Elio Villafranca: The Source In Between

AAJ: Did you get to play with the whole Simon family, such as Marlon?

EV: Yeah, I used to have a group, because when I did my debut in Philadelphia, I didn't know who to call, because I didn't know anyone at that point. And then the people from AMLA said, well, we know Marlon Simon and also we know Pablo Batista, the conga player. I formed a group with them. The bassist was a British guy, Howard Bridge. I think he is in New York now. I only saw him once after that. I would use Terrell Stafford on trumpet and Ralph Bowen on saxophone. I mean, that band was really good, and we were doing really, really well. And then I was playing at a festival, leading that band, and I met Danilo Perez when he was playing with Avishai Cohen. Danilo had heard of me because my bassist used to be his student at Berklee. We had done a quick recording just to kind of pass around and he had sent it to Danilo.

Then when I went to the festival, I went into the wrong tent—I went into Danilo's place. I was just resting there and then Danilo came in. And I was like "Hey—I know who you are." And then we started talking, and we really developed a nice friendship from there. And Danilo has also been very influential in my music. Every time he used to come to Philadelphia, we used to go out; we'd hang out and listen to music. He used to even play for me when he was in the process of doing a recording. He would play the demos for me and ask me what I thought. And he used to talk to me a lot about music. Because he's such an educated guy, every time we were together, there was always something for me to learn from him. And that's how I've been basically forming my jazz education. And then there was another pianist in Philadelphia who I used to barter with—because he used to say, I wouldn't consider this a class, I want to trade, because he wanted to learn something from me as well. Tom Lauten is great pianist who teaches at Temple University and we used to get together and he would teach me. And also Farrid Barron, who used to play with Wynton Marsalis. He's a guy who used to live in Philadelphia and I also used to go to his house and we used to share. It's just things like that.

AAJ: You were there in Philadelphia, and then you moved to New York. When was that and what inspired that change?

EV: Well, that was around six or seven years ago. What inspired that move was partially my wife. I remarried and at that time we were living together. She was going to graduate school to do her Ph.D. in New York. Then we had to make a decision—do we stay in Philadelphia or do we go to New York? So I think that this was the place to come. You know, you have to understand that when I came from Cuba, there were already other people asking me to come here. Like Oscar Hernandez, the pianist. Every time he would come to Philadelphia, he would be like, "Man, what are you doing here? You have to come to New York—that's the place where you should come to play."



But I was not ready emotionally or economically to make another move after coming from Cuba. I mean, a move from Cuba to the States was a really big move. It's like a huge move and then you have to overcome all these emotional things; it takes a long time for you to start feeling at home again. And while I was in Philadelphia, I was feeling at home. I was feeling like this is home now, this is good. It's a long process of negotiation. Because at the same time, you keep thinking back to Cuba, and you keep comparing. Was I really smart doing this move, or would I have felt better staying in Cuba? Because I never left Cuba for political reasons, so I never had a really strong issue. The reason why I left Cuba was because there was nothing for me to do over there.

I came to New York for almost the same reason. I really did everything in Philadelphia. I played everywhere that you can think there; I'd done everything. But Philadelphia for some reason is the kind of place where you play and do these interesting projects and then all of a sudden nobody knows about you except your locals from Philadelphia. Because I would come to New York and nobody knew my name at all. But meanwhile, I'd been in Philadelphia playing with everybody—playing alongside Celia Cruz, playing with Bobby Sanabria sometimes at some events, playing with my own group, and just playing with a lot of different people. But when I would come to visit New York, nobody would know my name.

And then I decided that it was time for me to make a move, for people to know who I am and just to develop. To get to that place where I can continue on to conquer things. Because that was the challenge, that was my next challenge. To come to New York and work at the Blue Note and get all these clubs going on and get to know new musicians...to go even further with jazz. And it's going well, because since then I have had the opportunity to work with Pat Martino and Eric (Alexander) and Jon Faddis and Wynton Marsalis; I've been able to do all these things. If I had been in Philadelphia, I would not have been able to do a lot of those things. I'm really happy that I made that move.

AAJ: In both Philadelphia and New York, did you ever deal with issues of expectations—people assumed that since you were a Cuban jazz artist that you'd be playing Tito Puente style or like Poncho Sanchez—very straight Latin jazz. Whereas you might have wanted to explore more creative styles?

