Jerry Gonzalez and Omar Sosa offer two views on Latin Jazz

Written on October 24, 2011 – 2:17 pm | by Cameron Hussey

By Tim Wilkins
For The Star-Ledger

What is Latin jazz? This is a question the Fort Apache Band and Afreecanos, who are double-billed at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on Saturday, answer in very different ways.

FORT APACHE

Its a connection between some ancient tradition, and whats right today, says trumpeter and conga player Jerry Gonzalez, who leads the Fort Apache Band. Its rooted in Africa a cross-span of 2,000 years or more of time, hooked up together.

Hand drums like the conga and bongos, says Gonzalez, give Latin Jazz a closer connection to African rhythms than most straight-ahead jazz, which relies on drumstick techniques developed in the 19th century for marching bands. Military street drumming is one thing, but the hand drums came before that, he says.

The Fort Apache Band was one of the first to fully fuse jazz harmonies with Afro-Caribbean rhythms 30 years ago, on seminal albums such as The River Is Deep and Rumba Para Monk. Jerry and his brother Andy, who plays bass, experimented with this mix as teenagers in the Bronx and refined their concepts in the 70s alongside jazz heavyweights such as trumpeters Kenny Dorham and Dizzy Gillespie, and Latin bandleaders like pianist Eddie Palmieri.

We grew up listening to Coltrane, and also to Afro-Cuban music, Andy says. Its been a musical journey, and were still on it.

Jerry Gonzalezs musical journey has taken him to Spain, where he has lived for 11 years and frequently plays with flamenco musicians and dancers. He yearns, however, to return to his New York jazz roots: I want to hang with the beboppers again!

At NJPAC, Jerry and Andy reunite, and longtime Fort Apache members Joe Ford on saxophone and Larry Willis on piano will be joined by drummer Dafnis Prieto, whose adaptations of traditional Cuban rhythms earned him a MacArthur Foundation genius grant this year.

Prieto first caught Andy Gonzalezs ear at the Havana Jazz Festival in the late 90s. Indeed, Prieto, 37, prizes individual expression more than adherence to any particular style.

One of the most important things is to find yourself, he says. You want to bring your own personality into the music, to have that touch of individualism and originality.

AFREECANOS

Cuban pianist Omar Sosa also follows an independent musical path. While jazz harmonies and Latin rhythms are prominent in his work, he foregoes the clave patterns found in most Latin jazz and salsa and creates a pastiche for each piece that may include thumb piano, banjo, electronica or hip-hop beats. His solo piano works, such as this years Latin Grammy-nominated Calma, evoke the impressionism of composers like Satie and Ravel.

I guess I have the guts to try new, crazy things, he says by phone from his home in Minorca. When we play, we try to take a voyage, and we never know where its going to lead.

Sosas group Afreecanos features Childo Thomas from Mozambique on bass, American Marque Gilmore on drums and Cuban Leandro Saint-Hill on saxophone. The bands past incarnations included musicians from Mali, Senegal and Brazil.

Despite this iconoclasm, Sosa says I always come back to African music, where the first things you feel are freedom and happiness.

So as the pool of influences these musicians draw from grows deeper, how can we best describe it? Is it Latin jazz, or Pan-African jazz (as Dizzy Gillespie used to call it), or something else?

I prefer to call it music from the Earth, says Sosa, because whatever you call it Latin, jazz or classical its always from this planet, and its about creating something new.

THE FORT APACHE BAND, AFREECANOS

Where: Victoria Theater at New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center St., Newark

When: Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

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