The Mancini Trio with Otmaro Ruiz, piano (Leslie Velez/ Neon Tommy)

He figured in some foot-stomping, and his head of abundant, curly dark hair picked up the animated pulse.  Mancini’s bandmate Alex King got in on the groove, slapping the side of his two-toned gold and mahogany upright bass.  Drummer Kevin Yokota played his first beats of the night, Mancini finally picked up a vibe mallet, and the The Nick Mancini Trio was off, tearing its way through a seven-piece set of classic cover arrangements and originals that displayed Mancini’s penchant for ebullient melodies and permutating rhythms.    

The evening featured special guest Otmaro Ruiz, a Venezuelan piano powerhouse there to present the world premier of his piano and vibraphone duet, “Chorinho pra Ela.”  Ruiz took his place at the Steinway after the third piece and began a composition that moved in the perpetual baroque-style motion of Brazilian choro, a form that has it roots in improvisation and a heady dose of emotion, not far from the familiar American blues tradition.

Ruiz, the picture of open-mouthed concentration and feeling the beat in one jittery foot, introduced a melancholy piano tune that evolved, as if he had walked into a different musical room, into a rhythmic pulse under a melody that toed the classical line (had Mozart been a jazzer).  It swallowed the sound of the accompanying vibes until Ruiz cried uncle and allowed Mancini to move to the fore.  Mancini could be heard lending scat vocals over rippling chromatic passages, a relic of his musical upbringing: he considers himself a singer who draws in an audience by never abandoning the music’s song style, a challenging and important feat when wrangling modern jazz’s meandering lines.  Mancini made an effort, and succeeded, in keeping Ruiz’s melodic intent from being lost in the continuous chordal shifts of his music. 

“Chorinho pra Ela” coursed through varying themes, its loose jazz style channeling Gerschwin, then moody, intense Rachmaninoff.  The piece ended in a heavy bass drone by Ruiz, the fatalistic weight of which was relieved by the comedic timing of Mancini, who waved his four pages of Scotch taped-together music around like a flag in honor of Ruiz and his prodigious accomplishment. 

The Mancini Trio reunited, the concert closed with two of Mancini’s own works, “Psychobabble” and “Smackdab.”  Both were prime examples of the group’s versatility and showcased Mancini’s enthusiastic-yet-precise Swedish Chef judo-chopping mallet action.  Mancini, King, Yokota, and Ruiz played hot potato with melody lines (when there were discernible ones) and features, and each time emerged as a still-solid, playful, ace ensemble--and what’s more, they really seemed to be having fun.   

The second half of the evening’s two-parter had the feeling of a late-night jazz club.  The bar and cocktail tables were missing, but the low light and the switched-on band did enough to set the scene.  Columbian jazz harp prodigy Edmar Castaneda brought along the rest of his trio, dummer Dave Silliman, and soprano saxophonist Shlomi Cohen, and his wife, contralto Andrea Tierra.  Together they presented music of characteristic Latin energy and drama. 

Edmar Castaneda is as tall as his harp, a smaller, lighter version of the orchestral behemoth, reaching five foot two or three.  His whole body wraps around the sound box, arms extending down to the lowest strings; plucking bass notes, chords, and main lines into a musical statement, he’s a self-contained ensemble unto himself.  

 Mounting the stage in a red jacket, black shirt and trousers, and a beaming smile,  Castaneda launches into an original composition that danced with the exotic flair of flamenco guitar, with sweet trills, emphatic strums, and sweeps of the harp stings.  Drummer Silliman --”the man of the four hands,” Castaneda called him--started out with triangle and chimes, but soon added enough sound effects and hand drums that it was more efficient to simply reach out and whack a cymbal than pick up a beater.   

Saxophonist Shlomi Cohen proved himself to be an extremely resourceful musician, contributing filigreed, flute-like cadenzas and molding lines--of which he played many, with Castaneda and Silliman falling back to supporting roles--into romantic melodies or bright improvisations, taking the sharpness out of Castaneda’s fidgety harp rhythms.  Perhaps it is the nature of the beast, but the higher the pitch and greater the volume, the more shrill that soprano sax became to the point of unpleasant edginess and duck-y nasality.  Cohen shined in the mid- to low-range of his horn, divulging a smooth, intoxicating cornet-like warmth.

Andrea Tierra, whom Castaneda met at a jam session, and “after a month or 25 days” married, sang Spanish folk-style songs of love and beauty with potent operatic emphasis, often speaking through sections in story-telling fashion, or emitting heart-wrenching cries that were at once tender and thrilling.  

Nearly all of Castaneda’s pieces featured aspects of the music of his native Columbia: bent harp pitches; trills; wooden percussion sounds; string dissonances and wide open intervals, and all were able to be pulled fluidly into the jazz idiom, laying into driving rhythms and free-moving melodies built upon dense chord structures.  His own composition, called “Jesus de Nazareth,” was impressive in its virtuosity.  It was a passionate prayer, a torrent marked by finger movements so quick it appeared that he wasn’t even touching the harp strings.  Fluttery, sustained chords and exultant themes were distilled at length into a single pitch hanging in the air while the audience held their breath.  

From the silence, Castaneda spoke one final, quiet word:  “Amen.”

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