Grammy-winning Dafnis Prieto is universally acknowledged to be a drummer of prodigious skill. His sextet’s superb new recording, Transparency, makes it abundantly clear that his skills as a composer and arranger are on the same plane as his drumming.

Dafnis Prieto Sextet
Transparency (Dafnison Music)
A review
Has anyone counted the number of arms and legs that drummer Dafnis Prieto possesses? With the symphonic range of sound and the complex polyrhythms he produces from a drum kit, it seems pretty clear that he has supernumerary limbs, even if the publicity photos don’t show them. However many he has, his energetic drumming, nourished by his Cuban roots, runs like a live wire through his Afro-Cuban jazz sextet’s latest release, Transparency, electrifying his superb colleagues: Román Filiú (alto and soprano sax), Peter Apfelbaum (tenor sax, melodica, and percussion), Alex Norris (trumpet), Alex Brown (piano), and Johannes Weidenmueller (acoustic and electric bass).

The sextet has some terrific material to work with, too, thanks to Prieto’s composing and arranging skills, with eight Prieto originals and an arrangement of Dizzie Gillespie’s “Con alma.” Unexpected shifts in rhythm and direction, while surprising, have the knack of going exactly where they need to, making minisuites of the compositions.

Right off the bat, “Amanecer contigo” gets the blood flowing with a gorgeous head, terrific horn arrangements, and a joyful intention. (It presents one problem for the listener: it is so captivating that it may delay your experience of the rest of the album as you hit repeat two or three times.) Apfelbaum’s melodica adds a nice texture to “No es fácil,” which moves gently but determinedly toward the light. The intriguing line of “Uncerntradition” features a spreading, curling, vinelike solo from Filiú. The tender, dreamy “Con alma” gives way to the opening drum conflagration of “Cry with Me,” with its burning trumpet solo. The delicate opening of “On the Way” in no way foretells the burning drama to come. The piano takes the first solo, with a baroque, drumlike attack paralleled by Prieto’s cymbal work. The tenor deepens the drama and lifts the intensity, followed by the trumpet and alto—all the horns surfing the fire laid down by piano, bass, and drums. “Feed the Lions”—a panoply of colors and textures and feeling—demands that your feet move, while “Nothing or Everything,” with a funky electric bass line, builds layer after layer of swirling rhythm to keep them moving. The tipsy melody of “Lazy Blues” seems an appropriate setting for Prieto’s intoxicating drum solo.

Transparency’s intention is clear enough: to celebrate life and lift the spirit, through tender reflections of the heart and joyful invitations to dance. It succeeds on every level.

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© 2020 Mel Minter