Epic, Vivid Spanish-Tinged Big Band Jazz and a Joe’s Pub Show From Emilio Solla

Pianist Emilio Solla writes picturesque, symphonic, state-of-the-art big band jazz that draws on both tango and Spanish Caribbean traditions but transcends both. For those who might be interested in how this chorizo is made, Solla and flamenco-jazz saxophonist/singer Antonio Lizana are launching their upcoming tour with their new quartet at Joe’s Pub on March 25 at 9. Cover is on the steep side, $30 for a bill which four years ago might have been better staged at the late and badly missed Jazz Standard. Good luck dodging the waitstaff, who may or may not be enforcing a minimum at tables.

Solla’s most recent album with his Tango Jazz Orchestra is Puertas: Music from International Waters, streaming at Bandcamp. He dedicates each track to a different city around the world; the result is as cosmopolitan and majestic as you could possibly want. The loose connecting thread is patterns of global immigration and its challenges. Beyond inspired solos, Solla’s compositions have a dynamism and element of surprise beyond most of the other composers in his demimonde.

The opening number, Sol La, Al Sol has subtle tango allusions in the big splashes of color from the orchestra, setting up a bright, assertive Tim Armacost tenor sax solo. The bustle grows to a blaze before trombonist Mike Fahie takes a judicious, spacious solo of his own. The band have fun with Solla’s punchy countermelodies on the way out. Lots going on here.

Guest Arturo O’Farrill takes over on piano as the epic second track, Llegara, Llegara, Llegara begins. The orchestra answers him and then rises with an early-morning suspense as he cascades. Julien Labro’s accordion weaves in and out, over a determined charge down the runway fueled by bassist Pablo Aslan and drummer Ferenc Nemeth. Tenor saxophonist John Ellis takes charge of the lull that follows, choosing his spots over a long, increasingly lush crescendo. The twin piano coda with O’Farrill and Solla trading off is decadently delicious.

In Chacafrik, dedicated to the Angolan city of Benguela, the orchestra shift from a cheery, retro brassiness to a rumble and then sleekness before hitting a circling qawalli groove, Todd Bashore’s alto sax at the center.

Terry Goss’ wistful baritone sax adds a wistful undercurrent as La Novena, a dedication to Solla’s hometown Buenos Aires, gets underway; it’s an otoño porteño, Labro’s bandoneon solo signaling a sober, steady rise at the end. The trumpets – Alex Norris, Jim Seeley, Brad Mason and Jonathan Powell – figure lyrically and sparely in Four for Miles, a pulsing tango-jazz mini-epic with a tantalizingly brief lattice by the first and last on that list at the end.

Edmar Castañeda’s harp introduces Allegron in tandem with Solla’s piano over tricky, punchy Venezuelan rhythms. Once again, Solla brings in towering grandeur in between the moments where Castañeda isn’t threatening to break several strings, Ellis adding a triumphantly balletesque solo on soprano.

Solla draws his inspiration for Andan Luces from Cadiz, a baroque-tinged counterpoint from the high reeds ceding to a pensively incisive solo from Aslan and cheerier flights from the bandleader’s piano. Stormy low brass anchors contrasting highs to kick off the final number, Buenos Aires Blues. Trombonist Noah Bless bobs and weaves over Solla’s kinetic syncopation, with Norris, Goss and Labro riding the waves in turn.

The album also benefits from the collective talents of soprano saxophonist Alejandro Aviles, trombonist Eric Miller and bass trombonist James Rodgers.

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Inspiration and Rapture From Harpist Edmar Castaneda in a Sonically Challenging Downtown Space

At his concert today at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown, harpist Edmar Castaneda told the small crowd huddled together in the wintry chill under the balcony organ that he was sick of playing “For computers.” The audience seconded that observation and roared their approval when he’d fire off sparkling cascades, playing brisk melody lines against supple basslines, bending the body of his instrument for a wah-wah effect, or slamming the strings at the end of a song like the inside of a piano to cap off a big coda. But lockdown-era cabin fever aside, at this show Castaneda felt the room’s nature reverb and focused more on rapture and resonance than the pyrotechnics he’s best known for.

