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2. Yemaya – Okuo and Other Songs……………………9:36
    Batá.  Comp: Traditional Lucumí/Jeryl Johnston

3. Sixtune………………………………..……………………..…..5:31
    Güiro.  Comp: Jeryl Johnston

A few years ago, I embarked upon a several-week-long solitary summer trip to the Western side of Cuba.  The point of the trip was to learn what it is like to be there so that I wouldn’t have to take my musical friends’ and colleagues’ word for it any longer.  One of the results of that trip was the idea for the second track on this EP.  Having never spent any time on a tropical island before, I was struck by the beautiful, constant, powerful presence of the water.  I had been practicing “Une Barque Sur L’océan” by Ravel so water music was in my hands as well.  Because of the environment, it was natural for me to put together Ravel’s style of water music writing, jazz harmonic vocabulary, and the traditional drumming and singing of the Lucumí.  The intent is to present the multifaceted and powerful nature of Yemaya without being limited to a single perception of her, or to a single musical style. 

The title track was an experiment.  After having been in NYC for several years I wished to know whether or not I could compose, and this was the result.  It was written for the Latin big band that used to rehearse in East Harlem every Monday night under the direction of Louis Bauzo, who is the lead percussionist on this recording.  Having by that time experienced quite a few of the ups and downs of being a freelance musician in the Latin music scenes in NYC and LA, this was my first compositional response, and the first composition that I ever presented to my colleagues. 

Sixtune is the result of the combination of these excellent musicians who I have been working with over the course of the past several years.  Once I had the idea to combine a jazz head with a güiro ensemble, the musicians on bass and percussion are the ones who took the tune, which could easily have sounded like a typical jazz head and made it sound different than anything that I had experienced before.  

Personnel

Jeryl Johnston – Piano/Keyboards
Louis Bauzo – Lead Percussion/Vocals
Ray Alcantara – Percussion/Vocals
Greg Askew – Percussion
Richard Byrd – Lead Vocals/Percussion
Jerome Goldschmidt – Percussion
Bernie Miñoso – Bass
Al Acosta – Saxophones
Demitrios Kehagias – Trombones
Carmen Laboy – Bari Sax
John Walsh – Trumpets
Francis Rodriguez – Engineer
Circle 9 Productions – Mastering