Gabriel Espinosa - Songs Of Bacharach And Manzanero (2016)

On his fourth ZOHO CD, bassist-composer-arranger Gabriel Espinosa explores the common ground between two prolific and influential popular composers who came to prominence during the '60s in their respective countries -- Burt Bacharach in the United States and Armando Manzanero in Mexico. With five-time Grammy Award-nominated vocalist Tierney Sutton handling the five familiar Bacharach tracks and Espinosa himself singing the Spanish lyrics of five tunes by his fellow countryman and native of Yucatan, this alluring concept album is brimming with the kind of sophisticated harmonies, unexpected chord progressions and changing meters that mark both acclaimed composers' work, while also being unabashedly romantic at his core. Accompanied by pianist Misha Tsiganov, drummer Mauricio Zottarelli, trumpeter Jim Seeley and featuring the wonderfully lyrical playing of chromatic harmonica virtuoso Hendrik Meurkens, Espinosa puts his own unique spin on these ten classics with subtle reharmonizations to inject new colors along with new intros, interludes and rhythmic twists that draw on his background in bossa nova, samba and jazz. It came out as the songs of Manzanero and the songs of Bacharach the way Gabriel Espinosa heard them, says the professor of Jazz Studies at Central College in Pella, Iowa, who defines himself as a 'hybrid composer.' I'm not a jazz musician, I'm not a Brazilian musician or Afro-Cuban musician or bolero musician. I'm a little bit of everything, so I put a little bit of everything in these songs. What do the famed American pop composer and beloved Mexican bolero composer have in common? Espinosa rattles off a list of qualities: They are like the new American Songbook writers. Bacharach is a magic composer. Nobody was writing popular music like that in the '60s. And Manzanero is the equivalent of Jobim, but in the Mexican bolero music tradition. He is one of the idol composers in Mexico.