Joe Cartwright Quartet

La Luna Negra

Lafayette Music LM1229

Personnel: Joe Cartwright, piano; Steve Rigazzi, bass; Doug Auwarter, drums, percussion; Gary Helm, percussion Tracks: Saudade, Manteca, Jacob’s Ladder, Samba Feliz, La Luna Negra, Peruchin, Cold Duck Time, On Fire
Recorded June 7, July 28, 1999 at Soundtrek Studios, Kansas City, Mo; Ron Ubel, engineer.

On a past visit to Kansas City, after burrowing through the “Local Artist” bin at a Westport record store, I bought, sight unseen and sound unheard, a cassette titled Triplicity, by the Joe Cartwright Trio. What a score! That tape offers some of the sweetest piano trio work this side of Tommy Flanagan and remains one of my Desert Island Picks.
Thereafter, I tried to hear Joe Cartwright whenever I returned to Kansas City, whether he was playing solo at a hotel or appearing with an ensemble at a club. Each time I pestered him with the same question: Was he going to record more with a small combo? Each time he responded with patience and politeness, but each time I sensed that he was no longer in a Triplicity groove and had no plans to return.
With the release of La Luna Negra (“The Black Moon”), I am delighted to report that my bread is buttered on both sides. This CD combines the cool crispness of a small combo with the crackle and scorch of a Havana hot spot.
The playing is superb, the arrangements intelligent, and the song selection perfect for this Latin/Brazilian sound. “Manteca” (Spanish for “grease”), by the great Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo and Dizzy Gillespie (who wrote the bridge), is the anthem of Afro-Cuban jazz. Dizzy’s famous recording featured a big band fronted by a trumpet; Cartwright’s quartet offers a lighter piano out front, but with every bit as much rhythm behind it. Sometimes, after all, the tropics offer a cool breeze across that hot sand.
Joe Cartwright has recorded Cedar Walton’s sophisticated and mystical “Jacob’s Ladder” before (on The Clear Sounds of Kansas City Jazz, produced in 1989 by Sprint), but not with the Latin tinge his quartet offers here. It works beautifully.
I admit to a strong prejudice toward “Cold Duck Time,” because the album on which it first appeared, Swiss Movement (Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival), by Les McCann and composer Eddie Harris, was among the first “jazz” albums I purchased. That said, Cartwright’s version is rendered with as much funk, and even more percussion, than the original. The other tunes offer equal elegance and style, with plenty of equatorial spices.
La Luna Negra pleases on every level: notes, phrases, solos and songs. Even rarer, it will please straightahead traditionalists as well as Latin music aficionados. The only problem with this CD is that it may force you to find a new spot on your list of Desert Island Picks.

—Gregg Ottinger