Best of
This album offers a selection of Sandoval's better known jazz fanfares, full of the kind of roundhouse melodies and cantering tempos that allow his prodigious chops room to maneuver. Sandoval is also capable of gentle caresses and inventive turns of phrase, which he works in between foghorn blasts on tracks like his own "Luna de miel en Guama," and Abelardo Valdes's "Almendra." The rest of the songs here range from such familiar American fare as the show tune "Maria" and Dizzy Gillespie's "A Night in Tunisia," to Sandoval's own "Red Moon" and "Blues en dos partes," and a Latin reworking of "My Way," naturally entitled "A mi manera." All eventually serve as the musical equivalent of batting practice for the slugger/trumpeter, who sends note after note flying into the bleachers.--Britt Robson