Chucho Valdes - Jazz Bata 2

'Jazz Bat� 2', Cuban composer, pianist and bandleader Chucho Vald�s' first album for Mack Avenue Records, marks a new peak of creativity for the artist, even as it revisits the small-group concept of his 1972 album 'Jazz Bat�'.

That album upon release was originally considered experimental at the time, but the trio project - featuring no drum set and two virtuosi who would subsequently be charter members of Irakere: Carlos del Puerto (bass) and Oscar Vald�s (bat�: the sacred, hourglass shaped drums of the Yoruba religion in Cuba) - would now be considered contemporary.

Recorded in two and a half days at John Lee's studio in New Jersey, 'Jazz Bat� 2' is both rhythmic and lyrical at once. The six-hand complexity of the bat� repertoire - the deep classical music of West Africa - permeates Vald�s' piano solos throughout the album. I applied to my solos the different rhythms of the bat�, he says. The piano is of course a harmonic instrument, but it's percussive too, and you can play percussion with it.

It's an exceptionally tight band. All of the three supporting musicians - Yaroldy Abreu Robles, Dreiser Durruthy Bombal�, and Yelsy Heredia - are from the Guant�namo region and have deep roots in Cuban musical culture as well as being conservatory-trained. Yaroldy, who plays a wide variety of drums - congas, bat�, bong�, orchestral percussion - has been working with Vald�s for twenty years. He always knows what I'm going to want to do, says Vald�s.