Chucho Valdés began his late set on Friday night at the Allen Room with a sweeping solo piano introduction to the up-tempo Cuban jazz hybrid “Anabis," such a controlled detonation of music that it kicked through your defenses.
That led into a fast tangle with Yaroldy Abreu Robles, the conga player of Mr. Valdés's quartet, the Afro-Cuban Messengers. And at the end of the piece came another unaccompanied piano solo: first with Mr. Valdés's hands playing identical lines an octave apart; the unspooling, extension and dismantling of a Bud Powell phrase; then separate improvisations in each hand, smashing charismatically to a close. Who else plays so much piano?
What happened in the middle? Well, there was a fast and slightly perfunctory jazz solo by the quartet's tenor saxophonist, Carlos Miyares Hernández, and a strong montuno vamp section: material that fulfilled the Creole ideal of Afro-Cuban jazz. But except for Mr. Valdés's performance, which stayed well ahead of his band's, the closer the set edged toward jazz, the more rigid it felt.
That led into a fast tangle with Yaroldy Abreu Robles, the conga player of Mr. Valdés's quartet, the Afro-Cuban Messengers. And at the end of the piece came another unaccompanied piano solo: first with Mr. Valdés's hands playing identical lines an octave apart; the unspooling, extension and dismantling of a Bud Powell phrase; then separate improvisations in each hand, smashing charismatically to a close. Who else plays so much piano?
What happened in the middle? Well, there was a fast and slightly perfunctory jazz solo by the quartet's tenor saxophonist, Carlos Miyares Hernández, and a strong montuno vamp section: material that fulfilled the Creole ideal of Afro-Cuban jazz. But except for Mr. Valdés's performance, which stayed well ahead of his band's, the closer the set edged toward jazz, the more rigid it felt.
