Search - Arturo O'Farrill :: Blood Lines

You're not likely to hear pianist Arturo O'Farrill's first and best known music leap off Blood Lines. Despite the title, this is something other than a tribute to his father, Cuban bandleader Chico O'Farrill. It's a postbop excursion across borders that begins with John Coltrane's "Moment's Notice" and eases into Afro-Cuban shades and nuances and rhythmic hints. O'Farrill is too big and broad minded a pianist to stick to a particular tradition, which is only to say that Afro-Cuban rhythms and energies, while here in abundance, only drive the pianist's imagination. He gingerly curls melodies ever so sweetly, as on "Brava," and in doing so evokes a Cuban mood, receding for a tasteful George Mraz bass solo and letting the Cuban tempo peek out. On three particularly killer tracks, "Chinas y Criollas," "Little Susan," and "Siboney," O'Farrill's trio gets the added percussive push of Jerry Gonzales, who has made his congas a staple in the neo-Afro-Cuban tradition of the 1980s and 1990s. O'Farrill's got so much going on in Blood Lines that he sometimes seems almost overwhelmed, finding pauses of his own to tether the hands and retool the brain for another swirl across the keys. --Andrew Bartlett