Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez has been the power behind the most popular and influential Latin music of the past decade. Since leaving Cuba and arriving in New York in 1993, he's driven the efforts of Grammy Awards-winners Michel Camilo, Roy Hargrove and Chucho Valdes, as well as Paquito D'Rivera, Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Carlos Santana, with a unique "Latin fusion" style that melds the steady press of the folkloric clave with the fierce punch, crisp snap and deep grooves of today¹s jazz, pop and rock.
Now on Italuba (Pimienta records), El Negro debuts as bandleader and co-composer, leaping to the fore of the next generation of Latin stars, bringing his native musicality to international crossover audiencies.


Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez & ITALUBA

 

" This is the first time I've found music and musicians who energize me to put all my passion into a project" , says Hernandez of the album and his quartet ­ consisting of Cuban emigrates he met in Torino while on solo tour in Italy .
" I see Italuba as related to jazz and world as well as Cuban music. Like everything I do, it's cuban, but with a wider vision" .
Like the title "Italuba", which bridges Italy and Cuba , El Negro's sound from the opening "Free Latin" to the finale "Que Negro esta" springs of tradition and heads for what's new. His drumming is quick and deft, unrelenting in propulsion yet suffused with a surprising array of timbral accents.
The CD's eight tracks (Including "A Night in Torino ", taking off from Dizzy Gillespie's bebop classic Night in Tunisia ) are all created collectively by the Italuba Quartet. " It's a little bit of a workshop, when the four of us get together" , Negro explains , "Everybody brings their ideas and we build compositions out of it" . Amik Guerra 's lyrical and blazing trumpet and flugelhorn, Ivan Bridon Napoles idiomatic and inventive piano/keyboards work, and pocket-perfect electric bass and baby bass playing by Daniel Martinez Izquierdo , at El Negro's direction, result in coherent though kaleidoscopic dimensions.
"We are at the point where we are letting the music play us, instead of us play the music" , El Negro says of the ease with which the players relate and blend. In doing so, Italuba exhibist the grace which characterized Projecto, Gonzalo Rubalcaba¹s acclaimed group with which El Negro first travelled outside Cuba in 1980; the exuberance of pianist Camilo's Trio with El Negro, which won Latin Jazz Grammy for his two CD set "Live at the Blue Note"; the authenticity of trumpeter Hargrove's "Crisol", for which El Negro shared a Grammy in 1997, and the accessibility of Santana's "Supernatural", which El Negro helped produce.


At the core of Italuba's repertoires are the classic Afro-Cuban rhythms that underlie all styles of Latin America ­ the rumba, guanguanco, danzon, mambo and modernized montunos called "Timba", popularized by cuban ensembles like "Los Van Van" and "NG". The knowledge and flexibility of El Negro and his fellows allows their music to flow freely and from their hearts, as when they break from "Night in Tunisia " theme to quote "Guantanamara", Jose Marti¹s enduring ode to the Cuban island.

 

As a political refugee from Cuba , Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez sings of his homeland and heritage in every measure of Italuba , and also of his larger ambition. "I hope" , the drummer says, "The music will help us to tear down the political barriers, and we can take this music to the whole world.." .

Busy globetrotting with his Italuba Quartet, El Negro is well on his way.

HORACIO "EL NEGRO" HERNANDEZ

Horacio was born on 24 April 1963 in Havana , in a family deeply rooted in traditional Cuban music and attentive to American jazz currents.
His talent was evident from an early age and, when 12 years old, he entered the prestigious Escuela Nacional de Arte where he studied with some of the foremost Cuban teachers, among them Fausto Garcia Rivera, Enrique Pla, and Santiago Rieter.
His professional career began early, and he worked with some of the greatest names of the Havana musical scene of the 1980s: Nicolas Reynoso, Paquito D¹Rivera, Lucia Hurgo, Arturo Sandoval, and German Velazco.
In 1980, he met the Cuban pianist and composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba and became a permanent member of his group, Proyecto , where he remained for ten years. Although throughout this period "El Negro" continued to collaborate with numerous Cuban and international artists, including Dizzy Gillespie and his United Nations Orchestra, it was with Rubalcaba that he developed his special percussion technique, blending together Afro-Cuban and jazz elements in a potent mix.
He moved to Rome , Italy , in 1990 and rapidly became the central figure of that city¹s Latin jazz scene. In those years he worked with Pino Daniele, Steve Turre, Gary Barts, Gary Smulyan, and Mike Stern, and founded the group Tercer Mundo .
Hernandez arrived in New York in 1993 and was immediately welcomed into the jazz world, working with Paquito D¹Rivera, Dave Valentin, Jerry Gonzalez & the Fort Apache Band, the Ed Simon Trio, Anthony Jackson, Kip Hanrahan, David Sanchez, Papo Vasquez, Steve Turre and the Sanctified Shells, the Cepada Family¹s Afro-Rican Jazz, Giovanni Hidalgo , Arturo Sandoval, Regina Carter, and Chico O¹Farrill.

 

It was in this period that his collaboration with Michel Camilo began and he participated, among other things, in recording the soundtrack of the film Two Much . He appeared in Chucho Valdes' memorable San Francisco concert, Irakere West , where one of the guests was Carlos Santana. He also entered Tito Puente's Tropi-Jazz All Stars , becoming the youngest member of the group. The year 1997 saw Horacio at Orvieto , Italy , for the winter session of the Umbria Jazz Festival, where he appeared in Roy Hargrove¹s group Crisol alongside David Sanchez, Frank Lacy, Gary Bartz, Changuito, Jon Benitez, Anga Diaz, Russel Malone and Chucho Valdes. In that same year of 1997 their first album, Habana , won the Grammy Award as best record in the Latin jazz category. In the same period, Horacio recorded Thru My Eyes with Michel Camilo, John Patitucci and Anthony Jackson; appeared with McCoy Tyner at San Francisco ; and participated in Carlos Santana¹s world tour. He also recorded two tracks of Santana¹s album Supernatural which, in 1999, also won a Grammy Award.
At the beginning of 1998, readers of the prestigious magazine Modern Drum elected him as Drummer of the Year 1997 .
Also in 1998, he toured the most important European jazz festivals with the group Latin Crossings in the company of Steve Winwood, Arturo Sandoval, and Tito Puente; participated in the tour of the John Patitucci Quartet and, with Kip Hanrahan, produced the CD Deep Rumba .

Over the last few years "El Negro" has continued to collaborate with artists of the highest level, of whom we will mention only: Michel Camilo, Jack Bruce, Alejandro Sanz, Joachim Kuhn, Los Hombres Calientes , Marc Ribot¹s Los Cubanos Postizos , Ramon Valle, Zapp Mama, Tokyo Zawinul Back , Bill Frisell, Chie Ayado, Kazumi Watanabe, Chick Corea, Poncho Sanchez, and Gary Burton. At the present time he has the following projects underway: El Negro and Robby Band, Italuba and Horacio Hernandez & Giovanni Hidalgo Duo . Some of his recent video appearances include: Fernando Trueba¹s Calle 54 ; Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez Live at the Modern Drummer Festival 2000 with Michael Brecker, Marc Quinones, John Patitucci, and Hilario Duran; and Traveling Through Tim e with Giovanni Hidalgo . Finally, we must recall his activities as a teacher and clinician in workshops all over the world, one of the results of which is his instruction book published by Warner Bros. entitled Conversations in Clave . `

 

Photo Jos L. Knaepen

 

 

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