Fierce, shimmering rhythms and highly skilled and valuable soloists give this music an intense and engaging sound.

Two Red Records darlings, Ray Mantilla and Bobby Watson, reunite to re-frame how much the blending of jazz and Latin music that originated as exotic entertainment in the Swing years but only seriously developed from the 1950s onward can be very stimulating. The obstinate piano phrases of the “salsa” genre, to take one example, are equivalent to the riff as a vehicle for enthralling improvisations. Needless to say, the encounter between Mantilla's Space Station and the American saxophonist is strongly aromatic and lively, while being miles away from banal entertainment. The general attitude held by the musicians is one of great rigor. The forerunner of this solar-powered music, it is worth remembering, remains Horace Silver; and it cannot fail to cheer us that the furrow he traced so many years ago still bears exciting fruit today: such as this “Dark Powers.”

Track Listing

• Dark Powers
• Catch Me If You Can
• Dialogue
• Curve Ball
• The Things You Do
• Hostage
• Rostro De Ti

Additional Details

Label: Red Records

Genre: Jazz

Run Time: 39 mins

Release Date: 01/25/07

UPC: 027312322125