From Cuba With Love

SAXOPHONIST Paquito D'Rivera, Cuba's most recent gift to American music, is Latin jazz's newest talent as well as the most recent example of the exchange between Cuban and American music.

Cuba, whose music is a rich mixture of various African traditions with Spanish, French, and other genres of music, has for over a century been involved in an ongoing process of musical cross fertilization with the United States.

When jazz as an identifiable genre of music originated in New Orleans, during the later years of the 19th and earlier years of the 20th centuries, among the early pioneers of jazz were many Afro-Cubans or Creole musicians of Cuban heritage.

The Creole pianist Jelly Roll Morton, who claimed that he himself invented jazz, said, "Music cannot be called jazz unless it has the Spanish tinge." Morton used many rhythms native to Cuba, such as the habanera, in his compositions.

As jazz evolved, it continued to borrow heavily on Cuban forms, and in turn Cuban-born musicians such as the late, great Machito, who had played traditional Afro-Cuban popular music as well as jazz, migrated north and began combining Cuban rhythms such as the mambo, guaracha, and son montuno with jazz instrumentation and arranging techniques.

Although hostilities between the U.S. and Cuba in the early '60s put a damper on the exchanges between the two countries, these political antagonisms could not stem Cuban interest in American jazz. Even the term "jazz" was considered counterrevolutionary during Castro's early years, but Cuban musicians continued to keep up with the latest developments by passing smuggled cassettes from one end of the island to another. And this is how D'Rivera came to truly appreciate jazz.

A child prodigy who sat in with Cuba's best musicians as early as the age of seven, D'Rivera went on to become a founding member of the Cuban super band, Irakere. Founded in the early 1970s, Irakere (whose name is a Yoruba meaning forest), an II-piece aggregation that drew on Afro-Cuban religion and folklore as well as jazz, rock and even classical music, was typical of the eclectic approach many Cuban bands took following the revolution.

Irakere fused many diverse musical ideas together in an exuberant, exciting whole. The band, with its four percussionists, brought many instruments into jazz, such as the Congolese maquta and the Abakua bonko-enchemiya, which had never before been seen outside Africa or Afro-Cuban religions.

In a typical performance, it was not unusual to hear an impeccably played piano passage which drew heavily on Liszt, followed by a chant to the goddess Yemaya, followed by an extended conga solo, which in turn would be followed by a blues tune based on Mozart--all unmistakably Irakere.

And D'Rivera, who played alto say and flute, was, along with keyboardist/bandleader Jesus "Chucho" Valdes and trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, the heart and soul of the group. A. fiery, technically proficient saxophonist, D'Rivera raised the eyebrows of fans, critics and record company executives everywhere Irakere toured.

Ultimately, this fascination led to an historic deal between the Cuban government and the American record company Columbia. Irakere was signed and recorded two Columbia records with promises for more group efforts as well as solo projects for Paquito, Chucho and Arturo.

But before the deal could come to fruition, D'Rivera defected in Spain during an Irakere tour. And although it was bad news for American fans of Irakere, it was good news for jazz and the saxophone.

D'Rivera soon moved to New York, where his mother and sister, who had left Cuba in the '60s, waited. Columbia Records also waited, and signed D'Rivera to a contract. Since then, D'Rivera has made two studio albums and a live album, playing with American jazz musicians he had heard in Cuba as well as two musicians, drummer Ignacio Berroa and conguero Daniel Ponce, who had defected to the United States in a mass exodus to Florida some years earlier and had played with Paquito in Cuba.

BUT IT IS his latest effort, "Why Not!", a collaboration with Belgian-born harmonica player Toots Thielemans, which showcases some of Paquito's strongest playing since he came to the States. D'Rivera, befitting his Cuban/jazz and Irakere backgrounds, broadens his horizons in his third effort as a leader, drawing on the myriad influences found in his multicultural second home.

Paquito brings ideas from gospel, funk (el funketeo in Paquito's (Cubanglish) Brazil, Cuba and the Dominican Republic into the album, while Tanenbaum a laidback, scholarly-appearing man whom D'Rivera ails a "Vallum", flavors the album with the exotic "Waltz for Sonny", which is based on guitar figures common to the Venezuelan joropo.

"Brussels in the Rain" is a jazz ballad that switches to medium-tempo bossa nova toward the end, and Paquito, who couldn't chill out if he tried, swings with case. "Brussels" is a good example of the creators' different personalities; Although the tune is a slow jazz ballad, Paquito is still able to incorporate complicated eighth-note phrasings with an Afro-Latin emphasis, while Thielemans relies on direct but well-embellished lines to get his point across. If Toots is a Valium, then Paquito is aguardiente.

Although Paquito does some more Latin-type tunes, including Dizzy Gillespie's "Manteca", the best--and best-performed--Latin tune on the album is "Samba for Carmen", which Paquito dedicated to jazz singer Carmen McRae, Drummer Portinho, late of Tania Maria, drives the whole thing as if he were still in the Rio de Janeiro samba school, Padre Miguel, and fellow Brazilian Claudio Roditi, who has the unenviable position of following Paquito in order of solos, still acquits himself quite well on trumpet.

D'Rivera himself spends most of the tune in the upper register of his alto, getting a soprano-like sound from it. His raw and driving post-bop sound combines with Roditi's bright, powerful trumpet as well as Portinho's samba beat and bassist Lincoln Goines, who is another Tania Maria veteran, uses his instrument to duplicate the sound of the surdo drum, the heart and soul of the samba.

This United Nations-like aggregation joins forces to make "Samba for Carmen" the highlight of an album that will further establish Paquito on the American jazz scene.