Our exposure to live music always revolves around location; we generally have access to the performers in our area. Local musicians provide the majority of our inspiration - they are almost always accessible. We soon focus upon our area’s top musicians, returning to their performances on a regular basis. Traveling artists create inspiring moments, which become more memorable as one-time events. We learn to follow venue schedules, making every attempt to hear the music “stars” of yesterday and today. Most locations have access to high quality local or traveling musicians, usually on a regular basis. Still, every music lover has a favorite band that they do not have the ability to see perform live.

For me, Irakere remains that one band that I have not seen perform live nearly enough. Throughout the early 1990s, I collected every Irakere recording that I could find - at the time, these were fairly difficult to find on the West Coast, so my collection grew very slowly. By the time Irakere actually toured the United States in 1996, I was starved for a more in-depth look at this band. The tickets for their show sold out quickly; too quick for me. I stood and watched Irakere from the door, inspired nonetheless by my brief glimpse. They returned one more time two years later. The main members of the band had moved onto other projects, and the new ensemble seemed quite different. To this day, I still dream about Irakere’s powerful live performances that I never saw.

I’ve always imagined that Irakere’s albums did not portray the total picture of the band’s musicality. Throughout all the personnel changes, the group always contained a rich concentration of highly developed jazz musicians. Their albums reflected this developed artistry, but only offered a static snapshot. The band’s live performances created the opportunity for extended solos, deep interaction, and musical risks. I caught pieces of this through the live Irakere albums Live at Ronnie Scott’s and Exuberancia. The recent DVD documentary Latin Jazz Founders made the possibilities of live performance apparent in a very real way. Regardless of the band’s high quality recordings, Irakere had to be an even more stunning live band.

I’ve included three online videos that confirmed all my beliefs about Irakere’s live performance abilities. The first selection captures the band live in Japan during an exciting rendition of “La Explosión.” Not only does this version of the song include all the funky feel changes, but most of the band stretches out in improvisatory statements. Here we hear Carlos Averhoff on tenor sax, Juan Monguia on trumpet, Carlos Morales on guitar, Chucho Valdes on piano, Adalberto Moreno on trumpet, and Cesar Lopez on alto sax. The next two videos combine to form Irakere’s beautiful masterpiece “Misa Negra.” This extended work explores the lineage between modern jazz harmonic concepts and Cuba’s African roots. The first part of the song includes some intensive sax work from Cesar Lopez, and the second section displays several band members working as an African drumming ensemble. The performances here are spectacular . . . they still make me wish I had followed Irakere around the world, but at least I can experience the band on a different level. Enjoy!

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