Reviews

“Snazzy is what comes to mind here. With never a dull moment to harsh your vibe, this is going to take you to the groovy Latin jazz club in your mind where gringos are always welcome.” – Chris Spector (Midwest Record)  

SOCRATES GARCIA LATIN JAZZ ORCHESTRA/Back Home: A Dominican cat now teaching in Colorado rounds up a slew of great soloists to join forces under the penumbra of his big band for a trip back to the mother land to lay down an easy going but high energy mash up of Afro-Caribe jazz/dance music that’ll get you whether you like to get up and shake it or sit and listen. Snazzy is what comes to mind here. With never a dull moment to harsh your vibe, this is going to take you to the groovy Latin jazz club in your mind where gringos are always welcome. Check it out.

Connections with Latin music go back to the earliest years of jazz (Jelly Roll Morton’s ‛Latin tinge’ comes readily to mind) and there have long been big band links. Among these have been Frank Grillo, Maria Bauza, Tito Puente and Dizzy Gillespie. A significant figure today is Socrates Garcia, who was born in the Dominican Republic, which is where he first played guitar but was diverted into an engineering career. Fortunately, that did not last and he decided that music was to be his life. While playing rock and pop, he also studied extensively in America, including spells at the Grove School, Luther College, and universities in Tennessee and Colorado. These studies ranged widely, incorporating classical music but also generating an interest in big band jazz. On this album, Socrates presents his Latin Jazz Orchestra playing his own compositions, which includes his Dominican Suite. The musicians here come from America (recorded at University of Northern Carolina where Socrates is Director of Music Technology) and from the Dominican Republic (recorded at MIDILAB studies, where he had worked as an engineer). All the music on this fine set is exhilarating and played with verve by the band ably demonstrating that big band Latin jazz is alive and well.

Socrates Garcia, composer/arranger/conductor/producer/guitar; Manuel Tejada, piano; Pengbian Sang, bass; Steve Kovalcheck, guitar; Helen De La Rosa, drums; Felix “Abuelo” Garcia, tambura, congas, atabales & vocals; Rafael Almengod, atabales, tambu; Josue Reynoso, guira; Otoniel Nicolas, timbales; Wil Swindler, alto, soprano, flute; Briana Harris, alto, flute; Kenyon Brenner, tenor, flute, clarinet; Brielle Frost, flute; Joel Harris, tenor, clarinet; Ryan Middagh, baritone, bass clarinet; Brad Goode, Dave Rajewski, Jordan Skomal, Miles Roth, Trumpets/flugalhorns; Joe Chisholm, Frank Cook, Jonathan Zimny, & Guillermo Rivera: Trombones; Gary Mayne, bass trombone; Hovernys Santana, Lia Nova & Rafael Almengod, vocals.

This recording is smart, well arranged and mixed to perfection. The percussion stands out as strong as the horn lines and draws me in from the very first few bars. All the music on this project is composed, arranged and conducted by Socrates Garcia. Believe me, the arrangements are dynamic and beautiful. The orchestration is lush and the musicians are masterfully articulate.

Garcia claims his music to be “autobiographical” as in “… a point of arrival and departure, arriving to a place where I could combine my heritage with the aesthetics of jazz; departure, towards a promising future for this symbiotic relationship.”

On “Vantage Point,” stewing in ‘merengue’ and allowing Felix ‘Abuelo’ Garcia to flex his percussive muscles, I am hooked. The rhythms are contagious and make me want to dance and celebrate life. Garcia brings his Dominican Republic roots to the party. The musicians sparkle like stars over the cities of Santo Domingo or Santiago de los Caballeros. Each song has a generous story included in the linear notes to explain what prompted that particular composition. There is mention of ‘bachata’ being a type of music currently accepted worldwide that grew, like the USA blues, from the underground. For many years, bachata was considered a second-class music. It is represented prominently in the title tune, “Back Home” that Garcia claims is a brief journey through his musical career. He has bridged cultures, using pillars of Heavy Metal, Dominican folk music and jazz to support his extravagantly structured arrangements and compositions. Because of the clarity of this recording, I must give credit to Garcia and Greg Heimbecker for their mixologist expertise and to Heimbecker for the final mastering; beautifully executed!

Socrates Garcia is the Director of Music Technology at University of Northern Colorado where he teaches courses in Music Technology, Digital Composition and Recording Techniques. This is also where he recorded this project. Dr. Garcia’s credits include the album Yo Por Ti by Puerto Rican artist Olga Tañon, Grammy Award winner of Merengue Album of the Year 2001; musical director/keyboardist for Los Ilegales in their 1997-1998 Latin American tour; keyboardist for multi-Grammy winner Juan Luis Guerra; and guest performer with the Dominican Republic’s National Symphony Orchestra, among others. His first solo CD titled “Suenos”, was released in 2005. This contemporary jazz big band project is bound to be another feather in the cap of a scholar and creative genius who brings multi-culture and flair to the big band stage. You can find Scores/Parts available at http://www.uncjazzpress.com.”

