Alejandro Falcon is a Matanzas man that after graduating from composition at the University of Arts of Cuba (ISA), just thinks of music. Twenty-four hours are not enough to appease the flood of impulses that make him a great jazz musician. His theory: the "constant evolution of music", has made this young man to become a one man band.
His project Cubadentro was born in 2008 after years of working to achieve technical maturity, virtuosity in interpretation and therefore his need to run his own symphony. Two years later he released Chiaroscuro, his first CD with eight songs written entirely by him, where he let us glimpse the first steps toward his musical identity: to rescue danzón. “Danzando entre puentes” Mayito Rivera with and Germán Velazco playing the soprano sax gave him the guarantee of a promising future.
What did 2012 bring to Falcon’s professional life?
"During this year I was working on my second album Cuba Now Danzon, dedicated to danzones for different formats: jazz band, jazz trio, string orchestra and string quartet, piano and drums. Here I worked with over 40 guest musicians, including the Mozarteum Orchestra, the jazz band of Joaquin Betancourt with the arrangement of the song El bombín de Barreto…
"It was also Pablo Milanes who I had the good fortune to play along in the song La Mora, a very old singing danzón that Barbarito Diez and Rodrigo Prats Orchestra used to sing, we did it at piano and voice. I also invited Mayito Rivera to perform Tres Lindas Cubanas, and Luna Manzanares sang El danzonete, a piece we did in bossa nova style. I was fortunate to record with musicians of my quartet as Cubadentro Keysel Jimenez on drums and timbales and Guillermo del Toro on the congas.
"I am very happy with this record production because they are young people playing danzón, a very modern and cool way to see that genre, the national dance. I hope it comes out soon because right now is the mixing process".
But this is not the only CD where you are involved?
"Sure, I am also involved in the one dedicated to Ernesto Lecuona tentatively called Jojazz Pianists play Lecuona. This is an idea of Alexis Vazquez who also is the producer. He chose four pianists of the new generation of Cuban jazz players and even different ages as Rolando Luna, Jorge Luis Pacheco, Alejandro Meroño and I, and each of us selected three works of this piano composer, and in each arrangement we add our personal vision.
"In my case I chose La comparsa with Adel Gonzalez on congas, La danza lucumí and invited Michel Herrera on the saxophone and A la antigua, small dances of the nineteenth century.
But Alexander has not rested at all this year. If indeed this 2012 the world had ended, this guy and would have had much…
"At the Havana Jazz Colleted by Yasek Manzano, a project that brings together several youngsters, I was called to participate in this edition which included recording a CD and a DVD with the sounds of Michel Herrera, Emir Santa Cruz, Ernesto Camilo Vega, maestro Ruy Lopez Nussa and Omar Gonzalez on the bass, along with Hector Quintana on guitar and me on the piano, among others.
"The project will soon have a second edition with another CD and DVD where each of the musicians will include one piece. Also I was on tour in Japan, like last year, a project organized by producer Murakami, and he invited Tania Pantoja and an all star: Haila, Cesar Lopez, Feliciano Arango, Ruly Herrera. We made two recordings at a studio in Tokyo, out of which a DVD was made from a televised spectacle in that city. "
In the recently concluded Jazz Plaza, one of the most important events in our country where jazz players measure their talent, the noble and humble Matanzas musician played at his best. With presentations on the Cohiba Hotel along with his Cubadentro quartet, in the Bertolt Brecht theater and next December 30th with Luna Manzanares in the Yellow Submarine with the musical El espíritu de The Beatles to close the year.
How would you define jazz in Cuba at present?
"Cuba is an island and that inevitably marks us. We have a way to be different and to project it to the world. This generation has received a lot of international influence and experienced an openning, many of us have been part of large orchestras and have traveled to different countries, so we are always listening to the latest, with the material we try to create our way of playing and composing music.
"Right now something very pretty is happening, Zucchero was in Havana and also Julieta Venegas, Fito Paez, the Lincoln Center from New York, that is, that Cuba is opening up more to the world, and this is very healthy because it makes the music flow and does not stagnate in a way of thinking. "
Author
Claudia Menéndez
