Manuel Valera and The New Cuban Express at The Falcon

Featuring Manuel Valera/Piano,Troy Roberts/Saxophone, Hans Glawishnig/Bass, Ludwig Afonso/Drums, Mauricio Herrera/Percussion

Manuel Valera
www.manuelvalera.com
Raised in Havana, Cuba and based in NYC, 2013 Grammy nominated artist, pianist and composer Manuel Valera is well known in the modern jazz scene, garnering national reviews and lending his skills to notable artists Arturo Sandoval, Paquito D’Rivera, Brian Lynch, Dafnis Prieto, Jeff “Tain” Watts, John Benitez, Samuel Torres, Joel Frahm, Yosvany Terry among others.
The New Cuban Express's sixth record was nominated for a 2013 Grammy in the Best Latin Jazz Album category....

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Featuring Manuel Valera/Piano,Troy Roberts/Saxophone, Hans Glawishnig/Bass, Ludwig Afonso/Drums, Mauricio Herrera/Percussion

Manuel Valera
www.manuelvalera.com
Raised in Havana, Cuba and based in NYC, 2013 Grammy nominated artist, pianist and composer Manuel Valera is well known in the modern jazz scene, garnering national reviews and lending his skills to notable artists Arturo Sandoval, Paquito D’Rivera, Brian Lynch, Dafnis Prieto, Jeff “Tain” Watts, John Benitez, Samuel Torres, Joel Frahm, Yosvany Terry among others.
The New Cuban Express's sixth record was nominated for a 2013 Grammy in the Best Latin Jazz Album category.

New Cuban Express features some of the most in demand players in the NYC scene today. This group explores and fuses the music of Cuba with Jazz. All members of the band are well versed in Latin and Jazz vocabulary allowing the group to have a sound authentic in both genres.

Valera's critically acclaimed 2004 debut recording Forma Nueva (MAVO) features John Patitucci, Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez Bill Stewart and Seamus Blake. Historia (Fresh Sounds New Talent, 2005), a jazz quartet with Antonio Sanchez, Seamus Blake and Ben Street. His third release Melancolia (MAVO,2006)—employs a string quartet incorporating world rhythms and classical concepts in the jazz idiom. Vientos (Anzic, 2007),representing a new working quartet, features bassist James Genus, drummer Ernesto Simpson, saxophonist Joel Frahm and a woodwind quartet. His fifth and trio recording Currents (MaxJazz 2009) features Ernesto Simpson and James Genus.

Manuel has been awarded several grants for composition - most notably Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works in 2006 and 2013 and the ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award. He has travelled the world performing in international venues and festivals.

“He leaves no doubt that he is destined to play a role in the future of jazz.”
—Philip Van Vleck / Billboard

The sound is both old and spectacularly new in terms of his re-invention of the music of a tradition to which he is inextricably linked. And this increases Valera’s importance as a musician in the arena of Afro-Cuban music.
–Raul da Gama / Latin Jazz Network

New Cuban Express is one of the best new Latin Jazz releases we’ve heard this year (or in a while, frankly), and sets a bar that will be hard for others to jump over.
–Bill Tilford / Timba.com

With New Cuban Express, Valera stakes his claim for the establishment of a new sound in fusing rhythms of Latin with elements of modern/fusion.
–Edward Bianco / EJazz News

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