Drummer/Composer Dafnis Prieto launches own label, Dafnison Music, with new sextet release, “Taking the Soul for a Walk"
With the release of Taking the Soul For A Walk, Cuban-born Dafnis Prieto, recognized by his elders and peers as a singular force on the drums since he arrived in New York in 1999, brings his already luminous career to another level. For one thing, his third album is exceptionally cohesive and varied, featuring a suite of original compositions performed by a like-minded group of outstanding musicians. Saxophonists Yosvany Terry and Peter Apfelbaum, trumpeter Avishai Cohen, pianist Manuel Valera, and bassist Yunior Terry are all exemplary team players and, like Prieto, expert at crafting musical narrative from pan- American source material. For another, the band leader and composer on the much acclaimed Zoho releases About the Monks (2005) and Absolute Quintet (2006), takes control of the means of production, launching his own label, Dafnison Music.
Extending his previous quintets to a sextet, Prieto gives himself a larger canvas and palette for his compositional strokes and penchant for beautiful counterpoint melodies over a multitude of polyrhythms. He wrote seven of the twelve pieces in response to a 2005 commission from Chamber Music America and titled them The Emotion Series.
“The idea was to represent the many different emotions I've been through since I came to New York," says Prieto, whose exceptionally sophisticated charts synthesize elements drawn from diverse influences. By 2005, his experience included consequential work with Henry Threadgill, Andrew Hill, Steve Coleman, Eddie Palmieri, Michel Camilo, the Caribbean Jazz Project, Claudia Acuna, Brian Lynch, and Apfelbaum's Hieroglyphics Ensemble, in addition to his own bands. Born in Santa Clara, Cuba - Prieto had studied classical percussion at the National School of Music in Havana and played extensively outside school, most notably in the experimental collective quartet Columna-B. He assimilated a broad timeline of Cuban street beats into his drumming and worked through the radical harmonic-rhythmic explorations of such post-Revolution Cubans as Emiliano Salvador and Gonzalo Rubalcaba, teaching himself not only to play drums, but also the art of composition.
“I worked hard to develop each tune as much as possible to get very specific sounds and feelings that related to its title, using different structures and instrumentations, and to get those effects on the drums as well," Prieto says. “I was also very specific about distributing the solos so that they are consistent with the arc of each tune."
As an example of his process and the band's chemistry, Prieto refers to the surging, ascendant title track, Taking the Soul for a Walk. “The idea was one of self-liberation, to take the soul - and the music - to a different place," he says. “Now, with the three horns, the sound could develop more into aggressive riffs and patterns on top of the rhythm. But I wanted to escape that, to give it certain fluidity. So each instrument enters gradually, then we join together, then we start over, little by little again."
The self-liberation metaphor also pertains both to the optimism of Prieto's American journey and the travails of his exile is evident on the achingly beautiful The Sooner The Better. An ostinato on piano and cymbals frames the opening bass solo, which resolves into a three-horn unison of the melody and authoritative solos by Apfelbaum and Cohen. “I've had to make many decisions, from moving to New York to starting my own record label," Prieto says. “The sooner you make these decisions, the more quickly will come the beautiful hope that you always have for the future."
Cohen's trumpet solo highlights En Las Ruinas de su Infancia, on which Prieto juxtaposes metric structures to evoke different characteristics of the Santa Clara barrio in which he was raised. Until The Last Minute is a sentimental, nostalgic danzon that Prieto “dedicates 100% to the soul of" the late conguero Miguel “Anga" Diaz, a close friend and mentor who worked with Columna B. “I wrote that tune the same day I found out that Miguel Anga had passed away," Prieto says. “He was like my brother. We had a lot of fun playing and jamming together, and he inspired me by playing melodic thoughts and ideas on the congas directly in front of me, showing me that it's not only about rhythm."
