LINER NOTES

• I expected anything as an answer that night at the "Zinc Bar", when I asked Ruben to record a tune on my next CD. Busy with Paul Simon's " The Capeman" (which I would join soon thereafter), he hardly found time saturdays to drop by that incredibly charming Jazz club in west Houston where I've played regularly for over two years. He said "I'll call you", but I couldn't help being astonished when two days later he asks me at the phone: "when is the session"? I said "tomorrow", without even having a studio. In a 10 minutes long phone-rehearsal, we decided which tune, out of four proposed by me, which key, what tempo. I got myself a CD with the original version of "La Propuesta", that magical ballad by Brazilian pop-star Roberto Carlos which we had heard so many times in our childhood years. When we met at the studio that evening, Ruben had to read the lyrics from the CD booklet, but when we finished recording, our version of the song had acquired its own life, having used us as a vehicle of revival.
  Something similar happened with a timeless piece of art I had always wanted to "translate" to the Jazz idiom, namely J.S. Bach's prelude #8 in e flat minor. Just slightly modifying some chords and bass-lines was enough to have the most striking jazz ballad, with Sato and Jairo freely adding their ideas to this (for jazz) unusual slow 3/2 structure.
  With the ballad "My one and only love" we performed an "inverse" crossover. We turned it into a "joropo", a rhythm from the savannahs between Colombia and Venezuela, usually played with harp, a little 4 string guitar called quatro, and capachos, a kind of miniature maracas. Also with strong north-southamerican flavor are three original tunes I wrote last year. Both "Some Day my Spring Will Come", which I wrote for a movie one very rainy day, and "Unwritten Postcards" are played in the most magical of colombian rhythms: Cumbia. "As Heard" recalls another rhythm from the colombian Caribbean called "Chandé", most often heard during Carnival in Barranquilla. Sato's interpretation of this music is exquisitely elegant and condenses a whole ensemble of percussionists to the simply essential. His ideas were pivotal in terms of rhythmical arrangement and form.
  "Benitez Sez" is a tune I wrote for bassist John Benitez who has been a friend and inspiration to me ever since I met him. It could only be a funk groove to honor John and, as in many of the tunes on this CD, the bass is given its deserved and often forgotten place as an optimal melodic instrument. This also applies to "A Foreign Affair", where we progressively enriched the melodic color with Donny's tenor and Randy Brecker's unmistakable muted trumpet. Randy (another "Zinc Bar"-addict) plays his signature licks around the melody with incredible taste, adding to the mistery that envelopes this -to my wife Amparo dedicated- tune.
  I love muted trumpet, especially played by Randy. The way he sneaks in and out of the melody in Hermeto Pasqoal's "Sorrindo" makes the tune smile, which is exactly what its title suggests. And I couldn't stop "smiling" with Don Byron's clarinet sound added to the unisono melody of this "chorinho" and then his solo, made of surprises, mounding into Randy's (open-) trumpet solo.
  "Blues for Leticia", a song very dear to me, came to me in Brazil thinking of my daughter. It has since been the key to many musical doors. I recorded it in with a band Rio, then with my first New York group and soon thereafter with Ray Barretto's Jazz sextett (Flora Purim once asked me for a lead sheet). It was recorded two more times. All versions were totally different from one another, but Jairo's idea of playing it over a New Orleans "second line" beat found immediate acceptance in Sato and me. Although it still keeps the spirit of evocation it gained a whole new voice. Maybe the songs mature along with the people they have been inspired by.
  "New Morning Mambo" is a tune I wrote for Ray Barretto's band shortly before I decided to follow my own path. Luis Bonilla and Donny jam delightfully on it. Although it is a thoroughly "latin" tune you will not hear any conga. It's because I like to imagine Ray's hands leading the beat and his voice telling me: "...play mazacote, 'papa'...!"
• New York City, Summer 1997
• I feel blessed with the generosity of everyone involved in this project. Very special thanks to Ruben Blades and Don Byron. Gracias Ruben! Thanks Don! Donny and Randy, thank you again. Luis and, of course Sato and Jairo, gracias. I also would like to thank José Gallegos without whom all this probably wouldn't be possible. Gracias José! Nieves and Alan at Candid, again, thank you. Everyone at Systems Two and Sorcerer, thanks.

Amparo, Leticia, Laura, Cesar, Renato los amo