NEWS

TODAY’S OPINION

Second Disc by Afro-Cuban Saxophonist Now Available on iTunes and Amazon.com

NEW YORK (March 19, 2012)—In saxophonist-composer Yosvany Terry’s second album as a leader, Today’s Opinion(Criss Cross), he makes a persuasive case for what jazz should be. With his stellar longtime musical partners and, on one explosive track, special guest pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Terry proposes a sonic world of Afro-Cuban polyrhythms and sophisticated contemporary angles. He taps his deep cultural roots as a Cuban as well as insights he’s gained traveling the globe. He addresses both the ancient and the immediate on the CD, framing his inspired, improvised statements and those of his colleagues in cool, tight-knit small band arrangements that offer listeners easy entry into music that’s genuinely new.

Whether out front with his alto and soprano saxophones or shaking his beaded gourd chekére, Terry shapes all of Today’s Opinion. He collaborates with many of his longtime musical partners including Osmany Paredes (piano), his brother Yunior Terry (bass), Mike Rodriguez (trumpet), Pedro Martinez (percussion and vocals) and Obed Calvaire (drums) on his latest creation, which includes a guest appearance by multi-keyboard master Rubalcaba on the track “Son Contemporaneo.” Terry, who composed eight of the nine original songs found on Today’s Opinion, once again displays the talent that caused the New York Times to say of him in 2003 that he has “helped redefine Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz as a complex new idiom.”

“Musicians are cultural ambassadors by default—constantly working with people from different cultures and traveling to different places,” Said Terry. “With Today’s Opinion I had a chance to incorporate these cultures and influences, while offering my own ‘op-ed piece’ on where I think music is and an analysis of where I see jazz headed.”

And Terry and his band are saying something in Today’s Opinion that rewards listening, something that’s a sure sign of jazz’s ongoing evolution and that may well set new standards for the music of tomorrow.

Today’s Opinion is available on iTunes and Amazon.com. More information on the album and Terry can be found at www.yosvanyterry.com.

For media inquiry or interview, please contact:

  • Cheryl L. Duncan at cheryl@cherylduncanpr.com or 201-332-8338

  • or Alimah Boyd at alimah@cherylduncanpr.com or 201-332-8338

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL – REVIEW

June 24, 2014
Cubans with a New York Twist
This isn’t your father’s Cuban jazz

By Larry Blumenfeld

To close a May concert at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, Arturo O’Farrill led his orchestra through “The Afro Cuban Jazz Suite,” a landmark work by his father, the late composer and bandleader Chico O’Farrill. That suite, first recorded in 1950, imagined anew innate connections between American and Cuban idioms and among folkloric, jazz and classical forms.

If the rest of the Apollo Theater concert built on that legacy, it did so with a wide-ranging ambition Chico O’Farrill could scarcely have imagined. At some points a turntablist, DJ Logic, stood beside the percussionists, lending textures and rhythms by manipulating LPs. Throughout, the music was grounded as much in styles native to Peru and Colombia, and in the adventurous attitudes of musicians such as pianist and composer Carla Bley, one of Mr. O’Farrill’s earliest mentors, as in his direct inheritance. This was distinctly not his father’s Afro Latin jazz.

Elsewhere in Harlem and later in May, alto saxophonist Yosvany Terry performed at Minton’s alongside his brother, bassist Yunior Terry, in a sextet led by their father, Eladio “Don Pancho” Terry. The Terry brothers, too, were born into heady Cuban tradition. Don Pancho is the violinist and founding director of the Orquesta Maravillas de Florida, a Cuban charanga band, and master of the chekeré, a beaded gourd used for percussion. At Minton’s, the sextet performed a mixture of traditional charanga repertoire and more forward-leaning music Yosvany composed for his working quintet.

Musicians with roots in Cuba who now live in New York—having absorbed influences and made associations that span borders and genres—bring new sonic possibilities and fresh perspectives to their heritages. In turn, they invigorate New York’s scene. Two recent CDs—”The Offense of the Drum” (Motéma), from Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, and Yosvany Terry’s “New Throned King” (5Passion)—embody such promise through distinctly different approaches.