Michel Camilo is the most celebrated son of the Dominican Republic – culturally at any rate. But far away in the great halls of the University of Northern Colorado is Socrates Garcia, titular head of Music Technology. This is a rather obscure title for a doctor of music, and more than that, a guitarist, composer, arranger and conductor of the University of Northern Colorado Latin Jazz Band. It is these fine players , augmented by a remarkable group of musicians from the Dominican Republic, who have formed this Latin Jazz Orchestra, musicians who have performed Garcia’s music on Back Home. This performance includes Garcia’s ambitious extended piece, Dominican Suite for Jazz Orchestra.

There have been many albums performed by university students not only from the US, but from other parts of the world. What sets this band apart is its ability to read the very complex scores of Garcia’s music. They are difficult, requiring great concentration because of the Palos, Atabales and the relatively unexplored Bachata traditional forms that have been melded into the jazz – and, at times, rock – aspects of the compositions. Most challenging of all is the great speed at which this music must be played and the rapidity of the rhythmic changes as well as its demanding melodic twists and turns. These, therefore, are musicians who must be extremely well-schooled. But what about musical invention and the ability to improvise on chord changes? The proof of that is in the soli that inform all of the pieces. There is precious little space to name all of the soloists. You must buy the disc and refer to the back of the inlay card for that. There is no praise high enough for them.

But one musician gets mentioned briefly in Garcia’s notes and only in the personnel listing. She is the drummer, Helen De La Rosa. Not only has De La Rosa been assigned a role seemingly tucked between the woodwinds, brass and the rest of the rhythm section, but she has to share percussion duties with the percussionists, the Bachata drummers from the Dominican Republic. What she does with her trap set is truly remarkable. Nestling cheek-by-jowl with the Dominican drummers De La Rosa carves out a space for herself. She is erudite, plays with extraordinary precision and yet invents rhythmic figures behind and ahead of the complex beat. Drumming like this is worthy of notice. Listen to her on Back Home and throughout the Dominican Suite for Jazz Orchestra. (Not that she is not brilliant in the rest of the repertoire), but in these pieces De La Rosa give a fine account of herself.

Celebration of the Butterflies is a gorgeous piece and must share the honours with the Dominican Suite. Socrates Garcia’s notes describe the antecedents of the composition. I do not normally read notes before listening to the music. This way, I allow for the music to speak for itself first. Upon listening to Celebration of the Butterflies I was intrigued because of the manner in which the music ‘became’ the title. It is a heartbreaking story. It deals with the assassination of the Mirabel sisters by Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, the brutal dictator of the Dominican Republic. The day of these martyrs has since come to be known as the International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women. Apart from this historic note, Celebration of the Butterflies is a soaring piece about the triumph of human endeavour. It also shares the honours of this wonderful album.

“Back Home (MAMA Records – 1050) by the SOCRATES GARCIA LATIN JAZZ ORCHESTRA, while flavored with the sounds and rhythms of Garcia’s native Dominican Republic, is more a straightforward modern big band album than a “Latin Jazz” album.  Garcia teaches at the University of Northern Colorado.  For this program of original selections by Garcia, he gathered a blend of UNC students, Colorado musicians and players from the Dominican Republic to form a tight-knit unit that brings out the joy in his charts.  The horns and rhythm section were recorded at UNC, while the percussion section and vocals were recorded in the Dominican Republic.  The music is nicely appealing, blending the Dominican bachata and merengue styles with modern jazz conceptions to create a program that should appeal to both Latin Jazz enthusiasts and those who dig big band music.  Back Home should make you feel comfortable no matter where home is.  (www.mamajazz.com)”

Socrates Garcia explains in the liner notes to his group’s February release, Back Home, that the album has him “arriving to a place where I could combine my heritage with the aesthetics of jazz” and move that combination “towards a promising future for this symbiotic relationship.” Although the idea of creating such a symbiotic relationship may not be particularly new, Dominican-born Garcia and his Latin Jazz Orchestra bring it to life with dynamic force. Back Home is top of the line big band Latin jazz.

The seven-track album, all composed and arranged by Garcia, begins with the high voltage “Vantage Point,” a tune based on the merengue that runs close to nine minutes. It features Ryan Middagh on the baritone sax and pianist Manuel Tejada as well as some real energy from the percussion section. This is followed by “Calle El Conde a Las 8:00,” a composition that celebrates the liveliness of what the composer remembers as a vibrant cultural neighborhood of his youth. Will Swindler on soprano sax and Jordan Skomal on trumpet capture the essence of the local scene.

The tenor sax of Kenyon Brenner highlights both “Celebration of the Butterflies,” a salute to the Mirabal sisters – anti-Trujillo activists assassinated in 1960 and the subjects of the novel and later the film In the Time of the Butterflies – and the album’s title song.

Back Home closes with a three-part suite entitled “Dominican Suite for Jazz Orchestra,” a major piece much in the tradition of the famed big band suites of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. The first part is “Homage to Tavito.” Tavito Vasquez is a saxophonist, Garcia explains, revered as the “Charlie Parker of the Caribbean.” Garcia uses it as an opportunity to explore the symbiotic union of bebop and the merengue.

