Conrad Herwig - The Latin Side of Horace Silver

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Ned Sublette is a New York City-based writer, record producer and musician who has contributed two important books to the Jazz Literature that help this body of work to better encompass, incorporate and underscore the influence of what Jelly Roll Morton once described as “The Spanish Tinge” on the music.

In Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo [2004] and The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square [2008] Mr. Sublette makes the point of the Spanish influence on Jazz from its inception ongoing to the present so convincingly so as to make the word “Tinge” in Morton’s phrase appear as a gross understatement.

As he explains in his Preface:

“We in the United States can never completely understand our own music without reference to Cuban music. By the time the Pilgrims made their voyage, the fingerprints of the Spanish-speaking New World had already appeared on the music of Europe, via the port of Havana. As music in English-speaking America developed, Cuban music was already there, informing it. Needless to say, you can hear the influence of the United States on Cuban music. But traditions that came out of Cuba lurk behind everyday musical concepts in the United States, passing almost unnoticed because of their familiarity and longstanding presence. By the end of the nineteenth century they were well embedded, and this influence was reinjected into every generation in the United States right up through the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and after.

A point that I will make in various ways in this book and the volume that follows is that, in the United States, Cuban music has to be regarded as the Other Great Tradition, a fundamental music of the New World. You can hear its influence in classical music, ragtime, tango, jazz, rhythm and blues, country, rock and roll, funk, and hip hop, to say nothing of salsa. The imprint of Cuban music is everywhere, and Cuba is still a world power in music today. To speak of Cuba is not to deny the music of the rest of the Caribbean, which flowed in and out of Cuba, nor to deprecate music from other places. But Cuba was of such central importance in the history of the New World and its music that a book about Cuban music must cover a great deal of ground.

Popular music history written in the second half of the twentieth century typically described American music in terms of black and white, but mostly failed to see the elephant in the living room: Cuba. Certainly the drama of "race" is central to the formation of arts and culture in the United States. But that alone does not explain why our music sounds the way it does. Another factor must be taken into account, one that is not innocent of "racial" issues but which also involves the language barrier. White and black people in the United States speak the same language—up to a point, anyway. But Spanish speakers in the United States have always been the "other."

The history of Cuban music and its effect on American music has been largely unrecognized in the United States, perhaps for the simple reason that it was sung in Spanish. Cuban music was imported into the United States over and over again as a novelty, with campy costumes and horrendous stereotypes. Meanwhile, its profound impact on generation after generation of American musicians passed almost unnoticed. The problem was exacerbated after 1959, when Cuba became a sort of black hole in the minds of most Americans.[pp vii viii].”

He goes on to explain:

“If you've ever heard an American sax player fail to lock in while jamming with a salsa band, or heard a Cuban band take on a bluesy jazz tune that doesn't feel right, you know that for all that Afro-Cuban and African American music might have in common, they're also very different from each other.

Why? Because essential elements of these two musics came from different parts of Africa, entering the New World by different routes, at different times, into differently structured societies.

It's not just that the Cuban sings in Spanish and the American in English. The differences are profound. Two of the most essential characteristics of African American music do not appear in Cuban music: swing (by which I mean the 12/8-like feel of uneven eighth notes) and the blues scale (with those bent, inflected pitches), Cuban music has something else: clave (a rhythmic key) and those undulating, repeating, melodic-rhythmic loops of fixed pitches called (with different shades of meaning) guajeo, montuno, or tumbao. These appear in American music, but in Cuban music they dominate, and they largely entered the American musical vocabulary from Cuba.

In these differences, African American and Afro-Cuban music reflect-in a very general way, of course—the grand contrast between the two great musical styles of Africa: that of Sudanic Africa (or what we might for simplicity's sake call griot Africa) and that of forest Africa.” [pp. 159-160].

And Mr. Sublette concludes in his Acknowledgements:

“This book is the logical outcome of a conversation I've been having for years with everyone I know. I can't thank everybody who helped me with it any more than I can name all the musicians in Cuba. But thanking all the musicians in Cuba and in New York that I've worked with, listened to, and hung out with would be a good start, even if they are too numerous to name.

In the United States, the people who preserved the history of Latin music weren't credentialed musicologists teaching in universities and writing in scholarly journals. They were people like my friend Harry Sepulveda — collectors, informed listeners, and musicians, mostly Latinos, who did the real work of musicology maintaining the memory of what happened when the official scribes weren't paying attention. Rene Lopez, an important figure in the New York community, calls these people "lay musicologists."”

Which brings me to Conrad Herwig’s latest effort - The Latin Side of Horace Silver [Savant SCD 2187] - his eighth in what the trombonist refers to as his “Latinization” series. It would therefore appear that he, too, has been having “... this conversation for a long time.” But even more to the point, Conrad is anything but a “lay musicologist;” he’s a trained one having completed an undergraduate degree in Afro-Caribbean ethnomusicology from Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont!

