Fran Nava | "Umkhonto"

Fran Nava is a bass player and composer of the local jazz scene in the city of Buenos Aires, born in 1984. He has performed at renowned festivals including Jazz BA in Buenos Aires, Jazz a la Calle in Uruguay, Jazz Festival SF in the city of Santa Fe, and played in many of the most important venues of the city like Virasoro, Thelonious Club, Usina del Arte, among others. Although he has participated in different albums, such as with the nonet Mingunos, and in projects as a session player and as a co-leader, Umkhonto is his first álbum as a leader.

The musical concept of the album is tied to intense variations, with high energy levels and strong interaction between the musicians, up tempos and different rhythmic modulations. To carry out  this idea, Fran Nava forms this sax trio with renowned jazz musicians from the city of Buenos Aires, such as Patricio Bottcher on tenor and soprano saxophone, and Venezuelan Omar Menéndez on drums. 

The five compositions joined in Umkhonto come from ideas and concepts worked in the ensembles together with the masters Sergio Verdinelli, Mariano Otero and Ernesto Jodos.

In the participation in the ensembles dictated by Verdinelli and Otero, called Ensamble de Groove Acústico, ideas and concepts related to rhythmic and tempo changes and modulations emerged, inserted in the language of jazz and within the composition; while in the ensemble of the Art of the Trio by Ernesto Jodos, the concepts of a strong musical interaction and a prolonged intensity in the composition were taken, as well as the concepts of Bill Charlap of giving continuity to an existing composition or of inserting himself with his own ideas in a composition already made.