Pablo Milanés performs tribute to jazz classics

May 27, 2019

After having recorded more than 50 CDs and composed hundreds of songs, many of them authentic anthems of Cuban trova and song, Pablo Milanés presents a work of jazz and American standards from all time.

This new CD is titled Standars, and it is an album in which Pablo covers classics by Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald, sung in English and accompanied by Gastón Joya, Rolando Luna, and Ramsés Rodríguez. The album, which was recorded in 2017 in Milanés's studio in La Habana and released in Cuba by Bis Music, will see the light in the coming weeks throughout the world.

Jazz classics such as "Fly Me to the Moon", "For Sentimental Reasons" or "I've Got You Under My Skin" are songs that have accompanied Pablo since his youth in his visits to the clubs Karachi, Las Vegas, and Havana 1900, where for some time the Cuban Jazz Club functioned. During that time, they were performed in La Habana by American musicians such as Zoot Sims, trumpeter Vinnie Tano (from Stan Kenton's band) or pianist Kenny Drew. Pablito was then 16 or 17 years old and greatly enjoyed that music brought by the hand of Bebo Valdés, Armando Romeu, or pianist Frank Emilio Flynn.

During that stage, legendary jam sessions were heard, such as the one that took place at Sans Souci with Sara Vaughan and her trio. That night Frank Emilio improvised together with the upright bass of Sarah, Richard Davis, who at one point in the evening asked Frank to accompany him in The Nearness of You. When asked if he knew it, the Cuban pianist, who was blind, nodded: "In what key do you want it, mulato?".

Then came the era of the new trova and there his collaborative work with the great pianist Emiliano Salvador, more recently was his encounter with jazz in 2007, when he recorded with Chucho Valdés "Más allá de todo", with songs composed by Chucho and lyrics by Pablo.

The idea then arose to make an album together, in which for the first time Pablo Milanés would sing in English the standards of jazz and American song that he always wanted to do. Ten years passed. Due to commitments from both, the project did not materialize, until Pablo decided to summon pianist Rolando Luna, bassist Gastón Joya, and percussionist Ramsés Rodríguez, three greats of contemporary Cuban jazz, who joined him in the adventure.

The ten tracks of Standars were selected by Pablo. Then they would listen to the most important international versions of the selected standard, and in half an hour or three quarters of an hour they would agree and everything was already discussed and ready to record. Sometimes the first take was the good one, other times the second—thirds were almost nonexistent—and then Pablo would put his voice in English. Thus, barely realizing it, one by one the versions that were recorded came out: Stardust, Autumn Leaves, As Time Goes By, Stella by Starlight, Lullaby of Birdland, Wild Is the Wind (in addition to the four mentioned at the beginning). And so these jazz Standards have come out but with a warmth and personality of their own... It is not difficult to notice that behind their melody there are Cuban musicians.