The great Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés and his country’s 40-year-old Irakere band played in London shortly before this recording at France’s Marciac festival was made. Those who were leaping in the aisles at that gig will welcome this souvenir – there’s a nine-track DVD alongside the CD’s six – and those who missed it can discover what has made Cuban jazz so free-spirited since it began its world travels in the 1970s. Stately Afro-Cuban vocal chants are taken up by melodically rich percussion figures and then blazing brass riffs; prancing piano tangos develop as glittering treble improv, free-jazz swirls and huge Rachmaninovian chords from Valdés, then turn to slick sax swing; punchy groovers resemble McCoy Tyner Latin-jazz classics; thumbed-bass funk vamps open up playful percussion extravaganzas. The 18-minute Yansa sums up the band’s accomplished diversity, embracing rhythmically intricate jazz, soulful sax improv, Valdés’ molten streams of consciousness at the keys, and a traditional vocals-and-congas finale.
