If you’re looking for some new, fresh and exciting sounds, this big band album led by trombonist William Cepeda is going to knock your socks off. He leads a team that boasts fives saxes, four each of trombones and trumpets, and then there’s the avalanche of a rhythm section with bass, drums, cuatro guitar, piano and two percussionists. But what makes Cepeda’s charts so exquisite is the use of vocalist Kalinell Sanjurjo Lopez as part of the horn choruses, creating an extra texture that is almost otherworldly
The album is recorded “live”, so the complex charts must have taken some extra hours to perfect, as the horns race like Formula One cars around the punchy arrangements of “Atrevida” with alto saxes and piano careening around the sharp edged corners. Likewise the intricate and serpentine “Zaza” features bold primary colors painted by a dazzlingly dizzy brush supplied by the brass and reeds. The lurking dark alley’d intro of “The Next Step” turns into a frenetic and frantic chase scene, while the percolating percussion of “Con El Corazon” mixes bebopping alto lines with an avalanche of grooves. Each song has hand-is-quicker than the eye dexterity of themes and seques, with the closing “Oye Oye” a mind boggling tornado of passion.
Hot, sweaty and filled with energy, the feel of a late night smoke filled room is captured on this disc. Hold on tight to this white knuckler!