He already has two Grammys. In addition, “Viento Y Tiempo” was nominated for “Best Latin Jazz Album” in 2020 and this year “Live in Marciac” for “Best Traditional Tropical Album”. Gonzalo Rubalcaba recorded both live with Aymée Nuviola. The pianist and the singer, friends for ages, not only share the same home country Cuba, but also a similar childhood with loving parents and full of music.
Although Rubalcaba actually wanted to be a drummer, as he revealed to Billboard magazine. When he was six he wanted a drum kit. However, there wasn’t just a music shop in their Havana neighborhood at the time, but his father found a man who built instruments. At the entrance exam to the music school three years later, little Gonzalo failed the first time, made it the second time, but there was still no room for such young drummers. So he was advised to try the violin or the piano. “The saddest moment of my life back then,” he recalls.
Bad luck for him, good luck for the world. Because Rubalcaba developed tremendously on the keys, and how he learned to weave classical and popular music ingeniously was noticed in 1985 by star trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, who was the first North American to play with him. In any case, Piano & Keyboard Magazine voted him in 1999, alongside legends such as Glenn Gould, Martha Argerich and Bill Evans, as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. But even without such superlatives, Rubalcaba is an exceptional performer, especially rhythmically, after all he sees the piano – see above – “as part of the percussion family”.
You can soon hear how he sounds in Istanbul and Tokyo, among other places. Or on Saturday in the cultural center Leibnitz. For the tenth anniversary of his Leibnitz Jazz Festival, impresario Otmar Klammer was not stingy with throwing in a Cuban highlight into the four days of Francophile influence. Muchas gracias!
Leibnitz Jazz Festival. From today to Sunday. Leibnitz, Seggau, Flamberg. Details and maps: Tel. 0664 99 60 56 01, www.jazzfestivalleibnitz.at