Search - Bobby Matos & Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble :: Sessions

Percussionist Bobby Matos leads his Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble through a wildly diverse (three takes of Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" and covers of the Rascal's "Groovin'" and Pharaoh Sanders's "The Creator Has a Master Plan") romp on this LP culled from a 14-year stash of studio tapes. Intended to illustrate the evolution of Matos's sound, Sessions really serves to underscore the fact that when the man hits his groove, he's capable of steamrolling a wide and danceable path marked by funky horn charts, jaunty piano, and the ever-present plink and plunk of percussion. Matos, however, is not one to smooth things over for the sake of a song--Sessions's finest moments come when things seem most hectic. Matos pits percussion against piano leaving the horns to whoop and exclaim all around him and filling in a sound that, despite its swinging demeanor, is all business. --S. Duda