Don't miss this album!... Few if any (sessions) are as refreshingly original and as thoroughly musical as this extraordinary date ... Martignon's keyboard work is technically clean and stlistically imaginative... he is a true jazzman who swings with equal facility and conviction either in or out of clave... he is hip to a much broader array of rhythmic references than the typical Afro-Cuban grounded pianist... With an astounding variety of carefully chosen rhythmic and melodic hues Portrait in white and black is one of the most compelling albums of the year.
Mark Holston, "New York Latino"

Martignon's melding of Afro-Cuban with Brazilian locutions results in a sparkling rumble that is irresistibly percussive. ...(His CD) Portrait in white and black is among the year's best...
Gene Kalbacher,"Hot House" Jazz guide

Martignon's CD, Portrait in White And Black is full of exotic musical colors and striking original compositions.
Lazaro Vega, "The Grand Rapids Press"

After a stay in Ray Barretto's band, Hector Martignon and two other band members, his fellow Colombian Jairo Moreno and Satoshi Takeishi, got together and toured as a trio. Martignon likes to mix Afro-Cuban and Brazilian influences. Ray Barretto comes on board to detonate "You and the Night and the Music." In this piece and "Laura" we hear the delicious voice of Gabriela Anders. On "La Candelaria", "Coqueteos" and "Noviembre, Susurro y Cumbia", Martignon shows his loyalty to traditional Latin American music. Clearly, this is a man who doesn't like ready-to-wear and to get in a rut. He seems especially fond of unusual rhythms, such as in "Tomorrow's Past," a bossa in 3/4, or the beautiful "She Said She Was From Sarajevo," in 7/4, or "Hell's Kitchen Sarabande" in 3/2. After discovering this multifaceted musician, we'd love to hear more. His next album should be out very shortly. Watch this space in the next issue !
LE JAZZ,Issue#5(Internet)

"Portrait in White and Black" Candid records; liner notes:

The music contained in this CD is the result of a very special constellation of circunstamces, both in our individual lives, as well as in our experience as a group. Eventhough Jazz is the main reason we all live in New York city (we all live, period?), another set of congruencies made us join in a search for a musical language that would reflect, not only our common interests and backgrounds, but also the differences that made us curious about each other in the first place.

Sato and I met in Colombia, where Jairo and I are from, long ago and only briefly. Many years later he moved to NYC, where I saw him again by chance, playing percussion with a middle eastern band! He told me he needed a bass player to play with flutist Nestor Torres and I imediatelly recommended Jairo to him. I had met Jairo in one of those memorable "Salsa meets Jazz" sessions at the Village Gate. I was playing piano for Charlie Sepulveda's Band, and Jairo was already steady with Ray Barretto's new Jazz sextett. Soon eneough,the three of us were playing with Barretto's band, where we started developing our own trio sound (sharing it with three more instruments).

By that time I already had recorded with my own group several tunes written during the year I lived in Brazil. The ideal was to merge the afro-cuban and the brazilian idioms , which I thought had very similar roots. One of those songs I called 'Colombaiao', which we rerecorded for this CD, adding to the trio the fantastic percussion of Manolo Badrena and the accordion of "carioca"Cidinho Texeira. You can hear more of that brazilian flavor in "Tomorrow's Past", a slow 3/4 bossa, in our rendition of Jobim's masterpiece "Retrato em Branco e Preto", and, combined with an incredible yugoslavian 7/4 , in "She said she was from Sarajevo", dedicated to a girl I met in NYC who had just lost half her family to human stupidity. Romero Lubambo's guitar gave us a free ride to his native Rio in two of this songs.

"Teorema" lets you enjoy Donny McCaslin's acrobatic sax within an afrocuban context, with Roland Guerrero and Sato providing us with an infernal rhythm-machine. Similar can be said of our arrangement of "You and the night and the music" only that here it is no one less than Ray Barretto to give us both the latin fire and his legendary cu-bop swinging congas. Singer Gabriela Anders joined us with one of the most beautifull voices in the scene. To her I dedicated another 'Latin' song of this CD, "Gabriela", which is still waiting for lyrics to be sung by her! "La Puerta" is a good example of how traditional 'boleros' can make a beautiful Jazz ballad.

In a slightly different vein we have given a somewhat impressionistic new 'dress' to that so often recorded masterpiece called "Laura" ; Gabriela and Donny really make us reenact, with their interpretation, the most beautifull scenes of that great movie ! "Hell's kitchen Sarabande" is dedicated to the chaotic and quasi-surreal atmosphere of the neighbourhood of NYC where I've lived for some time; it's rhythm IS based on the Rennaisance Sarabande, a slow 6/4.

All of this wouldn't be complete whithout the sounds of the music we grew up with. The music of the place where the magnificent Andes "flow" into the waters of the Caribbean sea. "La Candelaria" and "Noviembre susurro y cumbia" join traditional "Coqueteos" in showcasing a completely new idiom in Jazz. Colombian music is a huge reservoir of untapped resources which we have the best intentions of conquering for you