La Gran Diversión

Album review

Discovered at the end of the 90s through a series of records that quickly made him one the most promising renovators of Latin jazz, Roberto Fonseca, born in Havana to a family of musicians (his father was a drummer, his mother, a singer and former dancer of the Tropicana Club), honed his craft throughout the 2000s with the Buena Vista Social Club, and then alongside the legendary bolero singer Ibrahim Ferrer. At the same time, he developed a much more modernist musical style infused with the syncretic spirit characteristic of Caribbean, jazz, funk, Afro-Cuban soul, as well as hip-hop and electronic musicians. In this new, highly personal project, the pianist makes it his mission to resuscitate the spirit (and not just the name!) of the renowned 30s-era Montmartre club, La Cabane Cubaine, without ever giving up on his progressive tendencies. At the head of a lively ensemble of varied musicians, founded on a rhythm section bursting with interlocking rhythms, propelling saxophones, gleaming brass, and feverish strings, Roberto Fonseca, in a kaleidoscope of colours, impressions, and sensations, mixes together genres, traditions, and time periods with extraordinary mastery. Going from an impressionistic and moving hommage to his mother (“Mercedes”) to the great tradition of Latin jazz (“Oya”), from a yoruba-inspired song (“Osini”) to a virtuosic wink to Oscar Peterson (“Oscar Please Stop”), from an wild mambo featuring the voice of Clarence Bekker (“Mani Mambo), to a magnificent encounter with the violinist Régina Carter (“Kinka Mache”), Fonseca presents us with multiple points of view and stories, and what may well be one of his most intimate and personal records to date. © Stéphane Ollivier/Qobuz