Liber Tango arr. Jeff Scott performed by Imani Winds

I was so blown away by the Imani winds tonight that I had to buy a CD. It was perfect! It combined my two favorite things: cultural music and classical music. It was really cool because this piece uses a mix of AfroCuban musical ideas. In my anthro. course African Religious Diaspora we've studied A LOT about afroCuban music with relationship to Santeria. This was so exciting. The piece has a very upbeat, repetitive clave pulse to it. All the instruments come in on this syncronized pulse until they eventually break off and start soloing by elaborating on it. Each instrument plays a pure sustained note that shows off the individual timbre of their instrument and then they break into ornaments until the next goes. At the end of each phrase they all come back with the synchronized rhythm and pitches. At the end of the sections there are big pauses where solos come in with cadenzas. The last section is full of elaborate solos full of ornaments, tongue trills, and scalar passages. I love how they use each timbre to its full benefit. At the end they finally come back with the last repetitive synchronized pattern, high shrieks from the horns, and trills until the sound is only left reverberating into the distance of air. The division of the sections remind me of the Ravel we studied in Form today where the only thing that held the piece together was the trills, in this case, the dramatic pauses and synchronized returning phrases. (The synchronism unifying the piece is also interesting because this culture is sustained by its syncretism.)