cuban, Brazilian, French and North American genres.
The Cuban classical piano skills of Yamilé are masterfully juxtaposed with the drum set, conga, cajón (box), pandeiro and other hand percussion instruments of Christos. Together they create an innovative and captivating result, and makes for invigorating listening now.
Feel welcomed to visit them for more at
http://www.yamilecruzmontero.com
http://www.christosasonitis.com
My Comment impulsed by My Retro Mission
I had discovered Yamilé through the album 20 PIANOS hosted by Ernán López-Nussa with some of the finest New Cuban Blood Generation players as Miguel Angel de Armas, Harold López-Nussa, and Rolando Luna.
I presented them in my TV SHOW THE CUBAN BRIDGE @ MMCTV CHANNEL 15 in RICHMOND, VERMONT, USA in 2015. They were 20 compositions by Mr. López-Nussa, a major force in Havana Music scene since 1977, for Colibrí Productions label.
Mr. López-Nussa had made his greatest impact as a composer with MOMO recorded by CUARTO ESPACIO; a Cuban Rock Jazz Fusion Quartet, with two other former members of AFROCUBA’77 and drummer Jimmy Branly, which has later become a New Cuban Standard for the Piano and Chamber Orchestras like LA CAMERATA ROMEU, and in recent days by López-Nussa’s awarded nephew HAROLD with RAPTUS Chamber Music Quintet.
With Yamilé and Christos album, composer ANDRES ALEN shines with his DANZON LEGRAND inspired by the soundtracks written by French pianist and composer MICHEL LEGRAND, and also with two of his orchestrations of ERNESTO LECUONA’s Classic, Maria la O, and Brazilian Tico-Tico No Fuba by ZEQUINAH de ABREU (1880), which really dig and enrich the Pan-American Music panorama.
Grammy Nominee Mr. Andrés Alen’s SongBook takes a new air after his hard, but soft-spoken years as an Educator at LA ENA and EL ISA Music Schools in Havana, and In Tandem, many heydays touring the world with ARTURO SANDOVAL SEPTET.
ALEN has seen his DANZON LEGRAND played and recorded by LA CHARANGA CUBANACAN, a student band led by pianist Adalberto Alvarez, back in the days, and now world-known as Cuba’s Sonero Mayor, but mainly by thousands of Cuban and International Music students over the years.
ALEN continually works to reinvent the piano and the Chamber Music repertoire. Finally in 2021, his DANCE ON is included in a resounding international record licensed exclusively to ARC Music Productions and distributed by Naxos World Music.
ALDO LOPEZ-GAVILAN JUNCO, another Cuban piano virtuoso since childhood, is featured on three of his compositions. The prolific soloist and composer, sees his family legacy on his wife DAIANA GARCIA, conductor of the HAVANA CHAMBER MUSIC ORCHESTRA, and their Twin Daughters who are growing and winning International Music Contests during the CoVid 19 Pandemic enclosure via ZOOM.
JOSE MARIA VITIER, a highly spoken prolific composer, who has recorded his own compositions in more than 30 albums, TV programs, films, and played at El Vaticano; the Center of the Catholic religion where The Pope resides, located in Rome, Italy, returns with a DANCE and two COUNTRYDANCES, ripped from the pages of his Songbook.
Pressing inward, YAMILE and CHRISTOS, plunged heart on a mission to find, and express the freedom, sensuality and romance they were drawn through to the Cuban Piano School, to which Yamilé is a growing branch, for sure!
These 5 Cuban Pianists and Composers embrace expansive, openhearted vulnerability, as they had never seen before. These 12 oeuvres are played from the heart by Yamilé and Christos, reason why you can’t help, but connect with them !
LOOKING TO THE SOUTH
Since the 1950s, Brazilian Sounds are always welcomed by Cubans in their repertoire, and many bands like Felipe Dulzaides y Los Armónicos, El Combo Los Amigos with Uruguayan violinist Federico Britos and Cuban guitarist Abelardo Buch, the International Violins, Leo Brouwer, Chucho Valdés Combos, El GESI, guitarist Manuel Galbán with Los Zafiros, Emiliano Salvador, Luis Chanivecki, René Luis Toledo, Arturo Sandoval, Carlos Averhoff Sr., La Camerata Romeu with Egberto Gismonti, and Paquito D’Rivera with New York Voices, up to the Generations of vibist Alfredo Chacón, and trumpeters Yasek Manzano and Julio Rigal, have carved a musical portrait and a romance with the sexy and exhilarating sounds of the Amazonic Giant, providing a comfort level non-paralleled.
Feeling Love is also an Artform, congrats to YAMILE and CHRISTOS, the Greek Embassy in Havana, Naxos and Munich.
Special thanks to my Montreal friend, educator and promotor GLENDA RUSH, for submitting my name and my shows to Naxos Offices in Nashville, TN.
Toni Basanta
DJ Host of THE CUBAN BRIDGE ON THE RADIO
wwpv.smcvt.edu
and HAVANA FAIRFAX CONNECTION ON TV
The Cuban Bridge 