Irakere

Grupo Irakere, as the Cuban all-star outfit was known back in 1976 when this second in Mr Bongo’s Cuban Classics series was originally released, never slotted categorically into either a Latin-jazz or an Afro-Cuban bracket. Trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, featured in typically florid form on one of the two ballads, ‘En Nosotros’, actually spent a few months in jail during his military service for listening to American jazz on the radio. He tells how the band wanted to play bebop, but were told that their drummer couldn’t use cymbals because they sounded too jazzy. To listen to the album’s opener, ‘Chequeré-Son’, is to appreciate how brilliantly they found their own unique fusion. Bebop quotes from Charlie Parker’s ‘Billie’s Bounce’ are so heavily disguised by Cuban percussion and intricate, baritone-sax-led horns that dancers wouldn’t know, or care. Nominal leader Chucho Valdés is featured on acoustic piano on the other ballad, ‘Este Camino Largo’, in tandem with Paquito d’Rivera’s alto sax, but otherwise the keyboards are electric, lending a (then) contemporary feel redolent of Herbie Hancock and Weather Report. This predominantly upbeat album captures an exuberant band in its early flush of youth, fully justifying the label ‘classic’.