★★★★ It can only be cause for celebration that Buenos Aires begins to show its green shoots after the intense sandstorm. Not long ago Aldo’s returned, in another neighborhood and now with a more open billboard. Let’s add Café Berlin in Villa Devoto. And a few days ago, Prez was born, in a basement in the heart of Barrio Norte, with all the characteristics of an old-fashioned jazz club: small tables, attendees who go to listen more than to eat, a good grand piano on the little stage and, fortunately, without the cigarette smoke that characterized these places decades ago.
Although perhaps later on it may open up to foreign visitors, this start by Prez points to our everyday jazz. Born from the love for this music of the lawyer Justo Lo Prete -who some time ago had founded the Rivorecords label with which he published many Argentine musicians- he baptized his brand new venue with the nickname of the saxophonist Lester Young, and at the start he summoned names like those of Ernesto Jodos, Julia Sanjurjo, Sebastián Loiácono, Julia Moscardini, Pepe Angelillo or Adrián Iaies –the one we saw-; but no doubt several more will be added.
Going specifically to Iaies, it remains to repeat that it is already a well-established name in the Argentine jazz scene. With a delicate pianism, with a marked interest in showing their own compositions and adding pieces of tango or vernacular rock to turn them into “standards” and with an ever-present inheritance of the elegant subtleties of Bill Evans, it seems to be the trio in the format with whom you feel best. And in fact, he plays in parallel with his Colegiales Trio, with other colleagues and a different style. This time he was accompanied by two musicians from different generations but equally valuable: “the legend” –as he called him- Carto Brandán on drums and the younger double bassist Santiago Lamisovski. Between the marked parts and the improvisations, which also allowed the virtues of his colleagues to appear, Iaies put together his repertoire with his pieces, including the premieres “Someone who dances” and “Water that falls”, he returned to his classic “Waltz for Beatriz” –which he dedicated to Beatriz Sarlo- and he did a juicy and very free version of the tango “Gricel”. But the night had some surprises: at the time of the encores, two great Argentine jazz musicians who were among the public joined: the trumpeter Mariano Loiácono for “Fermin” by Spinetta and Ernesto Jodos on piano four hands for “Blue Seven” by Sonny Rollins; for the happiness of the public and the owner of the house.
