• Submitted by: manso
• Arts and Culture
• 03 / 04 / 2011

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Havana-born Alfredo Rodriguez finds new home for impressive skills, will perform at FUZE event.Eacon Journal music writer. Published on Thursday, Mar 03, 2011. For many dedicated musicians, the hardest personal choices they have to make is whether they are willing to spend countless hours in a smelly van going from one gig to the next, sleeping in rat-trap motels or magnanimous fans' floors for months on end before seeing home again.

But in 2009, up-and-coming jazz pianist Alfredo Rodriguez — who will perform on Friday with his trio at the Akron Art Museum as part of the museum's and the Tuesday Musical Association's FUZE Concert series — made his decision to leave his hometown and country of Havana, Cuba. Rodriguez knew it wouldn't just be for the length of a tour. The decision to leave his family, friends and life behind in Cuba to start a new one in America would be (for the foreseeable future) permanent.

But Rodriguez, who released his critically lauded debut album Sounds of Space last month, had several good reasons to take his chances on a new life in the States. The son of a popular singer in Cuba for whom he was named, Rodriguez was classically trained from the age of 8. He discovered jazz at 15 when his father gave him Keith Jarrett's famed improvised solo piano album The Koln Concert. Mesmerized by the musical freedom jazz offered, he began studying and playing jazz alongside his classical studies and the Latin music he was playing with friends.

By the age of 20 he had been recognized as one of the best players in Cuba and performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2006. There, Rodriguez was invited to perform a song (Cole Porter's I Love You) for producer/arranger/jazz legend Quincy Jones. The man who produced Thriller was so impressed (''It knocked me on my booty,'' Jones is quoted as saying), he told Rodriguez he wanted to sign him on the spot.

Though appropriately flattered, Rodriguez didn't think anything could come of the invitation due to the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba.

''At that time it was really difficult for Cubans to come work in the United States; at this moment it's a little bit easier,'' Rodriguez said.

''I was thinking to myself, hey, just take this as a great opportunity in your life that you can tell your kids about: 'I got to play one day for Quincy Jones,' '' he said.

But after he returned home, he got an e-mail from Quincy Jones Productions employee Adam Fell, who's now his manager, telling him Jones was serious and if he wanted to come to the United States he ''had an open door.''

''And that was when my mind started changing and I think, OK, this is a great opportunity to work with Quincy Jones and I think I should go to the United States and start a new life,'' he said.

Rodriguez said he took about three years to come to the final decision to leave.

A few months later, he performed his first concert in the United States, a solo performance at Kenyon College.

''It was nice, first because it was my first concert and second because there were a lot of people. I thought at that time nobody was going to come, but there was a lot of people in the theater and I said 'Oh, my God, look at all these people.' It was a very nice moment,'' he said, laughing.

Since then, Rodriguez has wowed critics and fellow musicians with his classically influenced, inventive, technically impressive and expressive playing while touring with his trio and as part of Quincy Jones' Global Gumbo All Stars.

Sounds of Space, co-produced by Jones and Rodriguez, encapsulates his skills, influences and compositional abilities in the 11 self-written tunes. Album opener Qbafrica highlights Afro-Latin rhythms of his culture; Silence, a composition he began writing at 16, sports a knotty, syncopated Chick Corea-like melody; and the easy groove behind the title track allows him to show his softer side and deft touch on the 88 keys. Crossing the Border is a solo piano showpiece with Rodriguez alternately attacking the instrument and caressing it while mixing in Latin, classical and jazz elements.

''What happened in my life is exactly what happens in the song. It was a big stressful moment and there was a lot of energy because I did want to come here but I didn't want to leave my family, so it was a very contradictory moment,'' he said.

Now a citizen of hip So-Cal artist enclave Silver Lake, Rodriguez is living his dream, playing jazz, composing music for film scores, big bands and classical pieces, and soaking up all the music and culture he was unable to get in Cuba.

''When I came here I felt so different, but I was going to go to another place and learn different music and a different language and different cultures. But I love to learn,'' he said. ''Every day I learn something new is a good day. I'm doing what I love to do and I don't think there's anything better than that.''

Source: www.ohio.com/entertainment/abram/117299978.html