Alfredo Rodriguez - Cuba Linda - 02 - Cuba Linda (1996)

Alfredo Rodriguez (Havana, 25 October 1936 Paris, 3 October 2005) was a Cuban Jazz piano player.He moved to Manhattan in 1960, and later to Paris in 1985. After a brief stint in Miami in the early '70s, he began working as a session player and club performer in New York with notable success, recorded best on the 1976 album Ready for Freddie with Patato Valdes...........Alfredo Rodriguez's Cuba Linda is an exciting and ambitious melange of Afro-Cuban styles. At the center of it all is the daring and unpredictable piano work of the leader, shining atop the feast of percussion that highlights Joe Boyd's highly textured production. The richness and variety of Cuba's musical traditions is on full display. "Cuba Linda" begins with a lovely solo-piano passage before exploding into a vibrant rumba. "Cuando Vuelvo A Tu Lado" is an elegant dance number graced by romantic violins. "Canto de Palo" is a traditional folk song with call-and-response vocal chants and some of Rodriguez's most thrilling piano work. "Drume Negrita" is a delicate, stately lullaby that is deepened by Rodriguez's florid rolls and harmonic experiments. The crowning achievement here, however, is the closing "Para Francia Flores (y Para Cuba También)," which begins with a dramatic piano statement, adds a stirring piano-vocal duet passage, and builds slowly to a tension-releasing crescendo with blaring Chinese cornet and pounding piano.