Fernando Otero Sextet @ Jazz Standard 5/16/12

This was tango revisited.  Tango, Latin, Jazz, Classical influenced music.  Piano, bandoneon, upright bass, cello and drums. It got a little out there but not  crazy.  I loved hearing the different sounds from the instruments.  The last piece had a very cool bandoneon solo where I really got to see the variety of sounds it is capable of.

FERNANDO OTERO SEXTET - NEW DIMENSIONS IN LATIN JAZZ
Fernando Otero – piano & compositions
JP Jofre – bandoneon
Nick Danielson – violin
Adam Fischer – cello
Pablo Aslan – bass
David Silliman – drums

Fernando Otero, who makes his Jazz Standard debut tonight as part of the “New Dimensions in Latin Jazz Series,” was deep into classical piano studies in his native Buenos Aires when he began to develop a unique and provocative style he called “X Tango.” Acclaimed albums like Pagina de Buenos Aires (2007) and the Latin Grammy Award–winning Vital (2010) combined the improvisatory thrill of jazz with a contemporary classical structure in compositions that were often fast–paced and intense, full of dramatic stops and starts. Reviewing Fernando Otero’s performance at New York’s Symphony Space in February 2012, Steve Smith wrote in The New York Times: “Mr. Otero’s writing vibrantly summoned tango ancestors while also acknowledging Bartok and Prokofiev. His brilliant playing bore traces of jazz pianists like Bill Evans and Don Pullen. The resulting synthesis proposed bold new directions for a venerable tradition.”