Inner Voyage, the 9th release on the Blue Note label from the 36 year-old, world-renowned Cuban pianist, Gonzalo Rubalcaba features drummer Ignacio Berroa, bassist Jeff Chambers, and special guest, the ubiquitous tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker; and completes an incredible artistic hat trick. It follows his two 1998 Blue Note releases: Flying Colors, a free-wheeling duet with saxophonist Joe Lovano, and Antiguo, a folkloric and futuristic fusion of Cuban and improvisational music. A resident of South Florida with his wife and three kids since 1996, Rubalcaba has had unfettered access to the cream of the crop of U.S. talent and the overall jazz scene since his triumphant 1993 Lincoln Center performance. Inner Voyage represents the next step in his ongoing quest to become a more "integrated musician" with his all-encompassing synthesis of Latin, Afro-Cuban and African-American musical styles.

In the tradition of Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, Gonzalo Rubalcaba composed most of the music on Inner Voyage to evoke the personalities of several important people in his life. "I've tried to give the impression that it's a very intimate type of work," Rubalcaba says of the CD, "precisely because it's closely related to human beings that have had, and still do, special significance to me."

Set in the mode of the Red Garland and Ahmad Jamal trios of the 1950's, Rubalcaba and his ensemble conduct a swinging and soulful sonic seanse, which conjures up the essences of Rubalcaba's favorite people. A lullaby-like melody imbues "Yolanda AnasW" named for Rubalcaba's daughter, while "Joan" (pronunced Joe-aan) and "Joao" - written for his sons - are laced with soft Latin tinge and aqua-toned harmonic shades. "Promenade" is composed for the great bassist Ron Carter who recorded with Rubalcaba on Diz… Gonzalo Rubalcaba Trio, and grooves with his sure-footed, 4/4 walking basslines.

Michael Brecker's Coltrane-coded saxophone flights soar voer the maze-like melodies of "Blues Lundvall", a playful riff on Blue Note CEO Bruce Lundvall's name and "The Hard One", opens with an ingenious three-beat/clave piano/drum rhythmic intro that segues into some high-wire group improvisation. "Sandyken" is a mild, mid-tempo portrait of Rubalcaba's California friends, Sandra and Kenneth and the standard, "Here's That Rainy Day" is rendered with telepathic empathy. A Duke Ellington staple, "Caravan", which Rubalcaba calls the Latin jazz "anthem", penned by the great Puerto Rican composer and Ellington trombonist, Juan Tizol, is buoyed by Berroa's straight-ahead and Afro-Caribbean drumwork, Chambers' deep-toned bass solo and Rubalcaba's percussive and pointillistic pianisms.

The roots of this group go back to the 1995 Heineken Jazz Festival in Puerto Rico, where Rubalcaba first hooked up with the great Cuban drummer Ignacio Berroa - who played with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie and Freddie Hubbard to McCoy Tyner. Berroa replaced Rubalcaba's original drummer who couldn't make the gig due to visa problems. "Ignacio is a very strong musician," Rubalcaba says, "because as everybody knows in the business, he's the only drummers capable of switching back from swing to Afro-Cuban, from samba to bossa nova, or any other rhythm flawlessly. One time I was in San Francisco and my bassist Brian Bromberg couldn't make it and Ignacio had met Jeff Chambers who had worked with him on Dizzy Gillespie's last gigs and Ignacio recommended him… (He) has an incredible ability to digest Latin and Cuban music. I've coincided with Brecker through the '90s and last year in Europe we got to talk and at the time I was going into the studio (with this date). I was considering a fourth instrument and I had a couple of tunes I wanted to try and I spoke to Michael and he was very receptive to it… Even though it seems like a coincidence, I don't believe that there are coincidences in life."

Indeed, it would seem that Rubalcaba was born with musical greatness in his bloodlines. Born in 1963, to a musical family that included his father, pianist Guillermo and his grandfather, danzon composer Jacobo, Gonzalo started piano lessons at the age of eight and earned a degree in music composition at the Institute of Fine Arts in Havana. In Cuba, he formed several groups including Grupo Proyecto, recorded for various local overseas labels and worked with Dizzy Gillespie when he visited the island in 1985. Charlie Haden discovered Rubalcaba in Cuba while both were performing as part of the Havana Jazz Festival in 1986. Haden later invited Rubalcaba to participate in what is now know as the Montreal Tapes with Haden on bass and Paul Motian on drums. Lundvall signed him in 1990 and subsequently released The Blessing, Discovery: Live at Montreux, Images: Live from Mt. Fuji, Suite 4 y 20, Rapsodia, Diz…The Gonzalo Rubalcaba Trio, and Imagine: Live in the USA, which featured his Cuban compatriots, drummer Julio Barreto, bassist Felipe Cabrera and trumpeter Reynaldo Melian.

For Gonzalo Rubalcaba, the ability to easily interweave musical idioms is a by-product of the long presence of American jazz on Cuban soil. "The connection between Cuban music and jazz has been the regular material for a while," he says. "It's something they've handled for a while including those Cuban musicians who perhaps don't specialize in jazz. I think that Cuban musicians have a natural ability to be versatile and subscribe themselves to different styles and reach high levels of technicality and mastery."

With the approach of a new century in a new country, Gonzalo Rubalcaba stands poised to create a musical language that is hemispheric in its scope and heroic in its conception. "I think the main purpose, especially for immigrants when it comes to expressing themselves artistically in music, is not to come up with something with two different parts… but to be able to compile them together," he says. "It's not important what part reflects the Latin and what part reflects the American. The important thing is the result…unity."

Gonzalo Rubalcaba - Inner Voyage, Blue Note 99241, August 1999

Biography courtesy of Blue Note.