A year ago, the incredibly talented Alfredo Rodriguez enchanted the Tata Theatre audience with the tracks ‘Ay, Mamá Inés’ and ‘Bésame Mucho’, besides an innovative adaptation of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’. Now, another well-known Cuban pianist is ready to charm the venue. At 61, Gonzalo Rubalcaba is the only veteran in the line-up at the three-day NCPA International Jazz Festival 2024. Like last year’s fiesta, the event will have three pianists and one vocalist as bandleaders. The 18-year-old piano prodigy Brandon Goldberg is scheduled to perform on the first day, 22nd November, while Rubalcaba will grace the stage on the 23rd. The final evening will feature 23-year-old Matthew Whitaker on piano, and 30-year-old vocalist Veronica Swift, who will play jazz and other styles of music with her five piece band TransGenre. 

Both Rodriguez and Rubalcaba have played a major role in taking Cuban jazz forward. The country has produced legendary jazz musicians like bandleader Mario Bauzá, vocalist Frank ‘Machito’ Grillo, percussionists Chano Pozo and Mongo Santamaría, trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, pianists Chucho Valdés and Omar Sosa, and saxophonist Paquito D’Riveira. The great American bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was a huge admirer and practitioner of Afro-Cuban jazz, known for blending clave-based rhythms with jazz harmonies. In fact, his song ‘Manteca’ is considered to be one of the foundational compositions in the genre. Another well-known project was the Buena Vista Social Club, an ensemble mostly comprising Cuban musicians including guitarist-singer Compay Segundo, singer Ibrahim Ferrer and pianist Rubén González.

Born in Havana, Rubalcaba was exposed to music at a very early age. His grandfather Jacobo Rubalcaba composed danzónes, musical pieces for a Cuban dance form. His father Guillermo Rubalcaba was a pianist, composer and bandleader who played with Enrique Jorrín, creator of the cha-cha-cha, a Cuban dance style. A child prodigy, Rubalcaba began playing the drums in his father’s orchestra at the age of six but started his formal training in piano two years later, as he once recalled, “just to please my mother.”

By his mid-teens, Rubalcaba was working as both drummer and pianist, after graduating from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. He soon started touring as a pianist with Orquesta Aragón and formed his own Afro-Cuban jazzrock fusion band Grupo Proyekto in 1984. His composition ‘Pisando el Cesped’ became popular, and at one of these shows, Gillespie spotted his talent. “That encounter with Gillespie, and later with bassist Charlie Haden and Blue Note Records president Bruce Lundvall helped set the stage for me to be acknowledged in the US,” recalls the pianist.

Rubalcaba moved to the Dominican Republic in 1991 and settled in Miami in 1996. He released a string of live albums which were nominated for the Grammys. He won Grammys for Nocturne (2001) and Land of the Sun (2004), both collections of ballads and boleros recorded with Haden. In 2010, he and businessman Gary Galimidi founded the label 5 Passion Records, which released his albums and those of other Cuban musicians. Rubalcaba has also collaborated with noted musicians like singers Jon Secada and Aymée Nuviola, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Jack DeJohnette, saxophonist Pierrick Pédron and Hamilton de Holanda, who plays the bandolin, a stringed instrument that evolved from the mandolin and was brought to Brazil by the Portuguese. In 2022, Rubalcaba won his third Grammy for his 2021 album Skyline. His latest release China Afro Cuba is a duet album with Chinese pianist Dongfeng Liu. “It’s almost as if we are having an imaginative and experimental musical dialogue throughout every track. The sound is a mix of contemporary Cuban music and traditional Chinese music, with jazz and classical flavours,” says Rubalcaba.

In Mumbai, the virtuoso pianist will be accompanied by Ernesto Simpson on drums and Ricky Rodriguez on bass. His set will feature a mix of originals and standards. Naturally, this show will be a treat for India’s jazz fans, considering the kind of accolades Rubalcaba has received from senior musicians. Legendary conductor Simon Rattle has called him the “most gifted pianist on the planet”, whereas Charlie Haden once said, “Gonzalo is the master of musical structures, he is a smart heart.”

If Rubalcaba has experience of over 45 years, the other three acts are much younger, but have shown remarkable promise in their careers so far. Though still in his late teens, Brandon Goldberg has already released three albums, including Live at Dizzy’s recorded at Dizzy’s Club in New York. After learning classical piano from renowned teacher Giselle Brodsky, Goldberg took to jazz when he began working with pianist Bill Charlap. Besides playing, he began composing his own tunes, using three originals on his debut album Let’s Play, released when he was only 13. On his first visit to India, Goldberg will be accompanied by Jimmy Macbride on drums, Vincent Dupont on bass and Adam Stein on tenor saxophone. “We will play a combination of my original music, and some standards from the American Songbook to the bebop vernacular,” he points out.

Blind since birth, Matthew Whitaker will play the piano, keyboards and organ. His last album On Their Shoulders: An Organ Tribute pays tribute to his heroes. He elaborates, “I love playing the organ and a tribute album was natural. I didn’t know how to choose only five musicians, but I stuck to Lonnie Smith, Joey DeFrancesco, Jimmy Smith, Charles Earland and Twinkie Clark. I also included a couple of originals that came organically with the band in the studio.”

In contrast to the pianists, Veronica Swift’s eclectic vocals will conclude the festival. The daughter of singer and educator Stephanie Nakasian and pianist Hod O’Brien, the American singer was brought up on jazz, with a special fondness for scat singers and bebop musicians. However, she also admires rock and pop musicians, especially those with theatrical styles. Examples are Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, Queen’s Freddie Mercury, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Michael Jackson, Liza Minelli, Marilyn Manson and Lady Gaga. “I didn’t want to confine myself, and wanted to be a part of a tradition where artistes can show themselves unabashedly. That’s how the concept of TransGenre came about, though the jazz roots are very much there in most songs,” she explains.

With such an abundance of talent, the three days promise to be a treat for jazz fans. The past two years at the NCPA International Jazz Festival have seen phenomenal performances by pianists Monty Alexander, Thilo Wolf, Emmet Cohen and Alfredo Rodriguez, the Mingus Big Band and vocalist Jane Monheit. The magic continues this year.