Chucho Valdes with David Sanchez and Roy Hargrove at Lisner Auditorium 1/29/03

Alan Greenblatt

We get some top jazz acts passing through the capital, but those spoiled folks up in New York regularly get to enjoy players who would be headliners out in the hustings sharing a stage together, great pianists backing up star trumpet and sax players and the like. Such an experience was available here last night at a sold-out show at Lisner Auditorium.

And, for me, the interplay between tenor sax man David Sanchez and that punchy trumpeter Roy Hargrove provided the highlights. During the encore, Hargrove closed his solo with some quiet staccato phrasing that Sanchez immediately picked up for his turn in the spotlight. Sanchez toyed with Hargrove's phrasing, making a few notes louder here and there, then bending the notes, then playing with the beat and finally coming up with a much louder, more involved set of phrases that had grown organically out of the stuff Hargrove played.

What a pleasure to hear them together.

The headliner for the show, meanwhile, was pianist Chucho Valdes, one of the most celebrated Latin jazz stars going these days. I was really looking forward to hearing Valdes play with some other top-flight soloists, to hear whether the interplay tamed his natural verbosity at the piano.

Valdes is a big man with astonishingly rapid fingers. (He wore a metallicy silver shirt, which was practically the only non-black item of clothing on the stage). He is a facile pianist with a terrific sense of rhythm, but he grows quickly bored with a melody and becomes overly elaborate in his playing. No Valdes solos is complete, it seems, without a big swipe across half the keyboard, a la Liberace.

The crowd loved that stuff, of course. The biggest hand of the night, actually, went to conga player Yaroldy Abreu Robles when he made popping noises by slapping his palms against his cheeks. (He must have been the king of the third grade playground.)

Mayra Caridad Valdes Roriquez provided bright vocals and some impressive scatting. She moved about the stage, dancing and waving her arms and creating more of a party atmosphere than is usual for a jazz show. For all my frustrations with Chucho Valdes when I listen to his records, he lays down a good beat and playing with a good rhythm section and a pair of thoughtful horn players, he puts on one great show.