EV: All the time, all the time. Even today there is still a little bit of that. My new album is a little bit different. I took it to some promoters and they really love the album, but they still have this habit of saying, "I was hoping that you'd do..." After my album Encantations, they were expecting me to go into hot Latin jazz, the way they want to hear it. And they were like "OK, with Elio, that's going to be so Latin jazz like a heavy, heavy Afro-Cuban groove." And I said, "No, no, no, this is what I'm about." They see you as like, OK, you're from Cuba, you're a hot drummer, a hot pianist, something hot from Cuba has to come out of there. But if you present something different, then they are kind of in a way a bit disappointed. And they don't understand that music is so much bigger than that.

It's way bigger than stereotypes. And there are moments where you do those hot Latin things, but there are moments where you really want to expand, and you really want to put different things into play. I mean, I'm not stuck on the 1950s in Cuba, not on the 1980s in Cuba—I'm not stuck like that. Every time I meet somebody that teaches me something, it just changes me. Even this interview is changing me. And I cannot, every time I sit at the piano, be the same Elio, like a hot Latin jazz player. No, everything's in motion, everything's moving, and everything's evolving. And that's the same with music, yet still there is this burden that you get. If you are a pianist or musician from Cuba, they already know what you are going to play, and they already know what you are going to bring to the table. If you bring something else, then they are like, "Oh man, come on, you're from Cuba."

AAJ: You released your first album, Encantations in 2003. That was the first time that your compositions were heard naturally. I love your approach to composition—the way that you have a defined feeling, a person or a place at the core of your song and you find the perfect musical context to express your concept, and for your listener to get it. What process do you go through to make that connection and compose in a way that brings across those strong feelings?

EV: I think composition to me is a very personal thing. And I think that I treat composition the same way I treat classical music. In general, I think that's when all those years of classical training really come into play. When I sit at the piano to compose something, I'm always thinking the whole song from beginning to end; not the solo section. I'm talking about just the song itself, the melody, that has to have development. And that's a concept that you really get in classical music. No matter what you do. If you use a twelve tone row, if you do romanticism, or you do baroque, whatever you do, the melody has to have development; it has to have a meaning. In jazz, there is a tendency for people lose that concept. Because basically jazz allows for anything. And of course, in jazz there are a lot of great composers, and there are a lot of them that are not so great. But they still could be considered jazz; it's very elastic in that sense.

In my approach to composition, I don't necessarily think that I'm writing something in jazz, I just think I'm writing music. I want to be able to write something that by the time I'm finished presenting the music, without the solos, people feel like, "OK, this is complete, this is nice." It needs a sense of elevation that they are starting at a place and then they just go and rest in another place. Of course, form is very important to me. And that's how I approach my composition. Most of my pieces have a story behind them. I don't just sit at the piano and write just for the sake of writing. There's always something behind it that motivates me to write the piece.

AAJ: I love that album, and one of the things that I notice on it is that Jane Bunnett plays a pretty big role. How did you meet her and build that relationship?

EV: Well, when I was in Philadelphia, she was touring the US, and something happened with her pianist where he couldn't make it. I was called in an emergency to sub for her pianist. I hadn't met her at that point, but I had heard her. She called me, and I said yes. We did a couple of concerts at a theater in Philadelphia and then from that point on, she's been calling me and I've been calling her. Actually, I've been touring with her quite extensively. We already went on another tour that I had in France and in Spain, we did that just a couple of weeks ago. And now we're going to do this Ireland tour and then I think next year we're going to do some other things that she is organizing. So we've just been going back and forth. I'm not her steady musician, but we collaborate on several projects every year.

AAJ: Your recent album, The Source In Between, there were about four or five years in between albums and there's a big stylistic change on this album. It's much more focused on swing and has a much more modern jazz compositional approach. What inspired you to move in that direction?

EV: Well after the Encantations CD, I started working with Pat Martino. I was touring with him with Marc Egan on bass and Eric Alexander on sax—that's how I met Eric. And then, you know, working with Pat is kind of like a tough seat. Pat's compositions are challenging in his own "Pat" way. Very challenging, and they make you think; make you consider music in a different way. Not only by playing, but always when we finished a show, we'd sit down at the hotel. And, I don't know, it could be in Belgium or whatever, in Italy. We'd sit down in the lobby and then Pat would launch into talking to us and telling us about what his musical approach is, or what his experience was, painting diagrams and it's very interesting. We're just sitting around trying to understand his head.

