This enthralling, life-affirming album featuring Hilario Durán and his one-time protégé David Virelles, reminds us of the enduring riches of Cuba’s piano heritage. The two-piano format has already featured in some Cuban classics, notably the work of Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Chucho Valdés.
Virelles is one of the greatest proponents of Afro-Cuban musical tradition, which he’s brought together with avant-gardism in a most fruitful and insightful way. He’s worked with Steve Coleman, Henry Threadgill, Andrew Cyrille and Ravi Coltrane, but here he syncs with Durán’s more traditional approach, whose baroque tendencies never lose the melodic core of the music.
Durán and Virelles have known each other for over two decades. Durán is based in Toronto, and the Alma label is a Canadian one. The album features new arrangements by both pianists of traditional Cuban music plus six specially written Durán originals, and an interpretation of the standard Body And Soul. The album has a wonderful opening. Durán’s beautifully spirited Guajira For Two Pianos is followed by the darker, more boppish Challenge, also by Durán, with its modernist whole-tone touches.
Danza Lucumi, given a jazzy, modernist arrangement by Virelles, was composed in 1927 by Alejandro Garcia Caturia (1905-40), who synthesised Cuban traditional and Western classical music in a nationalist trend. The bright and rather traditional La Malanga, by Calixto Varona, is followed by Durán’s Milonga Por Cuba, an affecting tribute to the July 2021 anti-government protesters in Havana. It’s doubtful that Virelles is capable of producing less than a first-class album, but if he is, this isn’t it.
Discography
Guajira For Two Pianos; Challenge; Punto Cubano #1; Danza Lucumí; La Malanga; Milonga For Cuba [dedicated to 7/11]; Santos Suarez’s Memories; David’s Tumbao; Body And Soul (41.27)
Hilario Durán, David Virelles (p). Toronto, 9-10 November 2021.
Alma Records ACD10132
