Suite Resbalosa

Artist : Juan Pablo Balcazar
Release Date : October 6, 2020
Label : Fresh Sound Records
Format : CD

Music composed by Juan Pablo Balcazar

Recorded at Underpool Studios, Barcelona, July 12, 2018

Mixed & Mastered by Hartosopash (Javier Rodríguez) at Metropol Studios, Madrid, November 2018

Design & Cover Art: TheLibrarian

Produced by Juan Pablo Balcazar

Executive Producer: Jordi Pujol

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Balcazar is one of the pillars of the Barcelona jazz scene, and has proven himself not only to be a bass player of great imagination, taste and artistic integrity, but also a prolific and interesting composer. This time around his music exudes strength, skill and conviction, but also a feeling of understated melancholy that pervades the Suite.

For his Suite Resbalosa, Balcazar assembled a good, tightly-knit unit that delivers intimate conversations between its five members throughout the set, following the somber but gentle groove —easily recognizable, easily assimilated— from the leader’s music. The group includes two alto saxophonists, Marcel·lí Bayer and Joan Mas, pianist Antonio Mazzei from Venezuela, and drummer Oriol Roca. They achieve a kind of vital transcendence in each performance, sustaining, developing it with the strong, personal, emotionally gripping approach that is so forcibly on display in this session. The texture of each piece is warm and thick, and the moods are reflective and yearning. The ensembles are particularly striking, harmonious and rich in counterpoints, full of intriguing color changes and vigorous line movements.

This quintet traverses the ridges and troughs of the music with sensitive control, where each member’s skill as a soloist and improviser, the clarity and sheer musicality of their ideas, and the affinity with each other, create a cohesive ensemble sound which speaks for itself, growing through the moving eloquence of Juan Pablo Balcazar’s music and his work as a leader.

Text by Jordi Pujol

Juan Pablo Balcazar: double bass

Joan Mas: alto saxophone

Marcel·lí Bayer: alto saxophone

Antonio Mazzei: piano

Oriol Roca: drums

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