duende libre - Drift (June 15, 2018)

Rejoining Pangea: Seattle’s Duende Libre Uses Jazz Savvy to Knit Continents and Rhythmic Sensibilities from Cuba to Turkey

Once long ago, there were no continents, nothing to divide the great mass of land. Seattle-based trio Duende Libre’s lyrical, clever songs explore this notion, charting the imaginary folds and roads of Pangea, the ebb and flow of the world’s sounds.

Guided by founder and bandleader, pianist Alex Chadsey, Duende Libre prove that what drifted apart can drift back together, and that musical traditions are living things and therefore constantly in flux. The Puget Sound and the Bosphorus, Cuba and Jamaica overlap and inform one another in pieces that wed jazz concepts with pop pleasures on Drift (release June 15, 2018; release celebration: June 29, 2018), the group’s second album.

“We draw influences from many different cultures and countries and parts of the world, and the album’s title is a tribute and invocation of these influences,” explains Chadsey. “On the new album, we explored using different rhythmic feels and styles as a way to meld those sensibilities. That’s what I was going for: a musical pangea where borders become less rigid, and where surprising new sounds emerge in the grey areas between traditions.”

Chadsey comes by his global influences honestly. Growing up with an ear for music from around the world, Chadsey developed a lifelong passion for Western classical and jazz, including pieces like Chick Corea’s “Spain,” covered artfully on the album by the trio joined by vocalist Chava Mirel. Chadsey applied his classical and jazz training to Latin music as a member of the GRAMMY-winning Quetzal and as a core player in roots reggae legend Clinton Fearon’s Boogie Brown Band. Chadsey drew on these experiences and a lifetime of curious listening as he embarked on his own project, tapping fellow open-eared Seattle musicians bassist Farko Dosumov and drummer Jeff “Bongo” Busch to create an original sound that Jazziz called “a strikingly authentic blend, one that has marked their city as an epicenter for musicians who share an appetite for bridging worlds.”

They take full advantage of Seattle’s wealth of global musical talents. “Choro,” a piece a few degrees removed from the Brazilian style, pays homage to Jovino Santos Neto, a master pianist and composer whose work guided Chadsey. The grooving “Kiki” tips the hat to the Cuban son of Cuban cuatro virtuoso Kiki Valera Alarcon and La Familia Valera Miranda, his family’s long-standing band. Valera invited Duende Libre to join him for a collaborative concert, part of a larger series he was curating. “We did one gig together and I was so inspired by that encounter,” recalls Chadsey. “I wrote the piece for him. We are drawing on clave, but trying to do something different. I wanted to know what would happen if I took traditional figures and chord progressions from Cuban son, which is usually in four, and experimented with changing meters. It creates a whole different feel and has been a fun challenge for us to play.”

Duende Libre’s debut album sparked an extensive round of touring, taking them from their hometown and as far afield as Alaska. They spent long hours on the road together between gigs. The downtime had a musical upside, as the group became more integrated and tighter. “It’s osmosis,” notes Chadsey. “You’re just hanging out together more than you’re actually playing. You’re sitting in the bus, hanging out with the people you meet. Time spent together on the road impacts the music in interesting and surprising ways.”

New directions coalesced for Duende Libre, and they took advantage of the momentum to jump into the studio, resulting in Drift. They invited friend and fellow Clinton Fearon bandmate, singer and songwriter Chava Mirel to join them, adding her voice’s lilting strength to several tracks including the ethereal “Zephyr.” Busch and Chadsey put their heads together to shape the rhythmic push and pull of the title track, “Drift,” which contrasts various nuances of the pulse and the swing, the juxtaposition of triple and duple meter that is so integral to African diasporic musics. Dosumov also contributed a piece to the album, the bouncy, gritty “Subway.” “We are starting to have musical convos as a trio, or quartet when Chava joins us,” says Chadsey. “To do that spontaneously is one of the goals of any jazz artist, to be creating musical communion on the spot.”

This communion has grown out of productive tensions between Chadsey, who loves to engage with pop song forms and hooks, and the other members of the trio, in particular Busch, who wants to open things up and push the boundaries. In the end, Duende Libre strikes the balance between ear candy and experimentation.

“When I’m writing a tune, I intentionally try to strive for something as melodic as possible. But I’m not too attached to how the songs are arranged,” Chadsey says. “When I bring them into the band, they go through different iterations, experimenting with forms. Jeff has great arrangement ideas, in particular, and he and I often agree to disagree. That’s the beauty of any relationship, the opportunity to step out of your bubble. That’s where growth happens.”

By exploring new territory where heritage, influence, and style can meet, Duende Libre reenforce, in their own nuanced way within the jazz tradition, the ties that bind our world, sonic and otherwise. “Everyone in the project really understands and values music as a sacred way of connecting people across lines of difference,” states Chadsey. “The imperative to connect has never been more important than it is now, and music will keep us healthy and sane through these turbulent times.”

Zephyr (for Meltem)

Drift

Spain

Subway

Choro

Kiki

Bosphorus

duendelibre.com

alexchadsey.com

duende libre Bridges Latin Folk Sounds and Jazz Approaches on Debut Album

Distilling Tradition: duende libre Bridges Latin Folk Sounds and Jazz Approaches on Debut Album

Keyboard player Alex Chadsey was fluent in jazz and classical forms. He’d walked the usual, rigorous path of a conservatory-style music education. Then he wound up in Seattle, music degree in hand, not sure of what to do. The answer: Play in salsa bands, perfect his montuno, and learn how music creates community.

