David Virelles & Román Díaz at TD Ottawa Winter Jazz Festival at National Arts Centre

Named the “#1 Rising Star” in the Piano category in DownBeat Magazine’s 2015 Critics Poll, 32 year old pianist/composer David Virelles is already perhaps the most intriguing Afro-Cuban jazz artist of his generation. His most recent LPs have been met with substantial critical acclaim, with Continuum (2012, Pi Recordings) being selected as Album of the Year by The New York Times’ Ben Ratliff and Mbòkó (2013, ECM) dominating numerous annual “Best of” lists, including those of The New York Times, NPR, iTunes, The Village Voice and DownBeat.

Intrigued by the ritual folk music of his native Cuba, Virelles’ compositions are dark and richly textured, exploring both what he refers to as musical “systems” and systems of initiation and belief. In percussionist, poet and educator Román Díaz he finds a perfect collaborator, “the spoke on which the pianist's music turns” (Thom Jurek, AllMusic Guide)....

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Named the “#1 Rising Star” in the Piano category in DownBeat Magazine’s 2015 Critics Poll, 32 year old pianist/composer David Virelles is already perhaps the most intriguing Afro-Cuban jazz artist of his generation. His most recent LPs have been met with substantial critical acclaim, with Continuum (2012, Pi Recordings) being selected as Album of the Year by The New York Times’ Ben Ratliff and Mbòkó (2013, ECM) dominating numerous annual “Best of” lists, including those of The New York Times, NPR, iTunes, The Village Voice and DownBeat.

Intrigued by the ritual folk music of his native Cuba, Virelles’ compositions are dark and richly textured, exploring both what he refers to as musical “systems” and systems of initiation and belief. In percussionist, poet and educator Román Díaz he finds a perfect collaborator, “the spoke on which the pianist's music turns” (Thom Jurek, AllMusic Guide).

Díaz, known as a member of the seminal Cuban rumba group Yoruba Andabo and an architect of the genre’s contemporary sound, accompanies Virelles on the biankoméko. This four-drum ensemble, with a metal bell, shakers, and wooden sticks, acts as the accompaniment for the ritual magic of the secretive Abakuá religious group in its masked performances (Jurek). He provides a shivering, almost verbally expressive accompaniment to Virelles’ jazz piano, which reveals its swing at almost subterranean depths.

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