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Chano Dominguez & WDR Big Band Cologne - Soleando [Arranged & Conducted By Vince Mendoza] (2015)

Posted By: mark70
Chano Dominguez & WDR Big Band Cologne - Soleando [Arranged & Conducted By Vince Mendoza] (2015)

Chano Dominguez & WDR Big Band Cologne - Soleando [Arranged & Conducted By Vince Mendoza] (2015)
MP3 320 kbps CBR | 66:30 min | 154 MB
Genre: Latin Jazz | Label: Jazzline (Delta Music)

From the perspective of a graphic designer a certain level of boldness and the playful use of clichés are indeed welcome. Several years ago a CD was released on whose cover a bull was depicted with the skyline of Manhattan in the background. For another production one opted for different symbols: an Andalusian half-boot on the right side, a sneaker on the left. The albums Jazzpaña, Jazzpaña II and Jazzpaña Live (the fusion already happening on the nominal level) featured a flamenco dancer on their covers, one of his legs depicted as a saxophone.

Regarding the music itself, less boldness is much appreciated nowadays. Because the tie-up is certainly not new, the phase of cautious advances dates back several decades. One of the earliest records undertaking a tender approach was Lionel Hampton's big band album Jazz Flamenco, recorded in the context of a six-month European tour in 1956. After the vibraphone player had participated in a session at a flamenco club in Madrid, he spontaneously decided to invite several local flamenco-percussionists to the recording studio; among them was also the castanets-player Maria Angelica. She was little more than an exotic touch, as it fell to her to swing with the castanets …

No longer characterised by show-elements but still dominated by a jazz-perspective was "Ysabel's Table Dance" from the Charles Mingus-LP Tijuana Moods (recorded in 1957, among others with the flamenco dancer and castanets-player Ysabel Moran), the Miles Davis/Gil Evans-project Sketches of Spain (1960) and John Coltrane's Olé (1961). Later on it was Chick Corea who advanced the fusion (e.g. with Paco de Lucía).

There has never been a shortage of people invoking the similarities between both forms of expression. This was not limited to reverences to the improvisatory nature and rhythmic vigour: Flamenco is often called "Iberian blues", also characterised by passion. Similar to jazz it is a hybrid, uniting various influences and has strongly shaped popular music of the last decades. Its representatives – just as Afro-Americans in the USA – belong to a minority. If you wish, you may also count the guardians of aesthetic order among the similarities: here the "jazz-police", there the "flamenco-police"; always ready to hand down their strict verdict on purity of the art form. Jazz musicians as well as flamenco musicians, especially representatives of the "Nuevo Flamenco" can tell you a thing or two about it …
Meanwhile there is a growing number of projects which not only stress the similarities but which offer a more balanced view on the contributions of both cultures. Chano Dominguez and Vince Mendoza: Their names alone nip reservations and fear of yet another musical platitude originating from the varied pool of folklore in the bud.

When it comes to music, the Spaniard, who was born in the flamenco-stronghold Cadiz, is bilingual: Dominguez is fluent in both languages, that of jazz as well as that of flamenco (an art form where the piano is anything but at home). Already for quite some time he is a leading figure in bringing together both cultures, even more than that: Dominguez is currently the driving force of this symbiosis and the one who delivers the most convincing results.

In connection with his album New Flamenco Sound he was speaking of "a marriage of flamenco and jazz on an equal footing". When his occasional percussionist Marc Miralta criticises another flamencojazz-project on the basis of the fact that the participants were "not really making love" on a musical level, then the wording might be ascribed to South European temper – but it is comprehensible also for non-Iberians, as the music-historical period of initial, timid encounters is long gone.

In the year Chano Dominguez established his first trio (1992), a musical encounter took place in Cologne, where flamenco was way more than just a source of inspiration. Initially Gil Evans was designated for the project (together with the WDR Big Band as well as Spanish and US-American guest soloists). However, his passing away made it impossible to realise the project with him. For that reason Jazzpaña became the stepping stone for a then still unknown arranger and composer. It was Vince Mendoza's breakthrough, especially in Europe he became famous overnight thank to this much celebrated album. The follow-up project Jazzpaña II (2000) was recorded with a smaller scoring, including Chano Dominguez, who was also part of the cast of the album Jazzpaña Live, released the same year.

Vince Mendoza could make good use of his Jazzpaña-experience for another engagement with Iberian culture. El Viento. The García Lorca Project was the title of a production recorded in 2008, whose foundation was laid ten years before during a concert on the occasion of the one-hundredths birthday of the lyricist Federico García Lorca. Spanish vocalists and instrumentalists as well as dancers had guest appearances in this project, invited by the Dutch Metropole Orkest, an orchestra combining big band and stringband-elements in one.
One year later Dominguez made use of the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis' recording of Kind of Blue to produce a flamencojazz-version of the legendary album, consistently entitled: Flamenco Sketches. Finally, in 2011 he was united with the creative minds behind the idea of the grand intercultural building of bridges almost two decades earlier: Vince Mendoza and the WDR Big Band.

This time the pianist's own compositions, arranged by the guest conductor of the orchestra, were performed. The improvisatory aspect was also more pronounced than in Jazzpaña. The Spaniard was joined by three compatriots, the percussionists "El Piraña" Suárez and Daniel Navarro (the latter also a dancer) and the singer Blas Córdoba. The success of Soleando – well documented on the present recording from the Cologne philharmonic hall – demanded a follow-up: In 2013 the pianist, Grupo de Chano Dominguez, Vince Mendoza and the WDR Big Band went on a celebrated tour of Spain, Portugal, and Oman and also fitted in a stop-over at the Leverkusener Jazztage.

Soleando reveals that the persons involved did get ever closer to the stated ideal of "a musical marriage on an equal footing" of jazz and flamenco - maybe closer than ever before. Long gone are the times when Lionel Hampton performed a famous bullfight-hymn together with his big band in a bullring (sic!) – swinging …

Tracklist:

01. Martinete (0:15)
02. Mentidero (7:51)
03. Soleando (9:52)
04. Plaza de Mina (8:45)
05. Parque Genoveses (6:06)
06. Habanera de la Alameda (8:50)
07. Rumbetango (7:20)
08. El Aguacero (8:13)
09. Mas Que Swing (9:19)