And then at the same time, I started listening more and more to Ornette Coleman. I got his whole compilation, and I started to listen. And not only listen, but I started to read the things that he would say, and there was something that really, really impressed me about his approach. He said that he was more interested in hearing everybody's independent voice than making all his music even. He didn't say it specifically in those words, but basically, that's what he was trying to say. If you have a quintet with two horns, they're trying to match the melody and make it sound like one voice. But he had completely the opposite philosophy. He thought, when I give you the melody, I want you to play the it the way that you play it. And I want the other instruments to play the melody the way that they play it.

I don't want you to sound like me, I want you to sound like you. And in terms of music, he wasn't really so much caught up into perfection in that way. He always wanted to be really spontaneous, he wanted to be really organic—what you play is what you play. And I really like that approach, especially his harmonic approach and everything.

I was also really thinking, the whole thing about Latin jazz, jazz, and all that—I always felt that I could feel the music both ways. Take for example, "Cacique," from my first CD. You've got all those batas behind it. But if you eliminate the bata, it's like a jazz feel type of situation.

And that's how I usually play around with music, and that's how I started to really write the album. Between the concepts of letting everybody just play the music and just feel the music in whatever way they wanted to feel it and not to write a lot of complicated parts. Write the parts more in a way that people could have their own way of playing it. And also at the same time, create a music that's in my head, I could feel it both ways. The whole entire album, I could do a completely different version—a straight ahead Latin jazz version with the conga and everybody else. And I could do that with most of the music in the album, and I would feel very comfortable. There's nothing that I would have to change. I wouldn't need to change the phrasing from the melody, I wouldn't need to change anything, I'd just do it. And that's why I did two takes of "The Source In Between," and I put the percussion on the second track, to kind of make people think that, oh yeah, wow, this could be also heard this way.

AAJ: I thought that was a really interesting contrast. You got such as perfect title for that—"The Source In Between"—where the music does kind of flow between and the way that it's made clear between the two tracks is incredible. Another track that I saw balancing these two worlds is the "Oddua Suite," because I really hear that distinct connection to a Coltrane spirituality, and at the same time, you're referencing Santeria in there. Is there a background behind that piece?

EV: The background behind that piece is exactly that. There was a time that I wanted to do an album of solely Afro-Cuban pieces like that and just put them into jazz. And I started doing that—I started writing a few pieces, but somewhere down the line I abandoned that. Not that I abandoned that concept, but I didn't really finish. But I always wanted to do a whole album that is based on Afro-Cuban music, but transfer those melodies into jazz. Actually, I did a show in Philadelphia that was called Dahomenian Kututo Suite—that was one of the concerts that I played at The Painted Bride where there was a really big ensemble.

I played all music from Arara but put it into jazz; you know, with guitar, trumpet, sax, percussion, and drums, and everything. It was mostly done in Cuban jazz style. I changed the harmonies of the songs, I kind of completely changed everything, but using the same concept of the Arara music. I always have been interested in doing that, because that's the way that I hear the music. I don't hear it one way or another, I kind of hear it both ways. And you know, Cuban music and jazz have a very close relationship. Because, when you hear jazz, you basically hear the subdivision of the three—the 6/8 subdivision type. Sometimes we say like, "Oh yeah, jazz, it has a background in African music." But a lot of people never really think how that connection works. You know, and they just see it as a separate thing. Everybody knows that it's connected, but they just refer to it as that. In terms of music, a lot of people don't really know why this is connected to that, and they don't realize it's because of the way that it feels, you know. It has the same feeling.

AAJ: It seems like there's another track where you explore that—"The Resurrection of the Incapacitated." I'm not actually sure if you're taking an actual song, but it seems like you're kind of describing a process from the Santeria tradition, from the Babalu Aye ceremony.

EV: Exactly, yeah. And the melody is actually like an Ornette Coleman type of melody. The idea of the piece is based on the whole concept and the dance or ritual process in Babalu Aye's performance. How he will start at a place where he can hardly walk, and struggle. And then how he resuscitates, and then he does this amazing, really furious dance. Then he comes back again because it's become kind of hard for him to walk and he's going to the floor. So it has that kind of spiritual aspect.