Mr. O’Farrill, 54, was born in Mexico and grew up in Manhattan. As part of his nonprofit Afro Latin Jazz Alliance since 2007, the orchestra has developed an expansive aesthetic that plays out through commissioned pieces for concert seasons. “The world of Latin jazz has exploded,” he said recently at his Brooklyn home. “My father did what he did in his era because that was the world he knew. In my world, there’s Peru and Colombia and Ecuador and Venezuela and more—plus, of course, Cuba. For the past seven or eight years, I’ve explored these connections for all their beauty, power and range.”

Mr. O’Farrill’s CD opens with “Cuarto de Colores,” a celebration of Colombian harp composed by Edmar Castañeda, who plays that instrument with remarkable command. Among its most stirring pieces are Pablo Mayor’s “Mercado en Domingo,” based in the Colombian marching-band tradition; “Gnossienne 3 (Tientos),” for which Spanish arranger Miguel Blanco invested French composer Erik Satie’s music with the pained vocals and curled melismas of flamenco; and “The Offense of the Drum,” an ambitious O’Farrill composition incorporating Japanese taiko drums. That such range forms a coherent musical whole lends credence to his mission.

Mr. Terry, 43, is an especially dynamic presence in New York. In addition to his quintet, he recently formed Bohemian Trio, with a cellist and pianist, and composed the score for “Makandal,” an opera conceived and written by Carl Hancock Rux, scheduled for its Harlem Stage premiere in November. In performance, Mr. Terry often picks up the chekeré his father taught him to play. His new CD explores a tradition more closely related to his mother’s lineage: arará culture, drawn from the former West African kingdom of Dahomey. The group he assembles here, Ye-Dé-Gbé, includes Cuban musicians well versed in arará, such as percussionists Román Díaz, Pedrito Martinez and Sandy Pérez, and players with no prior exposure, such as drummer Justin Brown. Though layered with jazz improvisation and, in some spots, electronics, the music’s core is formed by arará chants and drumming, undisturbed. “I could have composed something simply based on that legacy,” Mr. Terry said. “But I left this material the way it was, to interact with everything else.” This music remains functional: a recent Manhattan album-release performance included a costumed dancer, Francisco Barroso.

These two new recordings pursue very different ends yet share some qualities. Each meaningfully incorporates DJ culture—on Mr. O’Farrill’s CD, through DJ Logic’s turntables; on Mr. Terry’s album, via Haitian DJ Val Jeanty, whose constructed soundscapes include recorded samples of ceremonies. Each features spoken-word poetry: During “They Came,” on Mr. O’Farrill’s CD, Christopher “Chilo” Cajigas explores Puerto Rican identity in the U.S.; on Mr. Terry’s CD, Ishmael Reed celebrates women warriors from Dahomey. On each recording, eras and borders collapse within a track or even a passage—as when Mr. O’Farrill’s piano playing moves from ragtime to Cuban montuno to something akin to free-jazz, and when Mr. Terry’s playing evokes Ornette Coleman’s extrapolated blues atop ritual-based handclaps and chants.

The cross-cultural truth behind Afro Latin jazz is not news. What sounds fresh in Mr. O’Farrill’s version is the breadth of geography it may now embrace. Arará tradition is ancient, yet Mr. Terry expresses it in novel and urgent ways. Both recordings can change anyone’s landscape.

Mr. Blumenfeld writes about jazz for the Journal. He also blogs at www.blogs.artinfo.com/blunotes.

DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE – REVIEW

DownBeat Magazine – 2012-08
By Ned Sublette
Yosvany Terry – Today’s Opinion (Criss Cross jazz 1343)

Today’s Opinion, Yosvany Terry’s third title as a leader, is the latest dispatch from the ongoing redefinition of Latin jazz. Lyrical, complex and caffeinated, it combines the instrumentation and ground rules of the classic hard-bop quintet with the rhythmic savvy of Afro-Cuban music and long-arc compositional ambition. We’ve had a taste of this before: Three of Terry’s compositions were featured on Gonzalo Rubalcaba’s brilliant album Avatar. Terry (on alto and soprano) and Michael Rodríguez (trumpet) were the horns on that album, and the Terry-Rodríguez duo returns to frontline Today’s Opinion, along with mind- linked brother bassist Yunior Terry, pianist Osmany Paredes and drummer Obed Calvaire. Longtime collaborator Pedrito Martínez opens the set, affirming his commitment by chanting in the ritual language of Cuba’s Abakuá secret society (as Chano Pozo once did), and he reappears on congas for the album’s closer, “Son Contemporáneo.” On that number, Rubalcaba phones in his blessing on synth—the only outside overdub on the album, which was otherwise recorded in two ensemble sessions.

Terry, who also plays shekere, has a practitioner’s comprehension of the Afro-Cuban religious repertoires, and the rhythmic acuity of this ensemble is impressive. Terry’s compositions explore structure as well as rhythm, melody and harmony. His orchestration wrings timbral earworms out of the quintet format via strategically weighted harmonic doublings, sometimes in minor seconds or clusters. The impact is maximized by Paredes, whose split-brain part calls on him to double a locked-in countertime ostinato with Yunior Terry’s bass while his right hand doubles the horns’ flying 32nd notes. This is physical, cerebral and spiritual music, with a lot of stories to tell. Today’s Opinion affirms that Yosvany Terry has become a composer and player of importance while the international community of clave is producing some of the most exciting music around.

Today’s Opinion: Summer Relief; Contrapuntístico; Inner Speech; Returning Home; Harlem Matinee; Suzanne; Another Vision Of Oji; Son Contemporáneo. (66:44)

Personnel: Yosvany Terry, saxophones, chekeré; Michael Rodríguez, trumpet; Osmany Paredes, piano; Yunior Terry, bass; Obed Calvaire, drums; Pedro Martínez, vocal (1), percussion (1, 6, 8); Gonzalo Rubalcaba, synthesizer (8).

PRESS RELEASE – JUNE 10, 2014

Release Date: June 10, 2014
YOSVANY TERRY releases his debut for 5Passion Music,
NEW THRONED KING, featuring his group Afro-Cuban Roots: Ye-dé-gbé

NEW THRONED KING is one of the most powerful releases of 2014, from anyone. A unique album that writes a new chapter of Afro-Cuban jazz, it draws on an endangered but deep branch of Afro-Cuban heritage: the arará tradition, from the territory that is now in the nation of Benin (known as Dahomey at the time of the middle passage from Africa to the Americas.)

Before making this album, YOSVANY TERRY was initiated into the arará sabalú cabildo (lodge) in Matanzas, Cuba. After earning the trust of his padrino, he learned a repertoire of sacred music and ceremony – maintained in Cuba since the nineteenth century in a way not possible in Africa – that had been systematically kept from outsiders. He commissioned a set of drums on which to play the music he was learning. So this album is of great historical importance, offering as it does something old that is new.

But this is not simply a folkloric album. YOSVANY TERRY is a composer. He’s an outstanding alto saxophone player, who’s played with the greatest bandleaders in Cuba and New York, and as the son of Cuba’s best-known shekere player, he’s a natural percussionist. But like other members of his increasingly celebrated generation of Latin jazz musicians, he’s above all a composer.

Greatly inspired by the music of the Afro-Cuban ceremonial repertoire, NEW THRONED KING comprises a collection of compositions that grew from YOSVANY TERRY’s determination to preserve the arará tradition. It presents for the first time the ritual chants of arará sabalú outside their natural ceremonial environment in Matanzas.

These songs are not even known in Havana. In offering musical portraits of the various foddun, or spirits, YOSVANY TERRY’s compositions function as an artistic offering to them that stems from a deep commitment. With invited guests from a variety of places and traditions, NEW THRONED KING traces an arc from Dahomey to Cuba to New York. With the New York-based YOSVANY TERRY doing research in his home country of Cuba, the project created an open circuit between the Afro-Cuban nerve centers of New York and Matanzas.

