Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods

1	Oro, Incienso Y Mirra 15:38
2	Calidoscopico 5:05
3	Pensativo 5:20
4	Exuberante 5:48

Barnes & Noble

In 1975, four of the legends who helped create Latin jazz in the '40s -- trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, bandleader Machito, arranger Mario Bauza, and composer-arranger Chico O'Farrill -- convened one last time. They may have all been grayer, but they still had the ambitions of racehorses. A new set of typically grandiose and brilliant compositions were written by O'Farrill: the 15-minute "Oro, Incienso y Mirra" and the 15-minute suite "Three Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods" were essayed by an enlarged, 26-piece version of the Machito Orchestra. The writing and ensemble playing are both filled with majesty, but what makes this album essential is the wonderful sound of the older Dizzy Gillespie, whose trumpet style was now filled with deep blue smears, jagged, cascading runs, and a unique muted sound that was all his own. He is frighteningly good here, a master gleefully skipping and sliding over the Latin rhythms that were so close to his heart, with his old compadres in lockstep. Lee Jeske

All Music Guide

Here we have a summit meeting late in the careers of the pioneering titans of Afro-Cuban jazz -- Dizzy Gillespie fronting the Machito orchestra on trumpet, with Mario Bauza as music director, alto saxophonist/clarinetist, and organizing force, and Chico O'Farrill contributing the compositions and arrangements. This could have been just a nostalgic retro gathering 25 years after the fact, but instead, these guys put forth an ambitious effort to push the boundaries of the idiom. The centerpiece is a 15-minute trumpet concerto for Dizzy called "Oro, Incienso Y Mirra," where O'Farrill melts dissonant clusters, electric piano comping, and synthesizer decorations together with hot Afro-Cuban rhythms into a coherent, multi-sectioned tour de force. Dizzy, who apparently had never been in the same room with synthesizers before, is magnificent as he peels off one patented bebop run after another over Machito's band and in the gaps between. There is also an equally sophisticated suite of O'Farrill pieces grouped under the title "Three Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods," which mixes rock elements into the rhythms. Parts of "Pensativo" sound as if O'Farrill had been carefully listening to Santana, the teacher learning from the student, as it were. It adds up to a paltry 32 minutes of music, yet one can forgive the short weight, this being all there is of a historic recording session. Richard S. Ginell