"El Viaje (The Journey)," the title track of Cuban
pianist and composer Harold López-Nussa's debut release on Mack Avenue Records,
seems to sway gently like a boat in the water--as if readying for a voyage or
returning to port after arrival--trumpet and voices whispering memories. This
scene aptly describes López-Nussa's experiences of traveling throughout the
world, yet always finding his way back to his hometown of Havana, Cuba. This
journey of body and spirit has led simultaneously to a musical exploration
where he visits various genres and ideas while staying true to his foundational
roots.
The release of López-Nussa's music stateside is a
significant postscript to President Obama's recent trip to Havana. The
conservatory-trained pianist is the first Cuba-based musician (he has dual
citizenship in both Cuba and France) to release an album internationally since
the lifting of many of the restrictions associated with the longstanding trade
embargo. States Mack Avenue Records President Denny Stilwell, "Harold
follows in the modern day tradition of exemplary Cuban pianists who have
recorded and toured internationally. We feel he is an emerging artist with
immense creative potential to breakthrough."
El Viaje features The Harold López-Nussa Trio with younger
brother Ruy Adrián López-Nussa on drums and percussion and from Senegal, Alune
Wade on bass and vocals. This trio is augmented on certain tracks with guests
including his father Ruy Francisco López-Nussa on drums, Mayquel González on
trumpet and flugelhorn, and Dreiser Durruthy and Adel González on percussion.
López-Nussa, who collaborated with Wade on the 2015 album
Havana-Paris-Dakar, noted: "Having a non-Cuban musician on this recording
speaks to our contact with other cultures. Especially with African culture,
which is so far from ours geographically and yet so close. Every time we play,
I believe we enter into a journey we are creating," he says, speaking from
his home in Havana. "Ever since I was a kid, since I began to study piano,
music, I have tried; I have searched for that journey of the mind, always
traveling with music. I remember that I started playing 'El Viaje' while on
tour as a way of feeling closer to home, and when I'm here, it's also a way for
my mind to travel."
López-Nussa was born into a musical family in Havana on July
13, 1983. Not only are his father and uncle--Ernán, a pianist--working
musicians, but his late mother, Mayra Torres, was a highly regarded piano
teacher. At the age of eight, López-Nussa began studying at the Manuel Saumell
Elementary School of Music, then the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory and finally
graduating with a degree in classical piano from the Instituto Superior de
Artes (ISA). "I studied classical music and that's all I did until I was
18," he says. Then came jazz.
"Jazz was scary. Improvisation was scary. That idea of
not knowing what you are going to play..." he says, his voice trailing
off. "At school I learned the works of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven and then
it was all very clear. That permanent risk in which jazz musicians find
themselves in all the time was terrifying-of course, now I find myself in that
risk all the time."
Other compositions on the album speak of places on the map
and the past -- "Me voy pa' Cuba (I´m Goin´ to Cuba),"
"Inspiración en Connecticut (Inspiration in Connecticut),"
"Oriente," "Africa," and Chucho Valdés´ classic
"Bacalao Con Pan (Cod on Bread)." Throughout, the music is muscular,
elegant, familiar and fresh, rooted in Cuban tradition yet permeated by
different accents.
In "Feria (Fair)" the sound of what could be a
Cuban neighborhood dance party takes on an African groove before becoming a New
York story with Thelonious Monk's "Evidence" as its soundtrack.
"Lobo's cha," a bolero with a hint of Parisian melancholy, almost
imperceptibly becomes a modern cha-cha-cha. There are no instrumental
gymnastics, no look-at-me solos here, just clarity and purpose-and understated
brilliance. Even as López-Nussa brings his experiences elsewhere back home,
Havana never becomes just a backdrop. This is a recording made in Havana. For
him, the city, its sounds and its people are a point of departure--and return.
"I've always liked the idea of projecting myself to the
world from here," he says. "The personal ties are very strong for me.
A lot ties me to this country," he said. "I want this to be my place
to create--even if I can have those great experiences traveling. The personal
is essential for my creative process. Being able to go out into the
neighborhood where I grew up, a place that I know so well, walk on the Malecón,
sit by the sea. This is where I want to be."
López-Nussa has moved with ease between the classical,
popular and jazz music worlds. A quick look at his experiences reveal a
recording of Heitor Villa-Lobos´ "Fourth Piano Concerto" with Cuba's
National Symphony Orchestra (2003) but also winning the First Prize and Audience
Prize of the Jazz Solo Piano Competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival,
Switzerland, in 2005. He was part of projects as diverse as Ninety Miles (a
recording with David Sánchez, Christian Scott and Stefon Harris) and Esencial
(an album of compositions by revered Cuban classical guitarist, composer and
conductor Leo Brouwer), both in 2011.
As for his popular music and on-the-job training, he was
part of projects such as the Cuba volume of Rhythms del Mundo, which paired him
with veterans from Buena Vista Social Club and he spent three years in the
touring band of singer Omara Portuondo, an opportunity he calls "a
blessing." He has distilled all those experiences not only into a rich,
personal style, as a player and composer, but it infused López-Nussa with an
engaging attitude about making and sharing music.
Harold López-Nussa · El Viaje
Mack Avenue Records · Release Date: September 9, 2016
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