Border-Free

Cuban musician and bandleader Chucho Valdes is known for many things. He’s an extraordinary, fire-breathing pianist, he’s won several GRAMMY® Awards, and he founded the groundbreaking group Irakere in the early '70s. (Valdes is the son of another great pianist, the late Bebo Valdes.) Border-Free, as its title implies, draws on a number of cultural influences to create a distinct brand of Latin jazz. The album opens with “Congadanza,” a supercharged track that includes a thicket of interlocking percussion, the driving bass of Angel Gaston Joya Perellada, and the first of several dazzling piano solos. The expansive “Afro-Comanche,” which honors Comanches who were deported to Cuba, is colored by strains of Native American melody. A tribute to Valdes’ father, “Bebo,” faintly echoes Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father,” while the touching “Pilar” honors Valdes’ mother. “Tabu” moves at an elegant pace as trumpeter Reinaldo Melian Alvarez and guest Branford Marsalis make impressive statements. Marsalis picks up his soprano sax for the closer, “Abdel,” a high-energy piece infused with North African flavor.