Ray Barretto

Standards Rican-Ditioned (ZM 200610)

Standards Rican-Ditioned Agrandir l'image

2005

Standards Rican-Ditioned

Ray Barretto

Zoho

880956061023

ZOH 114522

ZM 200610

JAZZ

1

Standards Rican-Ditioned

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CD 14,99 €

Personnel: Ray Barretto (congas, arrangements), Hilton Ruiz (piano, arrangements), David Sanchez (tenor sax), Papo Vazquez (trombone), John Benitez, acoustic bass), Adam Cruz (drums) with guest Chris Barretto (alto sax).

Produced by Ray Barretto.

Tracks: 1. Suddenly It's Spring, 2. Baby, Baby All the Time, 3. Strange Music, 4. Ivy, 5. I Had the Craziest Dream, 6. Lover Man, 7. Say Something to Live For, 8. Lean on Me, 9. Blues in E Flat.
Recorded at Kaleidoscope Sound Studios in Union City, NJ, from December 14-16, 2005.

This was sadly to be the last recording by two of Latin Jazz's best-loved names: Ray Barretto (April 29, 1929-February 17, 2006) and also pianist Hilton Ruiz (May 29, 1952-June 6, 2006), a Puerto Rican-American jazz pianist in the Afro-Cuban mold, but who was also a talented bebop player.
For this, his last, recording Ray Barretto did not want to record his regular touring sextet, but rather an all-star ensemble of top Puerto Rican jazz musicians. These musicians usually play Latin jazz, but he wanted to feature them in a 1950's Blue Note style straight-ahead blowing session, in classic North American jazz standards.

The song selection and arrangements demonstrate Ray's meticulous care with detail, and his encyclopedic knowledge of the by-ways of the classic "Great American Song Book" repertoire: an example is the ballad "Suddenly It's Spring", performed by the young Frank Sinatra in the early 1940s but which Sinatra never officially recorded. Ray possessed a rare live radio broadcast check tape of it - which was carefully transcribed by pianist Hilton Ruiz for the present recording.

This final CD recording shows Ray Barretto and his all-star band at the absolute peak of his and their creative powers. What adds extra poignancy to his album is that it also features for the first time Ray's son Chris Barretto, 20 years old, on alto sax, in two stunning solos. Chris is presently studying at the Manhattan School of Music. "Ray was so proud of his son's accomplishments that he made me listen to the solos over the telephone, right after they were recorded", remembers Jochen Becker, head of Zoho Records.


"Ray Barretto scat-sings stirring rhythms on "Strange Music," the final track of the just-released "Standards Rican-ditioned". But that vocal was never meant for our ears. Mr. Barretto, who helped define the role of the conga drum in both jazz and Latin music, sang merely as a marker for the percussion part he'd intended to overdub. But he suffered a heart attack the very January day he was to return to the studio. He died on Feb. 17, of heart failure, at age 76. Beyond his son, Mr. Barretto gathered an extended musical family for "Standards Rican-ditioned," with a clear mission: a straight-ahead jazz session reminiscent of 1950s Blue Note and Riverside recordings, featuring top-rank musicians of Puerto Rican descent. "This was a dream of my father's," Chris says, "and an important statement for him. He wanted to prove that Puerto Rican musicians could play more than just Latin jazz, that they could play in an authentic straight-ahead style."was musically bilingual." "For my dad, it was a perfect, complete moment," recalls Chris Barretto. You can see it yourself, in Ray's expression: The cover photo of "Standards Rican-ditioned" was taken from the wings of a Hilton Hotel ballroom stage, seconds after Mr. Barretto accepted his final honor." - Wall Street Journal (September 21, 2006)