If you think lots of people must be doing this by now, think again. There’s not another record like this.

For the musicians of Terry’s Afro-Cuban Roots: Ye-dé-gbé ensemble, playing this music was a commitment beyond the normal call of musicianship, because it requires an understanding of the arará religious practitioner. The jazz side is anchored by Terry’s brother Yunior Terry on bass (who was initiated into the cabildo arará sabalú of Matanzas together with Yosvany) and a grandmaster of harmonic rhythm, Osmany Paredes, on piano. The arará drums are played by a superstellar battery of Terry, Román Díaz, Pedrito Martínez, and, from Matanzas via Oakland, Sandy Pérez, all on arará drums, plus Justin Brown on drumset. Congolese guitarist Dominic Kanza weaves into the music, as does pianist Jason Moran. Sonic environments and ghost voices are created by DJ / sound designer Val Jeanty, who, in Terry’s words, “brings her Haitian cosmogony with her” to a project that celebrates Haiti’s deep roots in Africa. Poet and cultural critic Ishmael Reed recites in honor of the vodún Mase.

What’s vodou doing in there? Born in Camagüey, Cuba, in 1971, YOSVANY TERRY grew up surrounded by African religions. Indeed, they were in his family. From his Haitian-descended mother’s side, he learned the traditions of the rada branch of Haitian vodú, which comes from Dahomey.

His introduction to the arará tradition and its specific hand drums occurred on a trip to Cuba with Steve Coleman’s group upon meeting and performing with the iconic ensemble Afro Cuba de Matanzas.

In the long history of Africans in the Americas, music and spirit keep each other alive. NEW THRONED KING is an ambitious work of new music that seeks to breathe the breath of life into a tradition that only needs one careless generation to die out. In doing so, it demonstrates the creative powers of YOSVANY TERRY and the musicians of YE-DE-GBÉ.

The Story of The New Throned King as told by Yosvany Terry:

THE MUSICIANS OF AFRO-CUBAN ROOTS: YE-DÉ-GBÉ . . .

. . . are well versed in different styles of music, but they also understand the Arará tradition from the perspective of the practitioner of Afro-Cuban religion, so they’re able to place the music on the correct spiritual plane.

My brother Yunior Terry provides the fat beats that inspire dancers. He acts as a bridge between the long line of Cuban bassists and the jazz bass tradition of the US. We share all our family tradition as well as the knowledge of the Sabalú cabildo of Matanzas . . . I have worked with Osmany Paredes for many years. His rhythmic sensibility is equal to that of any great drummer. He is one of the few players of his generation who carries within him the deep legacy of the school of Cuban piano . . .

Pedro Martínez, besides being one of the most in-demand percussionists today, has a voice that connects you with the vodun. He’s a studious musician who carries a lot of tradition under his belt . . .

Román Díaz is the first person I call in New York to consult on anything regarding our folklore. A master drummer who learned from many of the greatest tamboreros of Havana, he and Pedro have a unique chemistry playing together that is manifest in this recording. I have always considered him the spiritual leader of the band . . . Sandy Pérez put me on the right path to meet Maño in order to start the full journey that culminated with this recording. A resident of California, he comes from one of the most important traditional families of Matanzas — the Villamil family, a founding family of both Los Muñequitos de Matanzas and Afro Cuba de Matanzas. He grew up inside cabildo Sabalú as well as other tierras and cabildos in Matanzas . . . Justin Brown was born and raised in the funky city of Oakland. He brings the flexibility of a modern jazz drummer, but he comes out of the church . . . Dominick Kanza is Congolese, but he was open to learning the Arará tradition. His guitar sound and knowledge were essential to the recording. It wouldn’t be Cuban without the Congo thing. -Yos.

