Coming out on March 18, 2014 is The Puppeteers, the debut CD by the group of the same
name featuring drummer Jaime Affoumado, pianist Arturo O'Farrill, bassist Alex
Blake and vibraphonist Bill Ware. Spawned
at the much-missed Brooklyn club Puppet's Jazz, the band assimilates the
diverse influences that each band member
brings to the table - the heady fragrance of hard bop, Latin,
Afro-Caribbean and funk.
Puppet's
Jazz, the much-missed Brooklyn club, may have completed its six-year existence
in May of 2011, but its afterlife has spawned both a substantial jazz quartet
and a promising new record label. The Puppeteers reunites drummer and club
founder Jaime Affoumado, pianist Arturo O'Farrill, bassist Alex Blake and
vibraphonist Bill Ware, respected veteran musicians who logged in more hours
together than they can remember on the compact bandstand of the former club.
Now, officially known as the Puppeteers, the foursome have pooled their
instrumental and compositional talents for a project that brims with the
cohesion that sprouts from familiarity yet also bursts with the excitement of
renewed commitment. The band's self titled debut will be released on March 18,
2014.
The
Puppeteers, as author Howard Mandel aptly states in his liner notes, deal in
"fresh-jazz," music that: "sounds like it just happened - not as
"look-at-the-past" but as "here's what-we-play-now." It's a
group sound that assimilates the diverse influences that each of the band
members willingly brings to the table; if the heady fragrance of hard bop,
Latin, Afro-Caribbean and funk idioms can be detected, then the Puppeteers have
done their job. The formative music that made each of these players who they
are is honored before it is transformed into the new. Make no mistake; although
the instrumentation of the two ensembles may be similar, this is not your
father's Modern Jazz Quartet. Drawing nourishment from the roots, yet grounding
their sound firmly in the present, is the credo of The Puppeteers.
Individually,
each member of the Puppeteers has a rich musical history. Bill Ware, an
original member of the influential Downtown band, The Jazz Passengers also
co-founded The Groove Collective and toured with Steely Dan for the Alive in
America tour, 1993-1995. Alex Blake, who mans both acoustic and electric bass
on the album, has long been associated with pianist Randy Weston, and has
worked with such diverse artists as The Manhattan Transfer, Sun Ra, and the
late saxophone master Stan Getz. Arturo O'Farrill, the leader of the acclaimed
Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, has also collaborated with a wide swath of important
figures including Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis Carla Bley and Harry
Belafonte. Jaime Affoumado has played with Jaco Pastorious, Arthur Blythe, and
The Jazz Passengers, and, as the house drummer for Puppet's Jazz, provided the
groove for innumerable players who graced the club's potent stage.
Each
member of the cooperative contributes compositions, which range from
percolating romps (Affoumado's "Dreams of Dad," O'Farrill's "To
Whom," and Ware's "Lonely Days Are Gone," which borrows its
chord progression from "The Letter," the 1968 Box Top's hit.) to easy
grooving tunes (Blake's "Peaceful Moments"). The only non-original
tune, "Not Now Right Now," introduced to the project by O'Farrill, is
from the pen of trombonist Papo Vazquez, a former member of O'Farrill's Afro
Latin Jazz Orchestra. "Having every band member contribute tunes is
important," says Affoumado, "We are separate entities coming
together. There's a magic that comes from feeding off each other's creativity
-- I call it a calm shark fest."
The
album is being released on Puppet's Records, a new label that also takes its
name from the fondly remembered club. The brainchild of Affoumado (the driving
force behind both Brooklyn incarnations of the club) and attorney Dana Hall
(manager of Bill Ware and the Jazz Passengers), Puppet's Records intends to
create a resource for the work of the four featured players, and then expand to
include up-and-coming artists from the worlds of new jazz, funk, and hip hop.
"We've called it "Puppet's Records" not "Puppet's Jazz
Records," states Affoumado, "We want to be open to all kinds of great
music."
Although
Affoumado acknowledges that the energy of the quartet is an outgrowth of the
vitality that sprang from the club, he dismisses any talk of a fabled
"Brooklyn Vibe." For him, "a vibe is brought to a musical
situation by a person - not a place." However the magic arose, let's be
thankful that the inspired atmosphere of a treasured club continues to live on
in a fresh and vibrant band and an auspicious record label.
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