Pablo Bobrowicky: Where We Are

Writing about jazz is made more difficult when you are presented with a nearly perfect recording. What can you say about Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue or John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme ? Because the recording is itself complete, words fail. I go to a tried and true method (with close friends only, please), buy the record, if you hate it, I’ll give you your money back. Although my words have, the refund policy has never faltered.

I’m tempted to offer refunds for dissatisfied listeners of Pablo Bobrowicky’s jazz standards recording. The 30-something Argentinean guitarist recording for an Italian label doesn’t give us Latin versions of Monk, Duke, and Dizzy as much as he delivers a long distance perspective on the second half of the 20th century. The trio of guitar/bass/drums covers ten standards, all attributed to the jazz giants: Coltrane, Ellington, Miles, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Gillespie, plus four originals. Bobrowicky begins with Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, and Jim Hall for inspiration. Crafting music in their styles. He draws his swing from Christian, deep grooves from Montgomery, and like Hall is more comfortable on ballads and slow tunes. When he plays a blues, I hear Tal Farlow’s spirit. He is breathing American jazz, pumping it through his large Argentinean heart, and returning it not in translation but in panorama.

Where is jazz coming from this century? Bobrowicky states a solid case for offshore inspiration, far away from New York’s incestuous scene. The distance afforded to European and South American jazz artists allows for perspective, serious woodshedding, and unfettered development of ideas. If words failed here, it’s only because this is such a great effort.

Track List:Angelica; One For Charlie; Evidence; Au Privave; Body And Soul; Simple Blues; Come Sunday; Invitation; Lonnie’s Lament; On For Wes; Rio De La Plata; Prelude To A Kiss; Wee; I Fall In Love To Easily.