The band Zarabande consists of “El Toro” Alfred Flores who plays marimba and malletkat along with Joe Caploe/vib, Mark Little/p, Pete Ojeda/b and Dean Macomber/dr. As you can tell by the musicianship, there’s a lot of percussion in the discussion, and they make it work well without cluttering up the works.
There’s some exciting modal piano on “Ogun” while Little does some excellent stride work on with Ojeda’s funky bass on “The West Wind.” Hip soul jazz makes for great vibes on the CTI-sounding “Judah Memphis” and some hip synth work glows on the spacey “Praise.” Sparks fly with the Latin title track and “Giant” while Macomber gets a workout on “Bebe’.” This is a toe tapper!