by Susan Kepecs
Trombonist / composer / bandleader Papo
Vázquez and his Mighty Pirates Troubadores bring their freewheelin’ bomba bop
to Music Hall, under the auspices of the Wisconsin Union Theater and the Isthmus Jazz Series, on Thurs., Nov. 14. Really, bomba bop’s too small a term, but
there’s a lot of Borinquen in Vázquez’ sound. Vázquez and his outfit put out warm,
gregarious sounds – David Sánchez’ style of Puerto Rican jazz, better known in
Madison since he's been here twice in recent years, is cooler – and though the Mighty Pirates’ tunes aren’t meant to be
bailable, Vázquez’ music owes at least something to to his salsero history.
Salsera that I am, the
first thing I think of when I hear Vázquez’ name is the Fania phenomenon. Born in Philadelphia in 1958 and shuttled
back and forth between the City of Brotherly Love and Puerto Rico, Vázquez
spent his formative years as a bilingual, bicultural school band kid with a
cheap trombone and tons of talent. He
joined a Philadelphia salsa band at 14, and a few years later he was playing in
the Big Apple with the likes of the great sonero-cum-Latin jazz trompetero Chocolate
Armenteros, who was, at that time, working quite a bit with “El Sol de la
Musica Latina,” Eddie Palmieri. Next
thing Vázquez knew, he was onstage with Palmieri and the other sovereigns of
salsa – the Fania All-Stars.
But Vázquez
left his salsa story behind years ago. What he wanted was to play jazz, and play jazz
he did – with “Slide” Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, and Mel Lewis, among others –
plus Latin leaders like Tito Puente, Palmieri and Manny Oquendo of Conjunto
Libre, to name just a few.
Vázquez, whose playing is agile and and
rhythmic, like a salsero’s – but freer – emerged as a jazz leader with his
Pirates Troubadors in the 1990s. The liner
notes on the Pirates’ sixth release, Oasis
(2010, Picaro Records) describe a pirate troubador as a person or group that
steals your musical allegience, and it’s easy to see why. Oasis is
a richly textured album, layering the heartbeat rhythms of Puerto Rico with the
free flow of postbop, a bit of the blues, and an occasional global gloss.
The Cuban rumba complex has
three basic rhythms, but Puerto Rican bomba has sixteen. On Oasis
the Mighty Pirates Troubadors explore several of them, plus a pair of Puerto
Rican plenas. “Manga Larga” is a
powerful postbop bomba rule, Vázquez’ trombone bookending a wide-open sax solo
by longtime Pirate Troubador Willie Williams. “Que Sabes Tu” is hoyo de mula bomba bop with
a kiss of hip-hop at the end. The
sparkling plena “Sol Tropical” is a big Hallelujah, jivey with subtle hints of
New Orleans and Sonny Rollins in the mix. There’s “Danzaon Don Vázquez,” a
danza closely related to stately Cuban danzón. Venturing beyond Puerto Rico
there’s the title track, a Scherezade-tinged “world jazz” piece, plus “Psalm
59,” a Coltrane-esque jazz waltz, and “San Juan de la Maguana,” a merengue that
opens in tight Fania style and then cuts loose.
In anticipation of his
upcoming concert I spoke with the trombone master a couple of weeks ago by
phone.
CulturalOyster:
It’s been a long journey for you, from Fania to the Mighty Pirates Troubadors. Can you reminisce a little?
Vázquez:
I tell you I think I would have a lot more fun if I’d been a piano player. With
trombone, you inherit bad gums. It’s a
recurring theme in my life every time the weather changes. I got this great dentist – Wynton Marsalis
and others go to him – but it’s a pain in the neck. But getting back to Fania, it’s difficult to
erase that. It’s been 20 years. But I’m not a salsa player or a dance player,
I’m a jazz player.
CulturalOyster:
But Palmieri says if you can’t dance to it it’s jazz Latin, not Latin jazz.
Vázquez:
I love and respect Eddie. But it’s not
important if you can dance to this stuff.
What’s important is swing. Dizzy
said if it doesn’t have an element of the blues its not jazz any more. These kids today go to schools like
scientists, their music [millineal jazz] doesn’t swing. It’s weird.
I respect a song or two, but most of it I don’t find interesting. So much of the concept of improvisation is
gone. Once in a while they let one of
their guys loose, but for me improvisation was always the thing – when I was
still playing dance music I liked being part of Batacumbele [a Puerto Rican
fusion band in which Vázquez was a founding member] because so much of it was
improvisation. The big corporations eliminated that, every time you get them
involved in art they’re thinking about selling records. Jazz is a problem for the Latin music fan
base. Most Latinos stayed behind. they
still live in the [salsa] bubble. They
didn’t follow us out of it. They don’t understand jazz, they aren’t buying Latin
jazz albums or going to hear Latin jazz performed.
CulturalOyster:
But you started as a salsa player. What
brought you to jazz?