THE DRUMS

The core of the sound of YE-DÉ-GBÉ is a set of Arará drums that I commissioned from drum maker Gilberto Morales in Matanzas and brought back to New York. From large to small, they’re called the yonofó, which is the lead drum, the apitlí, and the wewé. There is another drum, called the akotó, which has the largest diameter and the lowest pitch, and which does not always play. Those names are only within the Arará Sabalú tradition. If you go to Jovellanos they have different names, because that’s Arará Majino.

THE COMPOSITIONS

1 Reuniendo la Nación (Bringing the Nation Together) is based on the toque de la nación, also called the toque de la tiñosa. That’s the drum pattern you do at the end of the ceremonies, when everybody’s dancing in the cabildo with the flag of the cabildo, the flag that represents who they are. They dance in a circle, representing the Arará nation. This number doesn’t have any chants. I see it as empowerment. It opens with the drums, plus Val Jeanty, a DJ / sound designer from

Haiti who brings her Haitian cosmogony with her. I hear ghosts in there. It’s contaminated with ghosts. Jason Moran and I, we’re just following them, weaving.

2 New Throned King is an arrangement of chants and drum toques for Asojano, who was known as Babalú in Yorubaland before he came to the Arará land, where the Arará people were expecting him. I tried to envision the patakín [story of the deities] of his coronation.

3 Walking Over Wave is dedicated to Afrekete, the vodun with a strong similarity to Yemayá. She’s motherly, she’s tender, she’s able to fish and feed the community, but at the same time she could be a big storm.

4 Laroko is one of the paths of Eleguá within the Arará tradition. These chants have never been heard in Cuba except in Matanzas. I wanted to capture the spirit of Eleguá, and I decided to do it very traditional, just voice and handclaps, then portray him as a trickster with the soprano sax.

5 Ojún Degara is the name of the old and famous cabildo in Jovellanos. They’re Arará Majino, a different group than Arará Sabalú. I decided to include knowledge from Ojún Degara as a way of incorporating something from their Maji tradition into the album. This is my arrangement of the song they sing at the beginning and close of their ceremonies.

6 Mase Nadodo tries to portray the energy of the deity Mase, the vodun who is similar to the orisha Oshún. I had gotten to know Ishmael Reed from working together with Kip Hanrahan, and I invited him to contribute something to this song. He was a wonderful collaborator. He wrote a poem that makes a parallel with the women warriors from Dahomey called Minos. The piano arpeggios are trying to re-create the image of the river.

7 Thunderous Passage is a sequence of chants dedicated to Gebioso, with his power of controlling thunder and lightning. Gebioso is the Changó of the Arará, but this path of him is named Wadé, and doesn’t have a counterpart in the Yoruba tradition. He’s like Changó as a small kid, almost like an Eleguá. This is the only one I presented in its most traditional way without touching it at all, with only drums, to hear the tradition as it has been kept in Cuba.

8 Healing Power is a song for Asoyí, who is one of the paths of Asojano. It’s very different than “New Throned King,” which is based on a different path of the same deity. Here I’m concentrating on him as a powerful healer. The “horses” of Babalú, or Asoyí, or Asojano have the power to heal conditions you think are incurable.

9 Dance Transformation is dedicated to Gebioso again, but now in the twenty-first century, and saluting a different path of Gebioso than the earlier one. Like his counterpart Changó, Gebioso is the owner of the drums and the owner of the dance. The arrangement tries to capture his motion.

10 Ileré is “Ilé Iré,” which means the house of joy. It was composed for the project by Dean Badarou, from Abomey, Benin (historic Dahomey), who was a research consultant on the project. It opens the album up at the end to connect with present-day Benin, where I hope to travel. I didn’t use any specific Arará toque for this song. We decided to create something new in this rhythmic language after working with it so much. Since it was the last song, I used it to do an Arará moyuba, which is the salutation to the spirits and ancestors. In it, I’m asking my ancestors and all the ancestors of the cabildo for their blessing on this recording. I see this number as representing the joy and the depth that are always associated with the different African cultures. As everything combines, we realize that it’s a tradition that’s much bigger than ourselves, that exists and is going to exist for a long time.

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