Chucho Valdés @ Monterey Jazz Festival – La Creación: Yoruban + MONK’estra bands
September 23 @ 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
CHUCHO VALDÉS LA CREACIÓN W/ MONK’ESTRA, MUSIC DIRECTORS HILARIO DURÁN & JOHN BEASLEY
La Creación is an extraordinary career-spanning masterwork rendered with the vibrant sonic palette he forged in the epochal Cuban jazz fusion band Irakere.
In celebration of his 80th birthday in 2021, Cuban piano legend Chucho Valdés went back to the beginning, the very beginning. La Creación, his new three-movement suite for big band, Afro-Cuban percussion and vocals, recounts the story of creation according to La Regla de Ocha, the Afro-Cuban religion also known as Santería.
Encompassing sacred Yoruba chants, the blues, post-bop harmonies and what Valdés describes as “an atmosphere in the style of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew,” it’s an extraordinary career-spanning masterwork rendered with the vibrant sonic palette he forged in the epochal Cuban jazz fusion band Irakere.
Review: Chucho Valdes Creation’ at the Palau de la Música, Barcelona
Portentous, spiritual, at times thick and finally irresistible put the Palau on its feet with an irresistible encore by Irakere, the question remained as to whether ‘Creation’ is, indeed, his greatest work. The most ambitious, for sure. – Canadian News
Yoruban Band & MONK’estra
Erick Barberia, Román Diáz, tambour batá, Diosvany Valladares (tambour batá)
Dafnis Prieto (drum)
Yeni Valdés (vocals)
MONK’estra Horns
Trumpets: James Ford, Brian Swartz (Brian Lynch, Etienne Charles, Marcus Strickland)
Trombones: Francisco Torres, Wendell Kelly, Ryan Dragon, Lemar Guillary
Woodwinds: Bob Sheppard, Tom Luer, Adam Schroeder
Co-arrangers, MD, keyboards: John Beasley, Hilario Duran
US and European Tour
September
02 Detroit Jazz Festival
21 Hollywood Bowl with MONK’estra
22 Paramount Theatre Oakland with MONK’estra
23 Monterey Jazz Festival with MONK’estra
October
07+08 Rose Theatre, Lincoln Center, NY
14 Berklee Performance Arts, Boston
15 Fairfield, CT
16 Kennedy Center, Washington DC
18 Chicago Symphony Center
November
18 London
22 Madrid
24 Hamburg
25 Berlin
26 Toulouse, France
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvc-T8adHMU