Vázquez: I always aspired to be a jazz musician. It’s not that I wanted to be a star, but for
jazz they come to see you perform. But
what started it was Jimmy Purvis [a Philadelphia trumpet player in the salsa
band Vazquez joined as a teen]. He was
like a mentor, an adult friend. He
didn’t even know it, but I was sexually abused as a kid. That affected me. I went into a shell, I was afraid of people. But
Purvis became my friend. I used to go to
his house – no funny stuff, it was all about music. He was Coltrane’s nephew. We’d sit down and listen to music. He gave me Coltrane Live at the Vanguard.
I immediately understood I had to learn how to practice. The Coltrane record, I didn’t understand it,
I didn’t get it at all. But I really
appreciated Purvis’ friendship so I said I’m gonna give this a try, I’m gonna
get this. And one day something happened
to my brain and I understood it. I was a
young kid, 14 years old.
CulturalOyster:
So you fell for jazz, but you went to New York and became a salsa star?
Vázquez:
In 1984 I was playing with Batacumbele, in Puerto Rico. Everything we played in that band was
Cuban-influenced. My mission there was
to create a new variation of what people considered Latin jazz – Puerto Rican, more
bomba y plena, though I never turned my back on mambo. So I’m a pioneer of bomba jazz, and I feel
proud of that. We used to play for the
door back then. People would come to
hear us and turn around and walk out – they’d say Papo Vázquez? Playing bomba jazz? They didn’t get that at all.
CulturalOyster:
But the Pirates’ sound isn’t just bomba bop – it’s sometimes built on a bomba
groove, or plena, or more occasionally mambo or something else. But pirates are dangerous, they operate
outside the law. Is that you, musically
speaking?
Vázquez:
It’s gonna be very difficult to describe what I do. There are all original compositions on my
records. You buy one, you go on an
adventure and see what it is. After my first album as a leader, Breakout (Timeless, 1993), we eliminated
bomba jazz. It pigeonholes you into a
certain thing. I had that conversation
with Mike Viña [the bass player in Ruben Blades’ original Seis del Solar – and
to place Breakout in temporal context
it’s worth noting that in Vázquez’ discography that album’s bookended by his
appearances on Blades’ Caminando and Juan
Luis Guerra’s Fogaraté]. I told Viña I don’t wanna be recognized for
bomba jazz. And Viña said you want to be
a pirate troubador. I said man, that is
cool, I love that. So I went for
it. I don’t want to be categorized as
anything other than a musician and a jazz artist. You want to feel free to do whatever the hell
you want to do. If I’m hired to do it I
can walk this band into a dance band, that’s a fact. But otherwise we do whatever we want, though
it’s mostly built around the Puerto Rican theme – that’s who we are.
CulturalOyster:
You’ve been working with Anthony Carrillo since Batacumbele, and he’s your lead
percussionist on Oasis – is he coming
to Madison with you?
Vázquez:
Anthony’s not on this tour – he’s gonna be on the road with Palmieri. Carlitos Maldonado leads the rhythm section,
he’s a wonderful percussion player, and we have a wonderful young cat, Gabriel
Lugo. These guys are well versed in
Afro-Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban folkloric drumming. They know how to accompany a soloist, and
we’re a jazz band, so that’s the most important thing – we’re not playing in a
bombazo [a bomba baile in the street].
It’s more controlled. We’re
actually having a conversation, but one guy’s talking louder than the
rest. I have Victor Jones on drums –
he’s been in my band for many years now – we alternate between him and
[Alvester] Garnett, who’s on Oasis. It’s good to change the personnel around a
little, it gives a little different flavor and keeps it fresh. On sax, Willie [Williams], from Philadelphia,
has been with me for about fifteen years. [Milwaukee native and in-demand Big
Apple pianist] Rick Germanson is on this tour.
I’ve got a new guy, Alexander Ayala, a wonderful bass player.
As a leader you’ve gotta
have two or three different combinations of players you can work with. These guys are world class, they play for
everybody. My regular bass player,
Dezron Douglas, is touring with Ravi Coltrane right now, but he called and said
he wants to come home. We’re a
family. But these new players, they’ve
worked out pretty good.
CulturalOyster:
After this tour, what’s coming up for you?
Vázquez:
Mostly leading the Pirates, unless Wynton [Marsalis] hires me to compose
something [Vázquez composed a work for Marsalis’ Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra
in 2010]. Most recently I composed a
piece for Arturo O’Farrill’s Latin Jazz Orchestra. But my main concern is to make sure you guys
get the best bang for your buck. My job
is to have all the musicians onstage and have all the audience members think
that was money well spent. Me, as a
music fan, I hate to throw my money away – that’s how I see this.
______________________________________
Vázquez brings some mighty jazz outreach education
to Madison, too. Thanks to Howard Landsman of the Madison Music Collective (see his comment, below) for updating the stats: there’s a closed-to-the-public master class
at Sun Prairie High High on Tuesday morning (Nov. 12) and a master class Tuesday night at
the UW School of Music jazz program; a youth-oriented workshop at 5 pm at Centro Hispano on Weds., Nov. 13 and an all-ages workshop, 6:30 - 8 pm, followed by an open jam at 8.
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