By Bob Doerschuk | Published April 2017
Most of Over The Rainbow was recorded live in Spain, the pianist’s home country. This may account in part for Chano Dominguez’s inspired performance: It was the right time and place to let his jazz, flamenco and folk spirits soar.
On most of these tracks, Dominguez takes roughly the same approach. He begins with moody ruminations on the material, most often in free tempo marked by a sense of rushing toward the peaks of key phrases, stopping for a moment as if to savor the view and then stepping or tumbling along with the melody’s descent.
For example, he opens “Django” in a halting meter, transitions to more jagged rustlings as a nod to the bracing guitar strums of flamenco, and ends up with pointed jabs spaced around the stop-start concepts that often define his lefthand part. The effect is to state and then expand beyond the sway of the composition, thus honoring both John Lewis’ vision and the room he’d left for interpreters to explore. Cuban and Spanish influences add further dimension to Over The Rainbow, allowing joy and sorrow to speak together. Only the title track narrows this focus, but here Dominguez achieves a cerebral, disciplined passion that only Keith Jarrett and few others have discovered.
Over The Rainbow: Django; Drume Negrita; Evidence; Gracias A La Vida; Hacia Dónde; Los Ejes De Mi Carreta; Mantreria; Marcel; Monk’s Dream; Over The Rainbow. (68:31)
Personnel: Chano Dominguez, piano.
