RIVER CREATURES
Verde (.)
Mas allá del reflejo... (ESPACIO)
Los sueños se esconden
Entre los dedos de los pies.
Fango.
Piedras... (ESPACIO)
La realidad solo habita en la superficie.
El Río... (ESPACIO)
Calla para siempre
CRIATURAS DE RÍO
HERY PAZ I NATE WOOLEY I TOM RAINEY
Recently I was asked if it was common for improvising musicians to be polymaths – after all, the number of players/composers who paint, teach, dance, organize, photograph, write, make films, and live creatively is quite striking. The charged impetus to follow the flow of mind, body, and history onto a variety of interconnected avenues is enticing and continually rewarding. Tenor saxophonist HERY PAZ, from Cuba and an integral actor in New York’s jazz vanguard for the better part of a decade, is an artist whose creativity spans forms, his modes of expression interleaved. In addition to improvising and composing free music, he also paints and is a poet, moving between media with ease:
“For me, there is no difference in the practice and application of different artistic mediums; poetry, acrylics, oil and sound are just different tools to try to weave pieces of my imaginarium together. I have always aimed for them to be one wholesome entity, getting as close as I can to blur the gaps.”
There is an innate flexibility in all of this, and it shows in the music. I might add that this trio, with the drums of TOM RAINEY and the trumpet of NATE WOOLEY (a writer and scholar in addition to being a fiery brass player and composer), offers a turn-on-a-dime versatility, moving from thickets of overlaid impasto to spidery webs of flattened gesture. In forming the unit, Paz says:
“There is something about specific ways that Tom articulates on the drums that I tied to aspects of Nate's playing. It is all related to fast decay, short attack, and a staccato palette.”
The result here – amazingly, this disc is only Paz’ second album as a leader – is an outpouring of expression that is incisive and full of possibilities. Hopefully it also opens the door for your creative spirit.
CLIFFORD ALLEN
November 2023
... With this group it is essential to give the necessary space for words, musical phrases and even the creatures to reveal themselves. Paz shows itself in the same creative dimension in the reeds, as in the poetry brought; which is rooted in the Cuban culture that he inherited from his father's vision of seeing the river beyond the water, what it causes to emerge and what lives in it that not everyone sees. That's why we need art and the shared vision of artists to see better, hear better, be better... - RICARDO VICENTE PAREDES I RIMAS E BATIDAS
Boundless gratitude to Tom and Nate for the spirit of this music, to Marcos Cavaleiro, João Pedro Brandão and Demian Cabaud as well as the Porta-Jazz family for always making Porto the closest place to home. This music would not exist without love and support of my family, Susana, Dariencito, my mother Rosita and my second mom Elena, but specially thanks to my father Heriberto Paz for the gift of music and for instilling river culture in me… - Hery Paz - “...We inner islanders are not people of the SEA, we are RIVER CREATURES”
Green (.)
Beyond a reflection... (SPACE)
Dreams hide
Between the toes.
Mud.
Stones... (SPACE)
Reality only inhabits the surface.
The River... (SPACE)
Forever Silent
RIVER CREATURES
PORTUGAL TOUR '24
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Hery Paz is a multi-faceted artist from Cuba who has a brilliant career in New York’s improvised music and jazz scene. That’s where he finds the numerous artistic collaborations in which he is involved, either leading or participating in projects by his peers. Hery Paz plays several instruments, but presents himself as saxophone player in this project in his own name, River Creatures, alongside acclaimed trumpet player Nate Wooley and historical drummer Tom Rainey. Three high-profile figures in the world scene coming to present this work, which will become the one hundredth album released by Carimbo Porta-Jazz. A celebration worth highlighting, given the contribution of this trio of widely recognised musicians to Carimbo’s distinguished and rather varied catalogue. In this concert, they’ll explore new grounds strongly inspired by nature, geometry and words... - Porta-Jazz Festival 2024
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It is very common, in the practice of contemporary jazz and improvised music, for relationships to begin at a distance, through an epistolary “courtship” between musicians, with several discussions about a meeting that is still just a promise, around projects arising from the will of sharing a stage, where one fantasizes about what this collective departure towards the unknown will sound like and what form it will take. As is evident, promises are not always fulfilled and, even when they do, they do not always live up to the expectations created by musicians.
But then there are the cases where everything seems to fit and make sense. Two of them, Alma Tree and Hery Paz Trio, are mandatory highlights of the 14th Porta-Jazz Festival, taking place at Teatro Rivoli, Porto, from this Friday to February 4th, and both lead to this authentic celebration of the Porto jazz community (and its multiple ramifications) the live presentation of albums about to be released by Carimbo Porta-Jazz, the publishing arm of the association with the same name...
...Hery Paz, a Cuban saxophonist based in the United States, will perform on Saturday night the album River Creatures, in which he appears alongside two leading figures of the New York scene, Nate Wooley (trumpet) and Tom Rainey (drums). Laughing at the trick that fate played on him, Paz tells PÚBLICO that, in fact, this was not the group he had planned to assemble for the live recording at Scholes Studio, documented in River Creatures. In fact, it wasn't even a trio that I had in mind. After a conversation with guitarist Joe Morris, the saxophonist spoke to his former teacher about the formation he had created with Morris, Wooley and Rainey, and the enthusiasm was immediate.
“But when I finally had the opportunity to schedule a date for the group, Joe was in Chicago and told me that he couldn't escape the commitment he had with a festival he was going to play at”, says Hery. Not wanting to waste the possibility of joining Wooley and Rainey, Paz went ahead anyway and it is this first meeting that now sees editing. Without any prior rehearsals, Paz, who is also a visual artist, presented himself to the other two with a poem, a drawing and a graphic score (some musical ideas on the agenda, to be used with vast freedom and without an established order, accompanied by sketches painted) that would serve as themes for the music.
...“As I am also a painter”, he explains to us, “I have been trying to merge these two artistic practices for a few years now. My dream is to have an exhibition and be able to play what’s hanging on the wall”, he laughs. This intention of working with sound in a relationship with image also has a very concrete origin – unlike the highly abstract matter in which the Paz trio moves. Also the son of a musician and painter, Hery promised his father: “To start painting again , after having invested more in my musical training and career”; Then, as he “started to get his hands dirty with ink again”, his relationship with music composition programs on the computer deteriorated and he decided to return to writing by hand. And then, suddenly, the hands used to handling brushes couldn't help but overflow graphic elements into the scores he was working on.
Much of this relationship can be felt in the deep and contained lament of Espejismo, in clear contrast to the nervous intensity of Delaminate or even the unbridled fury of the title theme, which flows into the most structured and melodic segments of the entire recording. That River Creatures is released with Carimbo Porta-Jazz is due to Paz's strong connection with drummer Marcos Cavaleiro, after, in 2018, they crossed paths in Mexico, as members of Javier Moreno's trio (who also has already recorded for the Porto label). At the end of this Latin American tour, they were “family”. And knowing Porta-Jazz's community spirit, Paz wanted to make his belonging to this extended family a reality... PÚBLICO - Gonçalo Frota
