Emilio Solla y Afines – Conversas – Fresh Sounds World Jazz FSWJ 040, ****1/2:
(Emilio Solla – piano, Fender Rhodes; Gorka Benitez – tenor sax, flutes; Carlos Morera – bandoneon; David Gonzalez – double bass; David Xirgu – drums; and others)
Conversas, the fifth disc by Argentinean pianist and Rhodes player Emilio Solla, is just short of a masterpiece. It would unequivocally be one except for two slipups at the end of the disc which we’ll get to later. Solla, who has worked with his band Afines for several years now, has carved out a special place in New Tango-based world jazz, much as Omar Sosa has established himself as the major contender for the spot recently vacated by Egberto Gismonti as premier Latin jazz maestro.
Before we get into it, may I get something off my chest? I personally don’t generally care for tango—new, old, or otherwise. It’s mannered, stultifying music, to my way of listening. But Emilio Solla opens up such new and splendid vistas in this highly stylized music that I forget and forgo all my prejudices against it. How does he do it? I’m not sure I know. But trust me, he does.
What’s going on here, I think, is a genuine melding of two diverse yet related musical aesthetics, tango and jazz. In the past, musicians wanting to bring them together have concentrated too heavily on one term or the other, thus not achieving a true synthesis, let alone a unique third thing: tango/jazz. Solla, somehow, has accomplished the daunting feat of bringing them together. Voila! Tanjazz.
What does it sound like? Dreamy, yet not sentimental. Hauntingly beautiful, yet containing sufficient res and backbone to stand up to repeated listenings. Mesmeric. Ancient/modern. In short, everything you’ve always wanted when you looked to ECM to scratch that insufferable vagrant romantic itch but seldom found it actually satisfied.
Now for the complaints. The last two numbers consist of a pleasant enough vocal track, “No Simple Reason,” that, despite its undoubted charms, breaks the mood, as so often happens when jazz instrumentalist yield to the (not unreasonable) desire to become pop stars, and the silly, senseless joke of “1:51,” a reprise of the John Cage’s initially unfunny “4:33” of silence. Apparently, some reviewers haven’t even gotten the joke, as one poor soul reported that this track mysteriously didn’t play on his system.
Should we cut Solla some slack? I don’t think so, not if we take into account his radical political pronouncements. In the (mostly Spanish but occasionally English) notes accompanying this disc, Solla presents himself as some kind of revolutionary manqué, trotting out such ironic sentiments as, “We will protect you . . . and by unconsciously dropping in your mind the idea of danger, you will be ready to give up one or two of your Rights, because, you know, it is for your own benefit!” I don’t look to celebrities, be they actors or jazz artists, for my politics. And that’s why I’m deducting ½* from an otherwise stellar disc.
TrackList: Tango Changes, Bat Gorkaren Tzat, Remain Alert, Conversas, Ugrix, El Ritmo Cambria, Recuerdos de Bohemia, No Simple Reason, 1:51
– Jan P. Dennis