Martin Bejerano - #CubanAmerican (2022)

Pianist Martin Bejerano offers a sonically adventurous blend of Latin, Cuban, and fusion-informed post-bop jazz on 2022's #CubanAmerican. A Miami native, Bejerano is best known for his extensive work as a member of both drummer Roy Haynes and guitarist Russell Malone's groups. He's also worked with such globally minded artists as Ignacio Berrao, Dave Holland, Arturo Sandoval, and many others. However, it's as the leader of his own trio, as on 2007's Evolution/Revolution and 2013's Potential Energy, that he has made his most dynamic statements. As with those albums, Bejerano is joined here by his longtime bandmates bassist Edward Perez, drummer Ludwig Afonso, and percussionist Samuel Torres. Together, they play a mix of acoustic and electric jazz that finds Bejerano pulling together his myriad influences, touching upon his love of Afro-Cuban jazz, Thelonious Monk-esque bop, and keyboard-heavy fusion. From the start, there's a post-modern quality to the album, as if Bejerano is cutting and pasting bits of his musical identity as a child of Cuban and North American heritage who grew up listening to rock, jazz, and Latin music into an artful, holistic collage. It's most evident on the opening "Ay Cosita Linda," a reworking of a classic Latin American composition that Bejerano wryly addends here as "A Gringo Fantasy." Building upon a sample of a vintage 1940s duo recording of the song, Bejerano quickly explodes, mashing his kinetic piano montuno with off-kilter, laser-toned synth lines. It's an ear-popping juxtaposition and one which sets the tone for the virtuosic, genre-bending sounds to follow. At the center of the album is the ambitious three-part "#CubanAmerican Suite," originally commissioned by Chamber Music America. Contrasting folkloric melodies with frenetic Afro Cuban grooves and moments of Bejerano's spiraling, Cubist piano lines, the suite feels like Cuban jazz by way of Chick Corea's '70s fusion band Return to Forever. It's a sound he particularly evokes on the woozy and funky "B. Radley (Electro Shred Version)," a skittering Latin soul jam that itself sounds like Chucho Valdes crossed with "Rock It"-era Herbie Hancock. Elsewhere, Bejerano brings along Argentine vocalist Roxana Amed for the buoyant "Mi Cafetal," nicely deconstructs and then reconstructs Sonny Rollins' "Doxy," and eases gracefully into a dusky rendition of the standard "You've Changed." That all of #CubanAmerican feels of a piece speaks to both Bejerano's titanic piano skill and his broadly cross-pollinated musical identity.