Chadsey’s creative output changed dramatically, coming together as a trio project duende libre. Their self-titled debut album (release: May 5, 2017) distills years of performing, apprenticing with master musicians, and crafting originals that explore Latin elements in new contexts. The results are savvy and grooving, reflecting the Seattle scenes Chadsey inhabits and loves, where Uzbek bassists and Jamaican poets and border-crossing fandangos power musical visions.

“It’s a fundamental part of our humanity to make music,” Chadsey says. “There’s a lot of power in experiencing music live, or participating in a group that makes music together. It’s empowering to see beyond narrow goals and agendas, to create in a deep way as part of a community.”

duende libre will play a series of live shows this May around the Pacific Northwest.

Chadsey had always enjoyed Latin music, but it had never really clicked until he moved to Seattle. As a recent music school graduate, he found himself diving deeper and deeper into the salsa scene in his newly adopted home.

“That started me on a steady diet of Latin music. I got to know and play with Joe Santiago, who’d worked with artists like Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, and Celia Cruz,” recalls Chadsey. “That’s when it grabbed me. That’s almost all I played for several years. I really fell in love with it.” He also met several musical kindred spirits, including duende libre members Farko Dosumov and Jeff Busch, who share Chadsey’s affection for Afro-Caribbean music.

Then he got involved in a community music project, the Seattle Fandango Project, started by the founding members of LA-based Chicano music innovators, Quetzal. Chadsey began playing with the band and contributed to their Grammy-winning album, Imaginaries. “They opened my mind to the possibility that there’s so much more beyond the music itself. What a musician can do and say and the role they play. Reclaiming some of the power that the professionalization and commodification of music has taken away.”

The experience led Chadsey toward a new approach to musical mastery, one that relied less on formal instruction, more on tradition, community, and collective expression. “My mentors from Mexico, Cuba, and Los Angeles had a big impact on my music,” Chadsey reflects. “These mentors often had no formal training. That was not an impediment. They could express themselves in interesting and creative ways. There was a process of me, humbling myself to try to get past some of my training. I put myself in a position of learning from these folks, these keepers of strong and rich musical traditions.”

These traditions weave subtly into duende libre’s pieces, a process Chadsey wryly refers to as global jazz alchemy. “Michel” opens with a rhythm Chadsey and the band picked up from a mid 20th-century Cuban record by blind pianist Frank Emilio Flynn. “Rio Pescadores” was inspired by a trip to Veracruz, Mexico and hints at Chadsey’s first encounter with the centuries-old musical love affair between Veracruz and Cuba.

As Chadsey decided to play more of his own original compositions and launch duende libre, he tapped his two close friends, Dosumov and Busch, to join him. They workshopped pieces for months, as Chadsey developed ideas using loops and recording software. It allowed him to demo arrangements and create structures, without through-composing every detail.

“I knew I didn’t want to come in with an 8-page score. In fact, I didn’t want the guys to have to read anything if possible. I wanted them to approach the music more intuitively,” Chadsey notes. “That came back to all the work I had done with folks like Quetzal and with Clinton [Fearon, the legendary Jamaican songwriter and roots reggae innovator Chadsey has played extensively with]. They don’t rely on notation. I eliminated the barrier. Reading music changes the way you play.”

Though animated by Chadsey’s experiences, duende’s music stretches into other spaces and takes inspiration from other places, as well. “Razzle Dazzle” sprang from an experiment in meter: “I was trying to see if I could write something in an odd meter that still grooves hard, that didn’t feel mathematical.” “Funkination” pays tribute to the 80s days of 808s and keyboard-driven riffs.

“Salif” shows how Chadsey can start with one influence--a beloved track by Salif Keita--and go somewhere utterly different. “It started there, but I ended up elsewhere,” Chadsey says. “This is a special tune for me, and it represents a newer direction in my writing that I’d like to explore further.”

Yet it’s the closer collaborations, Chadsey’s multifaceted home turf, that inspire the most. Fearon’s influence, for example, resounds on “Still.” “Clinton has been a very important influence on my life and music. Like many of my other mentors, he comes from a rich tradition, Jamaican roots,” explains Chadsey. “He calls himself a poet first, a musician second. Poetry is distilled; you make the most meaning with the fewest possible words. His music does the same thing. He says so much with a minimum of musical material, and I aspire to do the same.”

ABOUT

duende libre is an inspired new power trio featuring longtime collaborators Alex Chadsey (piano/keyboards/compositions), Farko Dosumov (electric bass) and Jeff “Bongo” Busch (drums & percussion). duende libre utilizes the American jazz tradition as a point of departure for daring explorations of rhythm & influences from the Americas, Europe and Africa yielding catchy melodies, lush harmonies, and wholehearted groove.


Bursting onto the Seattle scene in February 2016, duende libre has quickly earned a reputation for being innovative, uplifting and accessible to a wide-range of listeners. Their self-titled album is due out this spring.

01 Rio Pescadores

02 Forgotten well

03 Michel

04 Funkination

05 Razzle Dazzle

06 Sevilla

07 Moon Waltz

08 For The Rekkerd

09 Salif

10 Still

11 Sinister Minister

Alex Chadsey (piano/keyboards/compositions)

Farko Dosumov (electric bass)

Jeff “Bongo” Busch (drums & percussion)

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