NEW YORK (IndieGo Jazz Promotions/ www.indiego.com) - Cuban jazz pianist Manuel Valera makes his impressive recording debut as a leader with the release of "Forma Nueva" (MAVO Records 1101), an authoritative set of post-bop jazz with Latin overtones that showcases his impressive skills as an instrumentalist and composer.
The self-produced session of original material features the all-star line-up of bassist John Patitucci, drummers Bill Stewart and Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez and saxophonist Seamus
Blake and heralds the arrival of a notable new jazz talent in no uncertain terms.
In his liner notes to the CD veteran jazz journalist
Howard Mandel writes: "It's an unalloyed pleasure to discover a young man so accomplished that his potential seems boundless…Manuel Valera promises, and indeed delivers, throughout "Forma Nueva."
Born in Cuba on October 17, 1980, Valera, who is the son of the noted Cuban saxophonist Manuel Valera, Sr., lives in New York City where his gift for integrating stylistic elements of his homeland's rich musical tradition into a modern jazz context has earned him a prominent place at the forefront of the current generation of emerging artists active on the scene there and is establishing him as rising star on the international stage as well. It's astonishing – upon listening to the mature and original playing and writing displayed on "Forma Nueva" to realize it was only in 1994, after he emigrated to the US, that Valera switched to the piano from the classical saxophone he'd studied at Havana's Conservatory Manuel Saumell.
It's equally remarkable – hearing the CD's dynamic fusion of modern jazz with various Latin music styles - that Valera only began composing in 2000 while enrolled in the jazz of the New School University in New York from which he graduated in 2003 with a degree in performance. He has also studied with Reggie Workman, George Garzone, Jane Ira Bloom, Gerard D'Angelo and Richie Bierach among others.
In April 2004 Valera won 2nd Prize at the Great American Jazz Piano Competition in Jacksonville, FL.
Although still in the formative years of his career, Valera has already played with Paquito D' Rivera, John Benitez, Donny McCaslin, Claudio Roditi, Bobby Sanabria, Giovanni Hildago, Dave Valentin, Nelson Gonzales, Juan Pablo Torres, William Cepeda, Eddie Gomez and the Machito Orchestra. He can be heard at jazz clubs around New York City including The Blue Note, Birdland, The 55 Bar, Sweet Rhythm and Smoke and was September 2004's Artist of the Month at the famed Deer Head Inn in Delaware Water Gap, PA. Valera's Quartet is scheduled to perform at Chris' Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia on October 22 and in New York City at Kavehaz on November 5 and at Triad on November 12.
Upcoming festival appearances include opening for the McCoy Tyner Trio at the first concert of the Twenty-Second Annual Hollywood (FL) Jazz Festival on November 19 and at the Heineken Jazz Series in San Juan, Puerto Rico on November 17.
Valera currently leads a 'jazz/Latin' project incorporating jazz, world rhythms and classical concepts featuring Antonio Sanchez (drums), Ben Street (bass), Seamus Blake (sax), Luisito Quintero (perc) and a string quartet. In April 2004 he took this ensemble into the studio to produce "Melancolia," a 13-song set of original compositions, an arrangement of Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor and a popular song by Cuban composer Silvio Rodriguez.
An earlier collaboration with Paquito D'Rivera - inspired by the music of various Latin American countries - produced The Latin American Suite, a 20-song collection of chamber music.
In September 2004, Valera returned to the studio with Sanchez and Street to record seven original compositions and four Cuban songs for a CD scheduled for release in 2005 by the Spanish label Fresh Sounds New Talent. Blake appears as a guest on tenor sax on two tracks.
