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Janio Abreu: I need music to breathe
13May
Articles

Janio Abreu: I need music to breathe

Charisma, honesty and strength. This is the perfect combination, seasoned with good energies and the special gift of communication, which make the musical work of Janio Abreu Morcate an obligatory reference in Cuba.

To frame jazz - in the already renowned Cuban jazz -, the work of this wind instrumentalist, composer, arranger and music producer can be, by all accounts, too reductionist a vision. Certainly, he graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte in 2008 with a Gold Degree, after studying at the music school Manuel Saumell and at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory, has traveled through this genre constantly but he has done it, without a doubt, because he has been able to unfold his desire to experiment with other genres of our land and other latitudes.

Clarinet and tenor saxophone, occasionally clarinet alto and the recent debut with the flute, alto saxophone and bass clarinet in his record Hijo del Viento (BisMusic, 2019) define the attachment of this talented young Cuban to musical creativity, interested in showing that good music, free of labels, is better.

You can talk for hours without your conversation ceasing to be fluid, coherent and empathetic with any interlocutor and maybe that is the essence that you are careful to maintain in your interpretations, because it does not escape from seduction who is in one of his concerts and even in an essay. Breaking barriers with the public excites him, because not necessarily "connoisseurs" are the only ones who can delight in a proposal like his.

 

Janio Abreu

 

Aire de Concierto is your group, founded in 2007, with a format that includes bass / double bass, guitar, drums, minor and clear percussion, saxophone or clarinet. It was not accidental, surely, his foundational concept because, in the course of time, he has been able to fuse elements of Cuban timba, changüí, blues, samba, macuta, among others with jazz.

Before his virtuosity was channeled into the quartet Clarinetes de Ébano and since then he dreamed of the possibility of detaching himself from the superfluous to make room for the sensory, which cannot be ignored from all the senses. His albums Con Clarinete and De ida y vuelta testify to this.

Janio Abreu Morcate needs music to breathe, that is evident. And the best thing is that he has been able to take it to other countries, he has shared it with other relevant musicians in Cuba and continues to make it grow. Precisely, thanks to the joy that life gave him during the Jazz Plaza International Festival 2018, he offered a masterful concert with the American clarinetist and saxophonist Víctor Goines, instrumentalist and arranger of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and other guests, who today can Enjoy in DVD format, with the title Our Musical Heritage, under the audiovisual direction of José Manuel García Suárez.

Now he gathers successes with his Hijo del Viento phonogram, nominated for the 2019 Cubadisco Awards, which includes the danzón Mi Bella Habana, a piece recognized with the first composition prize of the Danzonero International Encounter "Miguel Failde in Memoriam". In addition, he assumes the musical direction of a concert that in the month of June, at the Martí Theater, will bring him to the stage with Habana Clásicos and other guests.

Restless, vital, intrepid and fertile mind, we follow the track through social networks and live presentations, because only then we can get infected with their energy, turned into sweet magic, through music.