Over the past 25 years, the previous “Latinizations” have included two homages to Miles and Coltrane, respectively, and one each to Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson. Four of these have received Latin Jazz GRAMMY® nominations.

Joining Conrad on the front line are Alex Sipiagin, trumpet, Craig Handy, alto sax and flute, and Igor Butman, tenor sax. They are superbly backed by an experienced Latin Jazz rhythm section led by Bill O’Connell on piano, Reuben Rodriguez on bass, Robby Ameen on drums, and Richie Flores on congas. Latin Jazz superstar pianist Michel Camilo guests on three tracks: Song for My Father, The Gods of Yoruba, and Nutville.[The other Silver compositions performed on this recording are Nica’s Dream, Peace, Filthy McNasty, Silver Serenade and The Cape Verdean Blues].

With the exception of Michel Camilo and Igor Butman, all of these players have worked with Conrad on one or more of the previous “Latinization” recordings.

Conrad has toured and recorded with Michel on some of his projects: “It’s a 30-plus year collaboration between us,” who first worked with Camilo in Paquito d'Rivera’s band in the 1980s. “He’s like family.”

As for Butman, he, too, is a long-time associate. "I've known Igor for more than 25 years. We have lots of musical colleagues in common; we've played at the Newport Jazz Festival and in Europe together. We've co-led a jazz project together."

According to Jon W. Poses, a freelance writer, music columnist and artist representative who has known and worked with Conrad since 1986:

“Conrad's heart-felt commitment to the Latin Side projects - and their resultant authenticity - stems from his deep self-immersion into this musical culture, which includes an undergraduate degree in Afro-Caribbean ethnomusicology from Goddard College. "I started playing Cumbia and Tejano gigs in Texas," recalls the trombonist, a One O'clock Band alum who also attended North Texas State University (now University of North Texas).

"When I got to New York I joined Mario Bauza's Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra. I also started playing with Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Manny Oquendo, Pete 'El Conde' Rodriguez, Jose Managua! Jr. and a host of other Afro-Caribbean legends," he says, modestly rattling off just a partial list. 

"At the same time, I was playing with many other Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian musicians," adding, "The trombone is an integral part of these musical styles. I really idolized and studied the styles of Generoso Jimenez, Barry Rogers, Raul de Souza and other greats. It was an amazing learning experience. It made me want to study and honor this art form."

Safe to say, he's been doing that now for quite some time, so much so that his highly-developed Latin Jazz sensibility is only matched - or exceeded by- his technical prowess to deliver such music; never mind that this is the same person who owns a substantial straight-ahead musical footprint, one that includes an ongoing Mingus Big Band stint and, speaking of partial lists, time spent with Toshiko Akiyoshi, Frank Sinatra and Clark Terry. Think of it this way: There's a lot more to Conrad Herwig's musical breadth and scope than meets the eye.

With The Latin Side of Horace Silver, Conrad, as he has done with the seven predecessors, again delivers material with forethought, zest and enthusiasm. He selects each of his subjects with great care. In the cases of Trane, Davis, Hancock and Shorter, it is their respective overarching impact that rules the day. Delving into Henderson's compositions represented a more personal reckoning; Conrad toured and recorded with the saxophonist for nearly five years. Similarly, Silver played, what Conrad says is a key piece of his development.

In 2004, the legendary pianist called the trombonist from his Malibu, Calif., home inviting him to play with his band during an upcoming week-long New York engagement. "I jumped at the chance," remembers Conrad. "People flew in from all over the world to see him. For me, I was walking on air. It was a memorable musical experience to perform with one of the all-time greats. He's one of rny musical heroes," notes Conrad, adding, much of Silver's work represents "iconic compositions and transcendental improvisations by one of the greatest jazz musicians that ever lived on the planet."

It was not only Conrad's personal experience and familiarity with the pianist, but also Silver's familial roots that led him to Latin Side of Horace Silver. The pianist's father came from Cape Verde. "There's an amazing folkloric musical genre called 'Morna,' says Prof. Herwig, Chair of Jazz Studies at the Mason Gross School of Music at Rutgers University. "It's based on a mix of Portuguese and African influences. This is the basis for a lot of Horace's compositional innovations."

There was no shortage of material for the release. "We picked some of our favorites such as 'Song for My Father,' 'Peace' and 'Nica's Dream.' And, we researched some of his lesser-known compositions such as 'Gods of the Yoruba,' which is a 5/4 Afro-Caribbean groove that doesn't get performed that often." Concluding, says the trombonist: "Horace's music is deceptively simple and complex at the same time. For jazz musicians his compositions are fantastic improvisational vehicles."

At this point, it's more than fair to say Conrad knows whereof he speaks. All that remains is to just listen.”

The late flutist Dave Valentin would often introduce tunes from the Jazz canon this way: “Here’s Wayne Shorter’s Footprints - with a little rice and beans.” 

Conrad has made his Latinized Jazz standards into the main course.

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