It’s amazing how well some things are done in our own country and how difficult it is, sometimes, to find out about them. What a singer from Ibiza and a pianist from Cuba have in store for us on the stage of CentroCentro, on the second day of the official section of JAZZMADRID, is something only performers of the highest calibre can hope to achieve. Ángela Cervantes is an artist with an open musical project and background. She grew up as a singer in Ibiza, but ever since she arrived in Barcelona at the turn of the millennium, she has been living in a permanent state of flux.

In 2012, with her first album, On This Side of Drexler (En esta orilla de Drexler), she became involved in the songs of singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler, who even took part in the recording. After Remembering Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass, which she recorded in 2014 with guitarist Chema Sáiz, two years later came her third album, The Road to Santa Clara… To Another 50 Years with the Fakires (Camino a Santa Clara… To Another 50 Years with the Fakires. The title obviously refers to her collaboration with the Cuban group Los Fakires, and the content focuses on the songs that Ángela’s grandmother used to sing to her when she was a child. The sentimental memory of the singer. The sentimental memory of the singer.

Ángela is now embarking on a show in which her voice will caress the songs of the Puerto Rican Sylvia Rexach, compositions of love and resistance for which the vocalist made good use of the suggestive piano chords of the Cuban Pepe Rivero in 2021, the year in which she recorded the album Waves and Sands (Olas y arenas),although the meaning of the project can also be interpreted the other way round.

For this reason alone, let’s just say that Rivero was a veritable revelation many years ago when he released his album Friday Night in Spanish Harlem, in which the musician evoked Chopin, a recurring motif that would later be the star of another of his important albums. Remember these details and also remember that, in addition to the fact that he has almost a dozen albums to his name, he once played in the Creativa Big Band with Bobby Martínez, and since then his CV has been chock-full of projects.

His musical imprint can be a gentle caress or it can develop on the run, flowing from one to the other without getting out of sync. His piano playing has warmth, tension, power and delicacy. And he knows how to use all these virtues in every concert, deploying them on a stage that, like Angela with her singing, fits him like a glove. A black pearl that shines when it becomes a reflection of the bolero or the guaracha, showcasing the values of Afro-Cuban music, although, of course, from an open perspective, advancing the traditional discourse.