Cry Me A River

The last time Cuban-born, Canada-based pianist Hilario Duran released a big band album with 2006s From the Heart, he picked up a Grammy nomination and won the Juno Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. Seventeen years later, he delivers his follow-up, 2023s Cry Me a River, his second album to feature his 19-piece Latin Jazz Big Band. A virtuoso performer, composer, and bandleader, Duran initially garnered acclaim in the 1970s after taking over the piano chair from Chucho Valdes in Cubas famed Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna. From there, he spent over a decade with trumpeter Arturo Sandoval before settling in Canada. He has distinguished himself since then as one of the leading lights of Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz, continually broadening the stylistic traditions he grew up with and weaving in post-bop jazz and classical harmonies. Cry Me a River expands upon this legacy as Duran brings together his varied influences into a cohesive and sophisticated style. Cuts like the opening "Paca por Juanito" and "Mambo y Tumbao" are exuberantly kinetic Latin jazz dance numbers that nicely update the sound bandleaders like Tito Puente popularized from the 50s onward. We also get the dusky romanticism of "Claudia," a lyrical ballad played emotively by alto saxophonist Paquito DRivera, a longtime associate of Duran. Also making vital contributions are his longtime drummer Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez and bassist Roberto Occhipinti, the latter of whom lays down a funky acoustic groove on the hip-hop-meets-hard-bop tribute to Charles Mingus, "I Remember Mingus." Elsewhere, Duran carves out plenty of solo space for his band on his arrangement of Dizzy Gillespies classic "A Night in Tunisia," and combines swinging jazz with the romantic classical work of composer Frederic Chopin on "Fantasia Impromptu." Central to the album is Durans cover of the standard "Cry Me a River," made famous by singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Julie London, and which he uses here to showcase the equally vibrant talents of singer and violinist Elizabeth Rodriguez. ~ Matt Collar