via The Times
Jazz is renowned for its constant transformation, so it’s odd that Afro-Cuban jazz has barely changed since Dizzy Gillespie, Machito and others developed it in the 1940s. The Cuban pianist Harold López-Nussa here spectacularly puts that to rights. To the classic clave pattern he has added danzon and bata drumming, then fused it with modern song structure and improv. Listening to it, you’ll wonder why no one has tried it before.
It doesn’t stop there. López-Nussa and his producer, Michael League of Snarky Puppy, pack in keyboard sounds and styles as tightly as the meat in a mixto sandwich: Rhodes on the wistful Mal du Pays, Moog and Mellotron on the yearning Tumba la Timba and synths on the flamboyant Funky. The last of these has the leader pushing his piano into postbop territory as the dance rhythms catch fire. Radical, but kind of inevitable too.