Manhattan Mambo
Hilton Ruiz is a talented pianist with a wealth of experience in both the Latin and mainstream jazz idioms. He's also adept at synthesizing the two and has frequently spiced his Latin-based recordings with such adventurous jazz players as Don Cherry and Sam Rivers. On this date he leads a nine-member group that includes four percussionists who generate complex polyrhythms and tremendous musical heat with a battery of assorted drums and bells. A strongly idiomatic front line of trumpeter Charlie Sepulveda, trombonist Papo Vasquez, and the celebrated young tenor saxophonist David Sanchez cooks over the underlying fire, but it's Ruiz himself who stands out with his rhythmic inventiveness. The group even manages to bring another dimension to John Coltrane's "Impressions."--Stuart Broomer