Lil Drummer Boy
During a rare five-day residence at The Jazz Standard, music lovers will be treated to Dafnis Prieto's unique stick sound, a blend of percussion-oriented rumberos (who play during the annual Carnaval festivities in his native Cuba), American masters like Elvin Jones and Brazilian greats such as Hermeto Paschoal and Egberto Gismonti.
Emigrating to the U.S. in 1999, Prieto has performed with Steve Coleman (with whom he played at Brazil's Ouro Preto Fesival two years ago) and Chucho Valdez (among others), all the while developing his own ideas, which appear on last year's About The Monks and next month's Absolute Quintet.
"I've been working on changing the ideas and the approach, and as we perform I am happy to see that it's working," Prieto says.
At the Standard, he'll play new material alongside songs from previous albums, and will be accompanied by David Binney (sax, alto and soprano), Peter Apfelbaum (tenor sax, percussion), Manuel Valera (piano) and Hans Glawischnig (bass).
"There are some tunes I've been carrying over but have never recorded, which fit in the two-saxophone format of Monks," he reveals. Recommended for open-minded Latin jazz enthusiasts.