The suite provides a fine conclusion to Socrates Garcia’s jazz-soaked tribute to his homeland.

When Dominican native Socrates Garcia takes hold of his 20-plus-piece Latin Jazz Orchestra, the effect is that of a spectacular live performance out in the open at Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival in the middle of a gladiator summer and right on the shores of breathtaking Lake Geneva…His Latin Jazz Orchestra raises up jazz and merengue through the sophisticated palette of big band orchestration and the lowdown, sensuous intrigue of the dance music inherent in both. All without ego.

“I give Socrates and his players a MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for this great jazz release; “EQ” (energy quotient) rating is 4.98.”

 

“Socrates Garcia – BACK HOME:  To simply state that this is “tasty Latin jazz” would not do justice to the vibrant energy that Mr. Garcia is able to project through his masterful compositions on tunes like the fabulous opener, the 8:39 “Vantage Point“… the liner notes say that his music is “tinged” with the colors of the Caribbean – more like “fully applied”… I just loved the way this tune expresses such vigor for life and the living of it!  He also plays guitar on the title track, “Back Home“… one of the liveliest tunes I’ve listened to (yet) in 2016!  It was the percussion and total integration of all the players/instruments on “Celebration of the Butterflies” that made it my personal favorite of the seven extended compositions.. it’s a tribute to three sisters who rebelled against the tyranny of the Trujillo regime (back in the day), and expresses just the right amount of “forward-looking” with “attitude” that’s needed to make a tune most memorable.  I give Socrates and his players a MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for this great jazz release; “EQ” (energy quotient) rating is 4.98.

“Not only is Back Home a near-perfect blend of Dominican and American music, it stands tall on its own as a superlative example of big-band jazz at its best.”

” data-original-title=””>Pengbian Sang and drummer

” data-original-title=””>Helen De La Rosa (with an assist from percussionists Felix “Abuelo” Garcia, Rafael Almengod, Josue Reynoso and Otoniel Nicolas). Guitarist Steve Kovalchek is added on “Celebration of the Butterflies,” and Garcia plays guitar on “Back Home.”

The album’s centerpiece and inspiration is the colorful “Dominican Suite,” which opens with a sharply drawn “Tribute to Tavito” (identified by Garcia as saxophonist Tavito Vasquez, known as “the

” data-original-title=””>Charlie Parker of the Caribbean”). As SuperSax did for Parker, Garcia has embedded one of Vasquez’s solos as part of the composition. The second movement, “Bachata for Two,” akin to a Latin waltz, was written for Garcia’s wife, Wanda, while the third, “From Across the Street,” recalls folk music—called Palos or Atabales—performed by a woman who lived across the street from Garcia’s home in the Dominican Republic and is the only track on the album with vocals (by a suitably well-spoken quartet). The opening number, “Vantage Point,” is a bracing merengue whose charming melody and addictive rhythms give way to canny solos by Tejada and baritone saxophonist Ryan Middagh. The vivacious “Calle el Conde a Las 8:00,” whose bright solos are by soprano Wil Swindler and trumpeter Jordan Skomal, precedes the earnest “Celebration of the Butterflies,” Garcia’s homage to the three Mirabel sisters who were assassinated by dictator Rafael Trujillo’s government for their opposition to his regime. Tenor Kenyon Brenner is showcased on “Butterflies,” as he is on “Back Home.” Another splendid soloist, trumpeter

” data-original-title=””>Brad Goode, is front and center on “Bachata for Two” and shares the spotlight with Tejada on “Homage to Tavito.”

Not only is Back Home a near-perfect blend of Dominican and American music, it stands tall on its own as a superlative example of big-band jazz at its best. Well done, Socrates.

The current upsurge in Latin-based jazz is understandable – infectious rhythms, no pet shop fires and a groove that gets across to the non-jazz listener as well as those who have been into it since the days of Kenton, Gillespie, Machito and, in the UK, Kenny Graham and his Afro-Cubists.

 

This album continues that tradition combining, as it does, contemporary jazz big band with the Caribbean colours of Garcia’s Dominican Republic.

“Socrates Garcia – BACK HOME:  To simply state that this is “tasty Latin jazz” would not do justice to the vibrant energy that Mr. Garcia is able to project through his masterful compositions on tunes like the fabulous opener, the 8:39 “Vantage Point“… the liner notes say that his music is “tinged” with the colors of the Caribbean – more like “fully applied”… I just loved the way this tune expresses such vigor for life and the living of it!  He also plays guitar on the title track, “Back Home“… one of the liveliest tunes I’ve listened to (yet) in 2016!  It was the percussion and total integration of all the players/instruments on “Celebration of the Butterflies” that made it my personal favorite of the seven extended compositions.. it’s a tribute to three sisters who rebelled against the tyranny of the Trujillo regime (back in the day), and expresses just the right amount of “forward-looking” with “attitude” that’s needed to make a tune most memorable.  I give Socrates and his players a MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for this great jazz release; “EQ” (energy quotient) rating is 4.98.