RIP Juan Claudio Cifuentes, 'Cifu' (1941-2015)

(For once, this entry is not a parallel translation of its Spanish sister)

After all the arguments and bickering — which, yes, it's better than many other things, but we could do without most of it, really — there is something about intense music fandom, including jazz, that benefits your health. Case in point would be the dean of Spanish jazz commentators, Cifu who, even as a septuagenarian and having survived two cancers, never lost the enthusiasm for the music. I would introduce him to new, unknown, talent with zero commercial value, and, if he liked it, he would push it harder than Samson in the temple. Last time we spoke, it was about Gigi Gryce and his looking forward to doing a series of programmes with the complete recordings of Artie Shaw and His Gramercy Five. We never got around to finishing it.

Cifu by Jaime Massieu, October 2014

Cifu is how friends called Juan Claudio Cifuentes de Benito, who's died earlier today, having suffered a stroke last week. He was husband, father, grandfather, friend... but for a gigantic amount of people in Spain and beyond he was the face and voice of jazz, judging from the reaction in social media (and he didn't even like computers).

Carmelo Bustos at 90 and the sax in Chile

In Chilean jazz, there are two ruling instruments. As expected, the guitar is one, not only for its prevalence in 20th century popular music, but for it's standing in folk and other local musics (think Violeta Parra and Víctor Jara).

The other one is the saxophone. That happens everywhere in jazz, yes, but in Chile it goes way past the average. Besides shooting stars like the tragic Alfredo Espinoza (Valparaíso, 1942), the younger generations are astonishing. Melissa Aldana may have taken a lot of headline space lately, and deservedly so—not just for winning the Thelonious Monk competition—, but there is much more to Chilean saxophone. One of my first impressions in Chile was seeing Franz Mesko (Santiago, 1989), barely 20 at the time, tearing it up on tenor at a jam session in the old Club de Jazz de Santiago. Besides, or before, rather, a salient feature of these musicians is their attention to language. To wit, this recent video of Agustín Moya (Santiago, 1981).

Don't take it from me. None other than Loren Schoenberg, saxophonist and über-expert on Lester Young approves, and rather enthusiastically at that, of Moya's playing. And don't be mistaken, Moya is his own man, with three albums of original compositions under his belt.

More names to take into account: Claudio Rubio (Santiago, 1976), a keen student of Lennie Tristano, as he proves here (and a surprisingly funny guy to boot). And to keep things short, Andrés Pérez and Cristian Gallardo (both Santiago, 1983), either together as the front line of Contracuarteto, or in their separate projects, of which Gallardo's first album, Sin Permiso, less-than-perfect-sound and all, is a keeper.

Let this rather long introduction serve as a long drum roll to introduce a man without whom there wouldn't be such a rich tradition of the saxophone in Chile: Carmelo Bustos, who is 90 today.

Carmelo Bustos (left) and Marcos Aldana

Steve Brown & Guillermo Bazzola

STEVE BROWN & GUILLERMO BAZZOLA
Una Pequeña Alegría
Brown Cats Productions (BC9508)

Guillermo Bazzola, Steve Brown (g).

Recorded on April 8, 2013. TT: 58:36

This record, "A Little Joy", is the latest by Steve Brown and Guillermo Bazzola, an unlikely duo of pares inter pares (the notes don't state who plays what) for its great gaps in age — rare but irrelevant — and geography: Brown is based in Ithaca, NY, whereas Bazzola lives in Madrid, Spain. Perhaps for this reason this was recorded as in olden times, in one day.

The guitar duo has a long tradition in jazz, but it's a tricky format. There's the sameness in sound, even with imaginative arrangements, and the unavoidable technical pyrotechnics. In this instance, the first notes here are not really promising: both guitars are close in timbre, a rather conventional clean jazz sound, and the tune is a bossa nova, a trap that can be either beautiful or terribly inconsequential.

Although pretty and with a certain weight, like many first tunes at live gigs, the opening "Caminhos Cruzados" (a Jobim song) works well but it's not representative of this record; the other bossa, "Esencia" (by Spanish pianist Alberto Conde) is played with more verve. It is with the second track, "Los Mareados" ("The Dizzy Ones"), where Brown and Bazzola do get down to business. This is an old tango brought to the session by Argentinian Bazzola, and its theme is performed with sensitivity and elegance. This a highlight of the record together with the other tango of the session, "Nada" ("Nothing"), whose beautiful melody is framed by the minute rhythmic nuances, the way the comping guitar falls ever so slightly behind the beat.