Let me tell you about one of my latest projects that people probably don't know about, but maybe they will soon. I did this collaboration earlier this year. I was commissioned to do a piece for mariachi and orchestra. It was probably a six month process of getting all those things done for them. The piece was premiered in Houston, Texas and it was choreographed by this really great dance company called the Dallas Black Dance Theater. It was a composition integrating a traditional mariachi group with a classical orchestra. There were 20 or so musicians on stage. And I not only composed the piece, but I conducted it. Because when I was studying in school, I had to do conducting for a year. I had never done anything in front of anybody since I graduated from school, so this was my debut as a conductor.

AAJ: Wow, is there going to be a recording of that?

EV: Yeah, right now the recording, is only like 12 minutes long because that was the request. Since there was a dance group involved, they wanted to have only 12 minutes of music so they could choreograph, otherwise it would be too much. But I'm in the process of applying for grants to do a whole full concert for mariachi ensemble and orchestra.

AAJ: Another track on your album that stood out to me was "Three Plus One," and when I listened to that, I just closed my eyes and you almost hear Monk jumping out on that. One of the funny things that I've heard before is how Monk's music is so grounded in clave, and you can make that transition naturally. Was that something that you heard?

EV: Yeah, it really has some Monk influence, but once again I could put the clave into that. You know, it's funny because if I do it...for example, I could do that piece in rumba and have basically the same melody [sings melody while clapping rumba clave]. You know, to me, it's not just one direction—when I do melodies, it's fun to find a line between. It could be swing or it could be that way. Because I never know, right now. If somebody says to me, "I want a Latin jazz group," then it's like, OK, if I can schedule The Source In Between, then let's do it. I wanted to be able to do that. I wanted to be flexible, where my music could be interpreted in different ways.

AAJ: I just had one more question for you. One of the things that made me think of this—Dafnis Prieto plays on both of your albums and has lots of great albums of his own; a beautiful composer in his own right. And I'm seeing in the bigger Latin jazz world, there's a new generation of Cuban musicians that don't necessarily need their identity defined by son and rumba, danzon. It's more about expressing themselves through composition. I see Dafnis, you, Yosvany Terry, Francisco Mela, this whole group coming out—do you have any thoughts on that direction? Is it just kind of a natural progression?

EV: I think it is a natural progression. We were in Cuba at the same time, we were really experimenting in music, allowing ourselves to breathe through American influences—at a time in Cuba where those kinds of thoughts were not particularly welcome, you know? You had to really go outside the margin to find different sources where you would be exposed to that kind of music. And to allow for the influence to come to you.

But the good thing about our generation, separate from all the other generations—our generation has always been really open. Really, really, really open to American jazz, and we've been embracing American jazz since we were in school. Different from previous generations, and even different from the generation that is in Cuba right now. There are a lot of fine musicians over there now, but I think in a way, they are going back again to the same Latin jazz. Not all of them, but a lot of them are going back to the same Chucho approach in Latin music and stuff like that.

But, yeah, those names that you mentioned, we're all friends, we all share the same things, we all get together, we all discuss music. And it's easy to work with them. I've worked with Mela many times; I've toured with Mela, he's been in my band. Dafnis and I as you know just did a really great concert together at Jazz at Lincoln Center with Matt Brewer and another saxophonist. But we have a really nice history of collaboration. And also, Terry and his brother Yunior. It has been very interesting. And you're right, it's a generation of Cuban musicians who are I think creating their own path in their own way.




Selected Discography

Elio Villafranca, The Source In Between (Ceiba Tree, 2008)

Andrea Brachfeld, Into The World: A Musical Offering (Shaneye, 2008)

Jeff Niess, Evolution (Mambo Maniacs, 2004)

Elio Villafranca, Incantations/Encantaciones (Universal Latino, 2003)

Pablo Batista, Ancestral Call (DBK, 1999)

Raul Paz, Imaginate (RMM, 1998)

Carlos Varela, Como Los Peces (RCA International, 1994)

Carlos Varela, Monedas Al Aire (Qbadisc, 1994)

Photo Credits
Second From Bottom: Christine Darch
All Other Photos: Courtesy of Elio Villafranca

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