The image on this third solo album - is of an artist laying himself bare to his audience. Fonseca has called it ‘Yo’ (me) and has spoken of it as a new phase in his life. Certainly the album contains an even greater diversity of sounds and styles than on his previous recordings, if that were possible - Fonseca is already known for a refreshing openness towards music outside the traditional sphere of afro Cuban jazz, bringing influences from Brasil and Eastern Europe.
He gives himself the opportunity to express himself fully by drawing on instruments, voices and styles that are fundamental to his musical personality - funky Hammond organ, traditional North African (griot) singing and kora (harp), carnival conga, son and the music of the Yoruba saints. Alongside, his long serving jazz quartet plays brilliantly throughout.
He even has space for spoken poetry: the beautiful track ‘Siete Rayos’ incorporates a legendary recording of National Poet Nicolás Guillén reciting ‘Yoruba Soy’ which arrives like a lightning bolt to the heart midway through the song.
The album contains no less than 15 artists each contributing more than a simple solo - the great Senegalese singers Assane Mboup and Fatoumata Diawara as well as the kora of Sekou Kouyate and Babba Sissouko’s talking drum lend a wonderful fluid sonority throughout to ideas which literally burst like flowers from Fonseca’s fertile imagination. In lesser hands such a project might result in a tokenistic ‘guest star’ approach but Fonseca’s genius is to unify the whole to produce a sound which is at once a joyful celebration of the music as well as a journey from one side of the black Atlantic to the other.
Needless to say, throughout, there is room for Fonseca to show what a wonderful pianist he is. From percussive aggression through gentle passages and intricate, funky riffs, he displays a gift for melody rare in much contemporary jazz.
Aided and abetted by the adventurous spirit of collaborator Gilles Peterson, and sympathetic mix by the producer Count, Fonseca is now taking his place as one of the greats of Cuban music. This is the album he was born to make and anyone who still needs to ask ‘who is Roberto Fonseca?’ has a fitting answer in this superb album: ‘Yo’.
