Cuban Jazz, Simple As That!

I first came across Hilario's music by accident. Years ago, back in Havana, I visited a friend of mine one afternoon and next to his house a group of musicians were performing. I could hear the rehearsal with such clarity that it felt as if I was part of it, and what I heard transported me beyond those walls. I asked who they were, and someone said, they were Perspectiva, a sextet led by Hilario Duran. Durán had replaced Chucho Valdes in the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, and considered the only pianist good enough to do so. As I listened I understood why, the guy was and is amazing. I listened to the rehearsal until the end and, from that day I have been following Hilario's musical carrier. Chucho Valdes himself called Durán “one of the greatest Cuban pianists of the twentieth century.” Born in 1953 in Havana, Cuba, Durán studied at the Arnadeo Rolden Music Institute under Evaristo Aparicio, German Pifferrer and Guillermo Barreto. The 1970s saw Durán launch his own group “Los D’Siempre” mixing traditional Son and Tumbao with Modern Jazz. He went on to work and compose alongside the great Arturo Sandoval, and then to collaborate with Dizzy Gillespie, Michel Legrand, amongst others. Moving to Canada in 1998, his unique musical style went on to capture Canadian audiences and Latin jazz lovers worldwide. He has since gone on to win numerous awards for his compositions, including the prestigious 2007 Chico O’Farrill lifetime achievement award in Miami for his outstanding contributions to Afro-Cuban jazz and Latin Jazz and a Grammy nomination for his album “From the Heart”. He won a prestigious JUNO in 2007 for “Contemporary Jazz album of the year”. Latinolife: How did you start out in music? Hilario Durán: I started out playing by ear, it was always easy for me since I was a child to reproduce the sounds I heard, something like a photographic memory butwith the ears not eyes! I remember playing all the music I heard on the TV by ear, that was before I took private piano lessons. LL: Who was your first influences on the Piano, and do you play any other instrument? HD: There were a lot of different ones. The first jazz pianist I heard was Errol Garner, then the classical pianaist like Vladimir Horowitch, and ofcourse the great Cuban pianists Frank Emilio Flyn, Chucho Valdes, Ernesto Lecona, Emiliano Salvador, Samuell Tellez, Rafael Somavilla, Adolfo Guzman. Later I got influenced, like everybody else, by the Corea-Hancock-McCoy Tyner. Nowadays I get influenced by anything that interests me. I play the clarinet, the double bass, the drums and a bit of percussion also! LL: Tell me about your experiences with the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna? Was that where you began to think about jazz? HD: I started to study jazz from long before, since I was a teenager in the National Music Conservatory Amadeo Roldan. I was called up to replace, guess whom? Chucho Veldez and when I sat in his chair it was very hot! I got into that orchestra very young and with no experience playing with those greats masters. Being able to survive the first few gigs is something I owe to my great master and friend Guillermo Barreto, who taught me and polished me whose patience and dedication enabled me to play all kinds of music, how to play with just a singer or fill up behind a melody, etc, LL: In 1981 you were contracted by Arturo Sandoval as musical director of the group he formed after leaving Irakere and you worked with him for almost a decade. How were those years with Arturo? HD: That was incredible, an adventure. To Arturo I also owed part of my formation. Although we started the band from scratch, we travelled around the world. Arturo made me understand that music is dedication. I helped him by directing the band and wrote a lot of arrangements, but Arturo was the real director, he made the decisions. He always had a knock for what people wanted to hear and was always right in his decisions and in business. Very rarely he made the wrong decision. With him I had the privilege of playing in the most important festivals and playing alongside musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Michel Legrand, Bobby Mc Ferrin, Herbie Hancock, Woody Shaw John Faddis and Winton Marsalis. To play with Arturo represented a great experience for me and everyone involved in the band, in our development as soloists, especially me. LL: Afterwards, with the group Perspectiva you mixed Cuban rhythms such as the Cha Cha Cha and Venezuelan ones such as the Guapango with jazz. Tell me a little about that. HD: The experience with Grupo Perspectiva was very beneficial and a time of great experimentation. We were in the electronic era and at that time I was working a lot with keyboards. In those years a work in a lot of new compositions, looking for new styles and it enabled me to later on become a soloist. LL: Of all your many recordings which album do you consider to be your most accomplished? HD: For me, my best albums is From the Heart…but I have special affection for album I made in Cuba with the former members of Perspectiva, the album is called Encuentro en la Habana LL: Could you tell me how you go about composing? Do you have any kind of ritual? Do you prefer a particular time of day? HD: Rituals are the easy thing to creat, what I need to write is an idea or an inspiration of course! Inspiration is the hardest thing to get, it comes sometimes, it doesn’t come other times! When it does not come is when you have to squeeze your brain! LL: The trio and the jazz big band are two formats that you have repeated over the years. Is there any particular reason for that? HD: No particular reason, both projects are fascinating to me, but the Big Band project I enjoy a bit more because there is nothing as exciting and pleasurable in life that directing 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, 5 saxophones and a strong rhythm section!! LL: Cuba is ever present in your music, and your tumbaos on the piano betray your nationality. How would you classify what you do? Cuban Jazz, Latin jazz or simply Jazz? HD: What i do is Cuban Jazz, as simple as that! For tickets to see Hilario Durán http://www.ronniescotts.co.uk/performances/view/1776-hilario-duran-trio