A fusion of klezmer-Cuban music

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

Award-winning trumpeter and composer David Buchbinder and award-winning pianist and composer Hilario Durán will lead a band of Canada's top jazz and world musicians in Odessa/Havana, which comes to Vancouver next month.

Klezmer-Cuban fusion may strike some as an odd pairing, but not Buchbinder, for whom the inspiration came "from a 20-year-old recognition of the fundamental suitability of these two genres for musical connection and exploration.

"I heard it in the particular use of minor modalities, expressing both effervescent joy and a deep sorrow," he explained to the Independent in an e-mail interview. "I heard it in some of the rhythms – the Jewish Bulgar, a 3:3:2 rhythm, is identical to the front half of the Cuban clave. I later discovered that they actually have common roots in medieval, Muslim Spain."

From the quality of the Odessa/Havana CD, which was released this month on John Zorn's Tzadik label, it sounds like Buchbinder and Durán have been creating music together for a long time.

"We actually only met to play together at the 2006 Juno celebrations in Halifax," said Buchbinder, "playing my original jazz compositions for national CBC broadcasts and at a concert. (We were both nominated for Junos in the contemporary jazz category.) We composed the first chunk of music in August '06, before our first concert, recorded those, then wrote and recorded the rest earlier this year.

"I think we have worked well together because we were both open to each other's musical tradition and we really appreciate each other as composers," he continued. "I also attribute the strength of the recording to the great musicians in the group and to the expertise of Roberto Occhipinti, who produced the CD and plays bass."

Of the songs that Buchbinder and Durán wrote together, only one didn't make it onto the CD. It was a good piece, said Buchbinder, who composed it, "but maybe a little less unique than the rest of the material. So we left it off, but play it in concert."

In addition to Buchbinder, Durán and Occhipinti, the Odessa/Havana musicians are Quinsin Nachoff (reeds/ute), Aleksander Gajic (violin), Luis Guerra (piano), Mark Kelso (drums), Rick Shadrach Lazar (percussion), Dafnis Prieto (drums) and Jorges Luis "Papiosco" Torres (percussion).

While Buchbinder said that he does a lot of performing of his own material, with his jazz ensemble and with some other, more occasional, world music groups, he likes working with other musicians.

"I love the creative give and take of collaboration," he said, "since one usually is challenged to arrive somewhere not necessarily reachable from a 'solo' stance."

And Odessa/Havana is a perfect example of what can result when great musicians and great cultures mix.

Odessa/Havana is at the Norman Rothstein Theatre on Sunday, Dec. 2, 8 p.m. Tickets are $25/$20 (plus GST) and can be purchased from the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, 604-257-5111.

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