Near the close of his roughly hourlong concert at the Museum of Modern Art on Sunday night, Dafnis Prieto stepped out from behind his drum kit with a pair of claves in hand. He struck up a familiar pattern--the syncopated heartbeat, also called clave, that underpins virtually all Afro-Cuban music--and proceeded to scat in a polysyllabic babble.
His utterances, however madcap, had a serious intent: all those consonant-studded phrases and skittering inflections evoked the clangor of a full percussion section.
Bedazzlement is a proven strategy for Mr. Prieto, a spectacularly proficient Cuban drummer who arrived in New York a decade ago. In a sense his solo turn at the microphone was a natural extension of his style. Dynamic to the extreme, his music advances a slippery amalgam of complex polyrhythm and incantatory melody. There’s always a lot going on, especially at the level of his forceful but supple drumming.
The concert was the final installment of this year’s Summergarden series, organized with input from Jazz at Lincoln Center and usually held in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. A late-breaking thunderstorm forced everything indoors, though, to the other side of the museum’s east-facing glass wall. Remarkably, the delay was minimal, and Mr. Prieto had little problem adjusting to the lobby’s lively acoustics.
His utterances, however madcap, had a serious intent: all those consonant-studded phrases and skittering inflections evoked the clangor of a full percussion section.
Bedazzlement is a proven strategy for Mr. Prieto, a spectacularly proficient Cuban drummer who arrived in New York a decade ago. In a sense his solo turn at the microphone was a natural extension of his style. Dynamic to the extreme, his music advances a slippery amalgam of complex polyrhythm and incantatory melody. There’s always a lot going on, especially at the level of his forceful but supple drumming.
The concert was the final installment of this year’s Summergarden series, organized with input from Jazz at Lincoln Center and usually held in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. A late-breaking thunderstorm forced everything indoors, though, to the other side of the museum’s east-facing glass wall. Remarkably, the delay was minimal, and Mr. Prieto had little problem adjusting to the lobby’s lively acoustics.
