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 Artist: DAVE SCHUMACHER
& CUBEYE
Title: SMOKE IN THE SKY
Release Date: April 19, 2024
Digital Release: April
12, 2024
Label: Cellar Music
Catalog Number: CMR100123
UPC Code: 628308830176
TRACK LISTING
1. Smoke In the Sky 6:29
D. Schumacher/ arranged by
Manuel Valera, Second Floor Music
2. You Know It’s Wrong 3:24
E. Harris/ arranged by Dave
Schumacher, Seventh House, Ltd.
3. Caridad 6:48
AfroCuba de Matanzas/
arranged by Manuel Valera, Bis Music
4. (No More) Smoke In The
Sky 4:11
D. Schumacher, Second Floor
Music
5. El Dilema de Chegüi
Metralla 7:22
Dave Schumacher, Second
Floor Music
6. Cal Massey 5:08
S. Cowell/ arranged by Dave
Schumacher, Stanco Publishing company
7. Walk Spirit Talk Spirit 11:05
M. Tyner/ arranged by Dave
Schumacher, Aisha Music
8. Poinciana 9:03
N. Simon/ arranged by Dave
Schumacher, Chappell & Co., Songwriters Guild of America OBO Bernier
Publishing
Executive Producer: Cory
Weeds & Dave Schumacher. Produced by Dave Schumacher. Co-Produced by
Hector Davila (aka Chegüi Metralla). Recorded at Trading 8s Studio, April
19th & June 13th, 2023. Engineered by Chris Sulit. Mixed by Chris Sulit and
Hector Davila. Mastered by Oscar Autie, El Cerrito Records. Photography by
Peter Brainin, Dave Schumacher. Dave Schumacher plays Ted Klum Mouthpieces.
Design and layout by Perry Chua
MUSICIANS: Dave Schumacher -
Baritone Saxophone, Josh
Evans - Trumpet, Jesus
Ricardo - Trumpet, Peter
Brainin - Tenor, Soprano Saxophones, Manuel Valera - Piano,
Alex “Apolo” Ayala -
Bass, Mauricio Herrera -
Congas, Iyá, Itótele, Okónkolo, Chekeré, Joel E. Mateo - Drums, Bells
An accomplished versatile virtuoso baritone saxophone player,
Chicago native Dave Schumacher has been a mainstay on the New York jazz scene
for more than forty years. His big, bold baritone first came to international
attention during the eighties, spending much of those years touring the world
with Lionel Hampton’s Orchestra. Schumacher garnered further notice following
that with nearly two decades as a member of the orchestra of Harry Connick,
Jr. In the 90's he also toured with T.S. Monk’s Monk on Monk band and the Tom
Harrell Octet, as well as freelance work with many others in New York and on
the road.
It was during those early days with Hamp that Schumacher began to become
immersed in the history of Afro-Cuban music, the result of rooming on tours
with the band’s percussionist, conguero Sam “Seguito” Turner. He says "I
was aware of the recordings of Bird with Machito/Mario Bauza and Dizzy
Gillespie with Chano Pozo while still in high school but did not really get
deeper into the music until hooking up with Sam on Hamp’s band. Sam turned me
on to the traditional music of Arsenio Rodriguez, Cachao, Tata Guines, Los
Muñequitos de Matanzas, Los Papines and the New York sounds of Machito, Tito
Puente, Eddie Palmieri and Ray Barretto.” That he has thoroughly
absorbed the sophisticated rhythms evinced in the groups of those maestros
and combined them with his own mastery of the jazz idiom is clearly evident
on this, his fourth outing as a leader.
While Schumacher has given listeners a taste of his command of the Latin Jazz
language on his previous efforts, here for the first time, leading his
current working band that he’s dubbed Cubeye, he offers a full album’s worth
of songs that advance the genre with an exciting 21st Century sensibility.
Assisting him in firing up the music on the disc by turns heated and warm,
are likeminded “musically bilingual” players – trumpeters Josh Evans and
Jesus Ricardo, tenor and soprano saxophonist Peter Brainin, pianist Manuel
Valera, bassist Alex “Apolo” Ayala, drummer Joel Mateo and percussionist
Mauricio Hererra – each one of whom is well known for being equally skilled
in playing both jazz and Latin music as one can witness throughout. Drawing
upon an aggregate of experience performing with the likes of Arturo
O’Farrill, Hilton Ruiz, Papo Vazquez, Yosvany and Yunior Terry, Melvis Santa
and the Mambo Legends Orchestra, their combined talents are instrumental in
bringing Schumacher’s cross-cultural vision to fruition.
