Cambridge, MA--Guitarist ALBARE is making a big returnto the Boston area on Wednesday, June 19, at 7:30 PM for "An Evening with Albare" at Cambridge's hot jazz spot, the Regattabar. Albare also has a sexy new CD . . . The Road Ahead and a cool new band featuring pianist Amino Belyamani, bassist Yunior Terry and drummer Pablo Bencid. The Regattabar is located in the Charles Hotel, One Bennett Street, in Cambridge's Harvard Square. Tickets at $20.00 for the show are on sale now and can be purchased on line at www.regattabarjazz.com or by calling: 617-395-7757.
The Road Ahead (Enja Records), the latest album from Albare, opens listeners’ hearts and minds through the original music and extraordinary musicianship of Albare and his quartet....
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Cambridge, MA--Guitarist ALBARE is making a big returnto the Boston area on Wednesday, June 19, at 7:30 PM for "An Evening with Albare" at Cambridge's hot jazz spot, the Regattabar. Albare also has a sexy new CD . . . The Road Ahead and a cool new band featuring pianist Amino Belyamani, bassist Yunior Terry and drummer Pablo Bencid. The Regattabar is located in the Charles Hotel, One Bennett Street, in Cambridge's Harvard Square. Tickets at $20.00 for the show are on sale now and can be purchased on line at www.regattabarjazz.com or by calling: 617-395-7757.
The Road Ahead (Enja Records), the latest album from Albare, opens listeners’ hearts and minds through the original music and extraordinary musicianship of Albare and his quartet.
ALBARE is the nom de guerre of Albert Dadon, a virtuoso jazz guitarist with a strong melodic sense and a wealth of global influences. Born in Morocco and raised in Israel and France, Albare first worked as a musician in Paris before emigrating to Australia at the age of 27. Albare has been and remains a major force in the Australian jazz scene. He has directed the Melbourne Jazz Festival for many years, and is the chairman of the Australian Jazz Awards.
Not only is Albare a well-known jazz musician, he is also one of Australia’s preeminent real estate entrepreneurs and philanthropists.
In 2008, Queen Elizabeth II awarded him an Order of Australia in recognition of his contributions to the worlds of Arts and Culture.
For his latest CD, the guitarist fuses his Moroccan roots effortlessly with six-string influences ranging from Wes Montgomery to George Benson, drawing on elements of blues and soul, fueled by infectious grooves. The groove is important to Albare, who was an acid-jazz pioneer in his adopted homeland.
Albare collaborated with Phil Turcio, the pianist of the quartet, to compose most of the songs on this new album. Four of these came directly from Albare’s pen. The lone cover track on The Road Ahead—Stevie Wonder’s Overjoyed—was arranged by Albare and Phil.
The title tune provides an entrancing theme with a mystical Middle Eastern feel. Albare's meditative solo expression is played on an E1 Moog guitar. "The architecture of the guitar is interesting," Albare says. "The strings have their own energy and don't necessarily do what you want them to, so it takes quite a while to master. But you can listen beyond the music to the vibrations, which are very much part of the music."
The new quartet, which he feels fortunate to have united, features Australian pianist Phil Turcio, who played extensively with Albare throughout the 1990s; Cuban-born bassist Yunior Terry, who has performed with Jane Bunnett, Steve Coleman, Jeff "Tain" Watts, and Jerry Gonzales' Fort Apache Band; and Venezuelan drummer Pablo Bencid, a Berklee graduate who plays with Boston's Either/Orchestra.
"There's a real camaraderie among the four of us," Albare says. "We gelled very quickly, so I wanted to get into the studio and record the sound we had developed by playing together day in and day out."
The lithe Give Me 5 introduces the band with a deceptively tricky tune, named in the tradition of Dave Brubeck's Take 5 with a witty allusion to its time signature. In this case, however, it's only Bencid who is playing in 5; the rest of the band is in 4, meaning that they cross paths only once every twenty bars. "In between these twenty bars is a long time and lots of fun," Albare enthuses. "It's a happy track, and despite the complications in playing it, you can still dance to it - hopefully."
The Gift came to the composer as just that – an inspiration that came to him in a flash. "Last July I returned home from Paris and suffered from the usual jet lag," he recalls. "I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote this song all in one go. It felt like a download." The analogy to the digital realm is apt, as the song utilizes new MIDI technology to allow Albare's guitar to be synthesized in real time - that's the guitarist playing the flugelhorn solo without a horn ever touching his lips.
Two melodies diverge and intertwine on Expectations, Albare and Turcio engaging in a subtle yet intricate dance, while both No Love Lost and Tender You are love songs that are both lyrical and lush.
New Signs and Heart of Hearts Revisited showcase the way in which this band has a synergy with which they have created a new and unique style. They completely transform two pieces from Albare's back catalogue, New Signs (from the 1996 album Midnight Blues), morphing, Albare explains, "from jazz-rock fusion to an epic, romantic 21st century adventure." This version of Heart of Hearts Revisited (from 2009's After the Rain) changes the interpretation of the tune so much, "You wouldn't be able to recognize the two as the same song," Albare says. "The melody has evolved and so has the structure. That's jazz."
Singer Allan Harris' rich baritone vocal (the only vocal on the CD) enriches the band's mellow, soul-jazz cover of Stevie Wonder's Overjoyed. Harris has earned accolades from such luminaries as Tony Bennett, who has called him "my favorite singer." Albare echoes that praise, saying, "Allan has an incredible quality combining Nat King Cole, Luther Vandross, and George Benson all into one guy."
It's only appropriate that the album ends with a second version of The Road Ahead. No doubt that road holds a wealth of additional ventures and paths.
Albare is currently on a world tour and comes to the United States in the late Spring and Summer of 2013 to give Americans an opportunity to enjoy their talent first-hand. A complete list of tour dates is available at www.Albare.info.
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