Dafnis Prieto Sextet: Triangles and Circles | Album Review

Cuban drummer Dafnis Prieto is a technical virtuoso who can send jaws tumbling to the floor with his own very original fusion of Afro-Cuban grooves and gnarly post-bop rhythms, flawlessly executed in a blur of hands and sticks. But it's the bold musical vision and compositional ambition that really set the New York-based percussionist apart, and put him and his talented sextet at the cutting edge of what some are calling Pan-American jazz. Recorded in studio at the end of a week-long live engagement, the band – trumpeter Mike Rodriguez, saxophonists Peter Apfelbaum and Felipe Lamoglia, pianist Manuel Valera and bassist Johannes Weidenmueller – burns with a white heat, nailing the leader's complex but always approachable charts and soloing with passion and purpose.