Cast
Gonzalo Rubalcaba — Bandleader
Ron Carter — Double bassist
Julio Barretto — Drummer
Program notes
Here, for this 1998 performance at the Munich Summer Piano Festival, the Afro-Cuban maestro, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, brings Cuban, Brazilian and Caribbean accents to the German city. Joined by the revered jazz and marching band specialist Jeff Chambers on the double bass and Ignacio Berroa, the legendary drummer who played with a huge variety of jazz and Latin icons including McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Freddie Hubbard, Jaco Pastorius and Dizzy Gillespie, who described him as "the only Latin drummer in the world in the history of American music that intimately knows both worlds: his native Afro-Cuban music as well as Jazz ... "
Appropriately, the repertoire they play blends Latin touches with jazz standards, combining intricacy and swing with a sense of calm and ease. A particular highlight is their interpretation of "Caravan," the enduring standard composed and made famous by Duke Ellington and the Puerto Rican trombonist Juan Tizol, a track which encapsulates the age-old union between African-American jazz and the Spanish-speaking world.
