Cuba’s Chucho Valdes Now Has the World’s Ear

On the wall of Chucho Valdes’ sunny practice room hangs a photograph of the pianist, dukes up, grinning broadly, wearing nothing but boxing trunks and gloves that Muhammad Ali gave him. Valdes is no threat to take the heavyweight crown--he carries a bit of padding around the middle these days, and it would be insanity to risk those precious hands in combat. But the image seems right: Chucho as the Champ.

After years of being acclaimed by critics as one of the world’s greatest jazz pianists, Valdes, 59, is finally winning wider recognition. Last month his “Live at the Village Vanguard,” recorded with his acoustic quartet, won the Grammy for best Latin jazz album. His new CD--”Chucho Valdes Solo: Live in New York”--has been greeted with over-the-top reviews in which names like Art Tatum, Bud Powell, McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans are routinely invoked by way of comparison.

Valdes’ recent triumphs are more than individual. They are emblematic of the fact that “Latin jazz” is suddenly the hottest thing in jazz, period. If the ‘90s were the decade of Wynton Marsalis’ neoclassical swing, thus far the ‘00s are best defined by the two-three syncopation of the Latin clave beat.

“This is an important moment for Latin jazz and for Cuban music in general, especially Afro-Cuban music,” Valdes said one recent morning, his 6-foot-4 frame sprawled across a couch in his house in the Playa district of Havana. “Latin jazz is occupying a larger space in the music world. . . . Perhaps it has refreshed mainstream jazz.”

The Latin impact, by now, is undeniable. Panamanian-born pianist Danilo Perez, who lost out to Valdes in the Grammy balloting, released a breakthrough album last year called “Motherland” in which he combined rhythms and harmonies from throughout the Americas to synthesize a new pan-Latin aesthetic. Saxophonist David Sanchez, pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, pianist Hilton Ruiz, trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera are also major figures in what by now deserves to be called a full-fledged movement.

Valdes, however, is the godfather, the padrino. Considering he has mixed jazz piano with traditional Afro-Cuban religious chants and ritual drumming, he could even be called the babalawo--a Yoruba priest, a spiritual guide.

On one recent morning, it was taking the guide a while to wake up. The night before, in a Havana auditorium, he had played an extraordinary concert with an esteemed visitor, Herbie Hancock, who was in town to take part in a citywide music festival. First one played nearly an hour of solo piano, then the other did the same, and then the two pianists played an extended set together. Afterward there was a gala reception, attended by the city’s musical elite. And now, at 10:30 in the morning, the members of Valdes’ quartet were already assembled--the bassist had arrived by bicycle, closely following a taxicab, which was filled to capacity with his bulky instrument. It was time to practice.

The bassist and the two drummers looked barely old enough to shave. Valdes’ habit with his quartet--one of his three active performing incarnations--is to choose hotshot sidemen barely out of their teens, fresh from years of rigorous training at Cuba’s state-run National Arts Schools.

“They are young, but they all have their diplomas,” Valdes said. “The technical training is just incredible.”

If, as many critics believe, the Latin influence--specifically the clave, as fundamental a musical building block as the 12-bar blues--is giving jazz new direction and energy, Valdes sees this development as just another evolutionary step. Just as bebop gave way to cool, and “free jazz” surrendered to fusion, so may Marsalis’ curatorial history project be succumbing to a fresh sound that reflects not only the dramatic demographic shifts taking place in America, but also the recognition of Afro-Cuban music as one of the great protean traditions to emerge and develop over the past century.

In a sense, it’s a harking back to the ‘50s, when trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie championed Latin rhythms, before the music was cloistered in the conservatory. “The thing about Latin jazz is that it is fundamentally dance music,” Valdes said. “There’s rhythm to dance to, and also sophisticated music to listen to.”

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* The Chucho Valdes Quartet performs at 8 p.m. on April 6 at the El Camino College Center for the Performing Arts’ Marsee Auditorium, 16007 Crenshaw Blvd., Redondo Beach, (800) 832-ARTS. 8 p.m. $24, $26.