The 34-year-old Manhattan-resident Cuban pianist David Virelles can sound like a 21st-century jazz heir to Herbie Hancock in other people’s bands (Tomasz Stanko’s, Chris Potter’s) – but his own preferences are for avant-grooving, as on last year’s Antenna and the broadly sourced contemporary classical music that informs a good deal of Gnosis. This session, with strings, flute, vocals and four percussionists led by the Cuban drums guru Roman Diaz, sees Virelles deepening his exploration of the fission points between ancient African Cuban traditions and the music of his own era. The opening is an impressionistic drift across preoccupied percussion tappings, the glowing resonances of the marimbula (which sounds like a plucked marimba), and Thomas Morgan’s pizzicato bass. Breezy dance rhythms then guide left-hand piano vamps driving right-hand free improv. Dark, street-throbbing grooves are challenged by imperiously talkative Diaz vocals, while contemporary classical flute and clarinet meditations release storming freebop piano breaks. It’s a big, inclusive musical story, told in revealingly patient and personal narratives.
