Edmar Castaneda
I’m the kind of person that sometimes has to listen to a song twice to really get it. Not this guy’s music though. I was driving to a party one Friday night and I switched on NPR and LiveSet was on (live concerts on the radio, pretty self explainatory) and they were playing a concert With the Edmar Castaneda Trio with vibraphonist Joe Locke. I swear I heard all of about three minutes of it and I was ready to just sit in my car and not go to the party. I had never heard a harp like this before. Normally its just ” Enter!” brrriinnNNNGGGG! Edmar sounds like a latin upright player, a jazz pianist, and a flamenco guitarist all wrapped up into one. He starts off his tune Cuarto de colores with an abstract mix of flourishes from the percussionist and what sounds like a Paco De Lucia interpretation of the intro to Miles Davis’s “So What.” The group takes a breath and then Edmar bursts into this energetic rhythm that takes off into the song. The trombone player, Marshall Gilkes, starts off by recreating what sounds like a really groovy…. monkey? Anyways it sounds cool and I used to play trombone and I’m pretty sure I can’t do that. He then goes on to play the fairly simple and catchy melody all the while with Edmar in the background being the one man harmony/ groove machine. Gilke’s solo is equally and impressive as it is appropriate. Practically sucking all of the juice he can out of the small rhythm section in a short amount of time. After the trombone is the harp, which is simply amazing. Edmar seems to find a way of periodically changing his perspective on the harp which in turn creates a completely new sound, all within a few measures.
There is a lot that you could compare this music to, but you can’t say it really sounds exactly like anyone thing. Edmar has used the harp to create new kinds of musical thought, and that is something that I would skip any party to hear. (Actually i went to the party and it sucked. I wish i had stayed in the car)
Here is Edmar Castaneda, Marshall Gilkes, and Dave Siliman playing Cuarto de Colores.
And here is a link to listen to that concert through NPR. The last song is their version of Autumn Leaves. Definitely worth hearing.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101203007
