Gonzalo Rubalcaba - Straight Ahead (1987)

Front Cover	Album Info
	Artist/Composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba Title Straight Ahead Length 80:07 Discs: 1 Tracks: 12 Format CD-R (copy) Packaging Jewel Case Label Yemaya Cat. Number N/A Style General Jazz Rating Recorded 1987

Musicians	Credits
Gonzalo Rubalcaba piano Felipe Cabrera el.bass Roberto Vizcaíno percussion Horacio "El Negro" Hernández drums	Engineer Jerry Belc

Track list

01 La Nueva Cubana 08:55 02 Pluma 14:45 03 Pergamin 06:42 04 Homo Blues 05:02 05 Four 04:03 06 Little Waltz 08:49 07 Delirio No.1 04:00 08 Mambo Influenclado 03:43 09 My Romance 07:22 10 Desencaje 04:47 11 My Funny Valentine 05:11 12 Delirio No.2 06:48

Notes

AMG Review by Thom Jurek (4): Part of the Bele Belle Jazz Club series, this collection of three Gonzalo Rubalcaba sessions from 1986 and 1987 finds the pianist in three different settings: electric septet, trio, and solo. The two electric septet session are great in so far as they showcase Rubalcaba's gloriously extended harmonic style with a group., but the electric bass and synths on these two cuts sound just awful. The trio accounts for one selection, and it is full of the fluid, high melodic style Rubalcaba is known for with a rhythm section. It is on the solo cuts where Rubalcaba's now-trademark rhythmic invention is showcased brilliantly; his use of space, and dynamic and harmonic invention, is singular here, playing the jazz tradition against the folk music of his native Cuba on eight selections. It is for these — with their deep lyricism, and contrapuntal engagements — that the album is worth the price.