Comandante, a through-composed fanfare for three horns and drums, sets up Just Say It, which features a floating melody and call-and-response exchange by the horns over a piano-bass-drums ostinato. For Prieto, the piece reflects the dynamics and tension of an imaginary conversation, “in which I am waiting for you to tell me what I am expecting you to say, and you don't really say it. I relate that emotion into the tune, as though two facts are going on at the same time."
Tell Me About Her, without horns, has the feel and sound of a classic jazz piano trio and the romantic melody and chords of a standard, while “Two Excuses," referencing Prieto's “development of two motifs inside the tune itself," features a dialogue of melodica and alto sax.
I Felt You Were Coming" blends street rhythms ("it's a songo pattern, very influenced by Los Van Van") with innovative structural techniques - “the development is like chamber music; the different instruments split and separate the lines" - again evoking emotions of anticipation - “a feeling that something is going to happen, or that somebody is going to come to you."
Prelude Para Rosa is dedicated to Dafnis' mother. “Because I'm I am her only child and have been separated from her for ten years, this tune has a very personal meaning," he confides. Guest flutist Itai Kriss helps convey the composer's angst at the aspect of exile that involves not merely music or politics, but family matters of the most primal kind.
Exile is also an explicit subtext of You'll Never Say Yes, a floating rubato tune. “It expresses the feeling I sometimes get when I try to get through to people in the music industry, thinking to myself, 'You never say yes to any specific circumstances, and you never will recognize me."
The album concludes with Emergency Call. “I always try to conclude with an idea of a futuristic opportunity in sound," the composer says. “The rhythm is very strict, the harmonic changes are really fast, so it conveys the anxiety of being in a situation where things that once looked normal, no longer do, because any emergency changes your emotional status."
For Dafnis Prieto, Taking The Soul For a Walk represents a significant step towards seizing more control of his artistic life. “I have a lot of music that I want to put out - music for dance, for film, and other projects," he says. “I no longer want to ask permission to release it from other people who might be interested. I am trying to represent in my music what I am living now and I want the music to sound the way I walk, the way I breathe, the way all of us are living today - with all the emotions, all the questions and answers that we have."
With the release of Taking the Soul For A Walk, Cuban-born Dafnis Prieto, recognized by his elders and peers as a singular force on the drums since he arrived in New York in 1999, brings his already luminous career to another level. For one thing, his third album is exceptionally cohesive and varied, featuring a suite of original compositions performed by a like-minded group of outstanding musicians. Saxophonists Yosvany Terry and Peter Apfelbaum, trumpeter Avishai Cohen, pianist Manuel Valera, and bassist Yunior Terry are all exemplary team players and, like Prieto, expert at crafting musical narrative from pan- American source material. For another, the band leader and composer on the much acclaimed Zoho releases About the Monks (2005) and Absolute Quintet (2006), takes control of the means of production, launching his own label, Dafnison Music.
Extending his previous quintets to a sextet, Prieto gives himself a larger canvas and palette for his compositional strokes and penchant for beautiful counterpoint melodies over a multitude of polyrhythms. He wrote seven of the twelve pieces in response to a 2005 commission from Chamber Music America and titled them The Emotion Series.
“The idea was to represent the many different emotions I've been through since I came to New York," says Prieto, whose exceptionally sophisticated charts synthesize elements drawn from diverse influences. By 2005, his experience included consequential work with Henry Threadgill, Andrew Hill, Steve Coleman, Eddie Palmieri, Michel Camilo, the Caribbean Jazz Project, Claudia Acuna, Brian Lynch, and Apfelbaum's Hieroglyphics Ensemble, in addition to his own bands. Born in Santa Clara, Cuba - Prieto had studied classical percussion at the National School of Music in Havana and played extensively outside school, most notably in the experimental collective quartet Columna-B. He assimilated a broad timeline of Cuban street beats into his drumming and worked through the radical harmonic-rhythmic explorations of such post-Revolution Cubans as Emiliano Salvador and Gonzalo Rubalcaba, teaching himself not only to play drums, but also the art of composition.
