グラミー賞ウィナーの作曲家/バンドリーダー/ピアニスト,アルトゥーロ・オファリルがブルーノート・レコードと契約し、ついにデビュー!

「生涯の夢」だったブルーノート作品の本作では、オファリルは、彼の有名なアフロ・ラテン・ジャズ・オーケストラを縮小して、「アフロ・ラテン・ジャズ・アンサンブル」と呼ぶカラフルな10人組を率いて、キューバのマルパソ・ダンス・カンパニーとのコラボレーションで考案した2つのインスピレーションあふれる多楽章の組曲を収録。別れをテーマにした「Despedida」と、アーネスト・ヘミングウェイの小説「老人と海」をモチーフにした「Dreaming in Lions」の組曲となっている。

オファレルにとって組曲は、物語の展開や映画的なアイデアを表現するための空間であり、作曲家として最も興味を持っているジャンル。父である伝説のバンドリーダーChico O'Farrill氏のように、彼は音楽の境界線を越えて、本物の高度な表現を探究する。「父をはじめ、私にさまざまな影響を受け入れるように指導してくれた恩師たちに感謝しています」とO'Farrillは語っている。この価値観は、息子であるトランペット奏者のAdam O'FarrillとドラマーのZack O'Farrillにも受け継がれており、彼らも本作に参加している。また、マルチ・パーカッショニストのVince Cherico、Carlos "Carly" Maldonado、Victor Pablo Garcia Gaetan、ベーシストのJose "Bam Bam" Rodriguez Platiau、トロンボーン・ユーフォニストのRafi Malkiel、フルーティスト・サクソフォン奏者のAlejandro Aviles、ギタリストのTravis Reuterが参加。

発売・販売元 提供資料 （2021/08/06）

Composer, bandleader, and pianist Arturo O’Farrill delivers his Blue Note debut with his ten-piece Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble (drawn from his larger orchestra). Dreaming in Lions comprises two lengthy, multi-movement original suites. The title piece is inspired by Ernest Hemingways novella The Old Man and the Sea, and is presented alongside Despedida. Both were composed in collaboration with the Cuban Malpaso Dance Company and its artistic director, Osnel Delgado, and have been performed around the world. This music is dramatic and sweeping, filled with polyrhythms, dynamic textures, and complex harmonics. OFarrills lineup includes three percussionists, brass, reeds, winds, guitar, and a drum kit. The bandleader handles piano and electric piano. This music retains a live, spontaneous quality inspired by performing with the dance company in real time. The five-part Despedida suite is first. Del Mar offers the piano as a tolling church bell. A rumbling bassline frames the chords as a euphonium delivers the melody line while saxophones stutter in the backdrop. The trumpet adds an elegiac lyric line. The bandleader shifts gears with a post-bop-flavored son montuno, while the rhythm signals the change and the band swings like mad. Intruso, with an electric bass, balances avant-jazz with post-bop, Afro-Latin funk, and carnival music. While Beauty Cocoon is a modernist bolero showcase for intricate flute, trumpet, and trombone work, it crosses rhumba and merengue with guaganco rhythms. Ensayo Silencio is a Latin jazz fusion jam with a strutting electric bassline, swirling, punchy, Joe Zawinul-esque keyboard layers, and buoyant tenor and brass engagement. The Dreaming in Lions suite is composed of nine movements. Its less celebratory -- more moody and detailed in execution. The title track offers slippery, ethereal piano as bass and flute create a melodic frame to assist the horns in building drama by combining folk forms, jazz, and classical music. Scalular is incendiary as the percussionists battle both one another and the bopping, skittering horn section amid angular piano montunos driven by a fleet walking bassline. The Deep is brooding. OFarrill plays aggressive chordal vamps on a Fender Rhodes as trumpet soars over an undercurrent of layered, harmonized horns. The guitar and soprano sax playfully engage while the euphonium guides it all from the bottom. Struggles and Strugglets is a smoking, angular jazz-funk track wherein electric bass, guitar, and keys move against percussion and syncopated horns. I Wish I Was is a tender ballad with detailed, delicate brass, saxes, and piano harmonies. Son Adam OFarrills trumpet solo is one of the albums most moving moments. Closer Dreams So Gold is a meditative, classically tinged solo piano piece performed beautifully by OFarrills wife, Alison Deane. Dreaming in Lions is simply stellar. Its sophistication is underscored by OFarrills wild originality as a composer and arranger. This impeccably rehearsed band fires on all cylinders with an instinctive dramatic flair, infusing each composition with taste and color. In sum, Dreaming in Lions stands as one OFarrills most adventurous, passionately performed works. ~ Thom Jurek

Rovi