His wife, singer Andrea Tierra, marveled at how the Financial District had revitalized itself in the years since she’d walked around the neighborhood during the somber, acrid aftermath of 9/11. “”We always have to fight…New York always has to keep coming back, I think this is a very important message in this part of the city,” she emphasized.

Airing out her understatedly powerful, expressive alto voice, she channeled a distant angst as her husband rose from a suspenseful pulsing, verdant intro to a slow, spiky, bolero-tinged ballad, possibly titled Me Voy Llorando. It was a prime example of the individualistic blend of latin jazz and nueva cancion he’s made a name for himself with – and has played with his wife, whom he instantly fell in love with at a jam session in Queens eighteen years ago.

Tierra introduced a more spare, dancing tune, Cancion Con Todos, as a message of unity for all the people of the Americas, giving voice to citizens struggling for peace, The group – which also included incisive soprano saxophonist Shlomi Cohen and a terse, purposeful drummer – took the song bouncing, doublespeed, with an insistent solo out.

Castaneda played solo on Hecho (“Acts,” a Biblical reference), bringing the atmosphere up from guarded hope to starrier, more rhythmic terrain and a graceful, reflective ending. From there, he brought the rhythm section back to close the set with a wildly flurrying, merengue-flavored tune, Fresh Water, bristling with modal intensity over staggered, strutting syncopation.

Edmar Castaneda Beats the Heat

Wednesday night at Madison Square Park, Colombian jazz  harpist Edmar Castaneda didn’t let the crushing heat and humidity phase him, playing a breathtaking show with Andrea Tierra on vocals, Dave Silliman on drums and Shlomi Cohen on soprano sax. Castaneda is the kind of musician who absolutely blows you away with his intensity and his chops, a hyperkinetic figure playing rapidfire piano voicings, intricate folk melodies, furious volleys of staccato notes and anchoring all of this with nimble, funky basslines that he played on a series of low strings that seemed to be amped separately from the rest of his harp. Wow! Castaneda more than once referred to Silliman as “the man with four hands,” but it might as well have been himself.

The trio of Castaneda, Silliman and Cohen opened with an expansive, slowly crescendoing version of Roomful of Colors (that’s the English translation of a track from his latest album), Silliman artfully weaving between Castaneda’s polyrhythms as Cohen brought the heat up even further with eerie Balkan and klezmer-inflected trills and modal passages. The title cut, Between the Strings was less allusion than head-on intensity, anchored by a vivid, insistent descending progression, Castaneda hammering out plaintive chordal motifs as Silliman and Cohen nimbly rode the composition’s rises and falls. Castaneda held the crowd rapt with a solo rendition of  the epic, anguished but ultimately triumpant Jesus of Nazareth, a showcase for every technique in his book. Then they brought up Tierra (Castaneda’s wife) for a jazzed-up version of a poignant Colombian folk song: with a powerful, mysterious lower register, she introduced a nocturnal ambience that grew dramatic and then plaintive. They closed with a long, animated tribute to Tierra and Castaneda’s native Colombia, a potently effective advertisement for the beauty and appeal of the country, Tierra’s deep-river contralto a powerful contrast with Cohen’s soaring, knife-edge flights. Clearly, their connection to the country is tight, complex and not without considerable longing to return there. Castaneda typically plays the Jazz Standard when he’s in town; watch this space for future NYC dates.

And while we’re at it, a big shout-out to trombonist Art Baron, who played a killer mix of standards and grooves with Bucky Pizzarelli on guitar at St. Marks Park yesterday: hearing Pizzarelli methodically fire off one delicious chordal cluster after another while Baron, tenor player Steve Elson and others took flight overhead was a real treat, especially during their inspired closing number, Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man. Pizzarelli is at Rockefeller Park on 7/13 at 7 PM with a bunch of other jazzcats playing a Jonathan Schwartz tribute.