“I worked hard to develop each tune as much as possible to get very specific sounds and feelings that related to its title, using different structures and instrumentations, and to get those effects on the drums as well," Prieto says. “I was also very specific about distributing the solos so that they are consistent with the arc of each tune."
As an example of his process and the band's chemistry, Prieto refers to the surging, ascendant title track, Taking the Soul for a Walk. “The idea was one of self-liberation, to take the soul - and the music - to a different place," he says. “Now, with the three horns, the sound could develop more into aggressive riffs and patterns on top of the rhythm. But I wanted to escape that, to give it certain fluidity. So each instrument enters gradually, then we join together, then we start over, little by little again."
The self-liberation metaphor also pertains both to the optimism of Prieto's American journey and the travails of his exile is evident on the achingly beautiful The Sooner The Better. An ostinato on piano and cymbals frames the opening bass solo, which resolves into a three-horn unison of the melody and authoritative solos by Apfelbaum and Cohen. “I've had to make many decisions, from moving to New York to starting my own record label," Prieto says. “The sooner you make these decisions, the more quickly will come the beautiful hope that you always have for the future."
Cohen's trumpet solo highlights En Las Ruinas de su Infancia, on which Prieto juxtaposes metric structures to evoke different characteristics of the Santa Clara barrio in which he was raised. Until The Last Minute is a sentimental, nostalgic danzon that Prieto “dedicates 100% to the soul of" the late conguero Miguel “Anga" Diaz, a close friend and mentor who worked with Columna B. “I wrote that tune the same day I found out that Miguel Anga had passed away," Prieto says. “He was like my brother. We had a lot of fun playing and jamming together, and he inspired me by playing melodic thoughts and ideas on the congas directly in front of me, showing me that it's not only about rhythm."
Comandante, a through-composed fanfare for three horns and drums, sets up Just Say It, which features a floating melody and call-and-response exchange by the horns over a piano-bass-drums ostinato. For Prieto, the piece reflects the dynamics and tension of an imaginary conversation, “in which I am waiting for you to tell me what I am expecting you to say, and you don't really say it. I relate that emotion into the tune, as though two facts are going on at the same time."
Tell Me About Her, without horns, has the feel and sound of a classic jazz piano trio and the romantic melody and chords of a standard, while “Two Excuses," referencing Prieto's “development of two motifs inside the tune itself," features a dialogue of melodica and alto sax.
I Felt You Were Coming" blends street rhythms ("it's a songo pattern, very influenced by Los Van Van") with innovative structural techniques - “the development is like chamber music; the different instruments split and separate the lines" - again evoking emotions of anticipation - “a feeling that something is going to happen, or that somebody is going to come to you."
Prelude Para Rosa is dedicated to Dafnis' mother. “Because I'm I am her only child and have been separated from her for ten years, this tune has a very personal meaning," he confides. Guest flutist Itai Kriss helps convey the composer's angst at the aspect of exile that involves not merely music or politics, but family matters of the most primal kind.
Exile is also an explicit subtext of You'll Never Say Yes, a floating rubato tune. “It expresses the feeling I sometimes get when I try to get through to people in the music industry, thinking to myself, 'You never say yes to any specific circumstances, and you never will recognize me."
The album concludes with Emergency Call. “I always try to conclude with an idea of a futuristic opportunity in sound," the composer says. “The rhythm is very strict, the harmonic changes are really fast, so it conveys the anxiety of being in a situation where things that once looked normal, no longer do, because any emergency changes your emotional status."
For Dafnis Prieto, Taking The Soul For a Walk represents a significant step towards seizing more control of his artistic life. “I have a lot of music that I want to put out - music for dance, for film, and other projects," he says. “I no longer want to ask permission to release it from other people who might be interested. I am trying to represent in my music what I am living now and I want the music to sound the way I walk, the way I breathe, the way all of us are living today - with all the emotions, all the questions and answers that we have."
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