Emiliano Salvador

Pianist and composer. He was one of those musicians admired by musicians themselves, and especially by those who play his instrument. It can be said in this case that he was a pianist's pianist. He has become a legend not only among Cubans, but throughout the realm of Afro-Caribbean Music and Latin Jazz.

He was born in Puerto Padre, Las Tunas. He studied percussion and piano at the Escuela Nacional de Arte and completed his studies later with Juan Elósegui, Federico Smith and Leo Brouwer. He was part of the Grupo de Experimentación Sonora del ICAIC; he was pianist and arranger for Pablo Milanés's group; he accompanied Silvio Rodríguez, Chico Buarque and the Brazilian quartet MPB4.

He founded and directed his own group, which at different times was made up of José Carlos Acosta, tenor and soprano saxophone; Feliciano Arango, electric bass; Emilio del Monte, paila and drums; Rodolfo Valdés Terry, tumbadora and bongó.

According to Leonardo Acosta, Emiliano's merit, musically speaking, begins with the fact that he achieved his own style, organic and coherent, based on Afro-Cuban roots, jazz, Brazilian music, classical and romantic piano and very particular influences from certain pianists. Chucho Valdés was the first in Cuba to assimilate the lesson of Evans.

Among American pianists who follow the path traced by Bill Evans, the first are McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett. Of these, it was McCoy Tyner, with undeniable affinity for Afro-Latin rhythms, who exercised the greatest influence over Emiliano Salvador.

Emiliano was particularly interested in the harmonic innovations of Thelonious Monk, and he was indeed the first Cuban pianist to do so. From the free-jazz movement, he knew how to assess the values of another pianist, Cecil Taylor, who combined Monk's discoveries with the piano playing of composers like Béla Bártok and with a very free sense of improvisation.

Of Cuban pianists, he was especially interested in the music of Peruchín Jústiz and Frank Emilio, he admired Dámaso Pérez Prado as a pianist, and he considered him (rightly so) as the Thelonious Monk of Cuban improvisation.

Regarding genres and pianists of Cuban son and danzón he had no problems, as he had internalized them since he played with his father's orchestra, where he performed on Cuban percussion, piano and accordion from age eleven.

Another advantage for Emiliano was having studied percussion at the Escuela Nacional de Arte, which added to his innate rhythmic sense, made him one of the most imaginative jazz drummers we have heard in Cuba; and he added this knowledge to his piano playing.

Emiliano's original compositions, such as Angélica, Poly, Una mañana de domingo or Mi contradanza, increasingly performed by Cuban jazz musicians and groups, have enriched Cuban jazz repertoire, within which they could very well become classics since they meet all the conditions. Above all, he was a pianist with extraordinary faculties as an improviser, and as already noted, he managed to forge his own style. Polyphonic and polyrhythmic treatment is at the very base of that style, that is, the piano conceived as an orchestra.

His way of conceiving Afro-Cuban jazz is so natural and so refined that he never needed to resort to a montuno after a purely jazzy improvisation, as both elements are fully integrated: when we listen to a montuno, it is part of a melodic-harmonic-rhythmic discourse in which Afro-Cuban rhythmic patterns integrate with jazz harmony and phrasing and blues.

The degree of fusion of both musics in Emiliano Salvador's conception and interpretation is almost absolute and makes him one of the most admired and influential pianists among great Afro-Latin Jazz pianists like Eddie Palmieri, Hilton Ruiz and Danilo Pérez, and among Americans who are increasingly venturing into our rhythms, not to mention Cuban pianists who pay him true homage and who, each with their own projections, are making their way in the planetary world of jazz. He won at Cubadisco for Pianísimo, prize in archive music 2001.

He dies in La Habana, on October 22, 1992.

Works
Contradanza
Angélica, A Puerto Padre, Aquellas gaviotas, Con Fe, El eclipse, El montuno, En una volanta actual, Mi contradanza.

Danza
Danza para cuatro, Para luego es tarde.

Danzón
Fatia, Para luego es tarde.

Fusión
Un momento de inspiración (with José Carlos Acosta).

Jazz balada
Una mañana de domingo.

Jazz latino
Jazz Plaza, Preludio y visión, Post-visión, Sueño de Ana, Poly.

Zapateo
Zapateo para una dama bella.