Schumacher freely admits that two of the biggest influences on Cubeye’s
musical concept are Jerry Gonzalez & The Fort Apache Band and Art Blakey
and the Jazz Messengers. The saxophonist recalls traveling with the latter’s
big band to Japan in 1987 to perform at the Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival as one of
the greatest highlights of his lengthy career. From the very start of “Smoke
In The Sky”, the impact of those iconic bands on the group is clearly evident
with blasting horns hitting hard in the Messenger tradition on top of the
pulsating percussion that hearkens to Fort Apache’s relentless rhythmatism.
Dave notes, “I was hearing the melody and harmony of the date’s fourth track,
my ballad “(No More) Smoke In The Sky”, over an up-tempo groove. Manuel
created this dramatic re-imagination of the original song.”
Dave’s arrangement of “You Know It’s Wrong” by fellow Chicago saxophonist
Eddie Harris has something of the pensive sophistication of the great Wayne
Shorter in its engaging melody that is played over Herrera's traditional bata
rhythms before he digs in with a soulful solo, followed by Ayala’s bass
interlude leading into the incendiary conga solo over vamping that brings the
melody back in. Dave remembers “I first heard Eddie play this, originally a
4/4 shuffle, at Sweet Basil in the mid 80’s. It always stuck in my mind and I
reframed it in a 6/8 groove.”
Valera’s tour de force arrangement of the AfroCuba de Matanzas classic
“Caridad” begins with Schumacher’s brawny baritone blowing mournfully, at
first unaccompanied then backed by bata drums, before the band joins in with
a slow fanfare that prefaces its recitation the enchanting melody and the
incendiary soloing that follows. Dave recalls “I heard AfroCuba de Matanzas
live in New York twice in the mid 90’s and they had a huge impact on me. “Caridad”
is a composition that I really dug from their Raices Africanas album.”
Dave proves himself to be an authoritative balladeer on his brooding “(No
More) Smoke In The Sky.” He recalls the distressing tale behind the emotive
song’s title. “This ballad was inspired by an image that came to my mind
while on tour in Los Angeles in 1992. It was on the fateful day that the
verdict was released in the Rodney King case and the city started to ignite.
As I saw smoke rising above the California sky, I had a flashback to a
younger self and an image I had never thought about. I suddenly saw myself on
the back porch of my childhood apartment in Chicago in 1968 looking at smoke
rising in the sky above the West side of the city. As an 8 year old I had no
understanding of the gravity of that day which was the day that Martin Luther
King, Jr. was assassinated.”
“El Dilema de Chegüi Metralla” is Dave’s tribute to Hector Davila (aka Chegüi
Metralla), his close friend and brother, the album’s co-producer and a
talented musician, composer and arranger in his own right. It’s a straight
ahead swinger in the Messenger tradition that features, as Blakey would say,
“no one in particular,” showcasing each of the band member’s soloing
strength.
The date’s three final tracks display Dave’s talents as an imaginative
arranger, beginning with Stanley Cowell’s “Cal Massey,” the late pianist’s
tribute to the largely unheralded Philadelphia trumpeter. He asserts, “One of
my absolute favorite albums is Clifford Jordan’s Glass Bead Games on Strata
East. I have spent countless hours listening to this record over the years
and love many of the compositions on it. I was hearing “Cal Massey” in this
groove for Cubeye and created the arrangement.”
Dave’s dynamic arrangement of McCoy Tyner’s “Walk Spirit Talk Spirit” gets
started with an extended Ayala bass solo followed by a piano and percussion
intro before the horns take off on the well known melody for an adventurous
excursion. “I bought McCoy’s Enlightenment as a freshman in high school in
1974 and “Walk Spirit Talk Spirit” became an immediate favorite of mine,” he
recalls. “I hadn’t thought about playing it for decades, but as I formed
Cubeye it immediately came to mind. I wrote the arrangement and with the
additional input from the cats in the band we came up with this rumba
version.”
The undertaking of re-imagining the song “Poinciana” might be thought of as a
fool’s journey, considering just how deeply embedded in the jazz psyche Ahmad
Jamal’s interpretation of the Nat Simon composition, but Dave rises to the
occasion. He admits, “Of course Ahmad Jamal’s classic version is the first
thing that comes to mind when thinking of “Poinciana,” but I had also been
listening to a killin’ live Sonny Rollins bootleg playing it in a different
vibe. My arrangement is a confluence of influences; from Israel Cachao
Lopez’s “Descarga Cubana” from Cuban Jam Sessions in Miniature, Frank
Emilio's “Gandinga, Mondongo y Sandunga” as well as the impact of the Sonny
Rollins and Ahmad Jamal versions on me.”
Dave concludes, “The vision for this group had its seed in my musical life’s
experience and interests but this extremely talented group of cats have
brought this vision to life. Without their high level of artistry, musical
chemistry and in no small part their input to the overall settings of the
music created, this musical vision that I call Cubeye would not live as it
does!”
Russ Musto
The New York City Jazz Record
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