By Brooks Geiken

This is my kind of music, a tight Latin jazz outfit that embraces great horn charts and explosive percussion.

Usually I take a long time to warm up to an album, but Dave Schumacher and Cubeye’s Smoke In The Sky (Cellar Music Group) immediately aroused my enthusiasm. When I heard the title tune, I said to myself, this is my kind of music, a tight Latin jazz outfit that embraces great horn charts and explosive percussion.

Schumacher, a former resident of Chicago now residing in New York, is a journeyman baritone saxophonist who has played in Lionel Hampton’s big band, Harry Connick Jr’s band, and Tom Harrell’s group. He was exposed to Afro-Cuban music while he was a member of Hamp’s band, mainly by way of his relationship with percussionist Sam “Seguito” Turner, who talked to him about the brilliance of such important innovators as Arsenio Rodríguez, Israel “Cachao” López,  Tata Güines, Los Papines, and Los Muñequitos de Matanzas. Other models included New York musicians Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Machito, and Ray Barretto. Armed with all this knowledge and experience, Schumacher formed a true Latin jazz band — he dubbed it Cubeye.

It is important to acknowledge that some of the members of Cubeye are influential musicians in their own right: Manuel Valera is an accomplished Cuban pianist who has led his own groups and currently tours with Steve Smith and Vital Information. Josh Evans, a trumpeter, has played with numerous jazz luminaries and is an integral part of Christian McBride’s New Jawn. Peter Brainin, on tenor and soprano saxophones, recently did some marvelous work on Marlon Simon’s release, On Different Paths.

The album’s title refers to two significant instances in Schumacher’s life: the 1968 riots in his hometown of Chicago and the turmoil in Los Angeles after Rodney King was beaten. These events left a lasting impression on Schumacher, so much so that they inspired him to write not one but two songs. The opening track, ”Smoke in the Sky,” is a burner ushered in by Valera on piano and Mauricio Herrera on congas. The head, or melody, is played by a trio of horns, Schumacher on baritone, Brainin on tenor, and Evans on trumpet.

Chicago resonates throughout the album. Cubeye dives headfirst into Chicagoan Eddie Harris’s “You Know It’s Wrong.” “Caridad” begins in a similar way, this time the fury accompanied by the Bata drums (Iyá, Itótele and Okónkolo). This is a tune originally played by Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, and Schumacher succeeds in reworking it with great results.

The next two tracks were penned by Schumacher, and they are as different as night and day. “(No More) Smoke in the Sky” is a ballad, soft and slow around the edges, while “El Dilema De Chegüí Metralla” is a decidedly up-tempo number pushed forward by Joel Mateo’s timbales-like solo on the drum kit.

Schumacher then takes a detour down memory lane, this time to a specific year, 1973, when Chicagoan Clifford Jordan released Glass Bead Games and McCoy Tyner Enlightenment. The selections from those two albums are “Cal Massey” and “Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit.” Cubeye faithfully reproduces both tunes, though plenty of Afro-Cuban spirit is injected into every note. On the Stanley Cowell–penned “Cal Massey,” a tribute to an overlooked Philadelphia trumpeter, Valera supplies just the right feeling. There are two unforgettable moments on “Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit” — Alex Anaya’s snakey bass introduction and Brainin’s searching solo on soprano sax.

“Poinciana,” made famous by Ahmad Jamal on his album Live At The Pershing (a famous nightclub in, you guessed it, Chicago), closes the record in a gloriously apt way. The exquisite arrangement fuses the jazz tune from Jamal’s era with Afro-Cuban melodies courtesy of Israel “Cachao” López and Frank Emilio Flynn. Dynamic solos are the inevitable product of such a stimulating mixture: Valera’s piano, Brainin’s tenor, Herrera’s conga, and Mateo’s drums.

Unsurprisingly, the driving force of Smoke in the Sky is the swinging baritone of Schumacher, who proves to be a modern master of both idioms, jazz and Latin music. The care and thought he put into this fine album is evident from the first notes to the last: few listeners will be able to resist the blustery, bellowing, and bluesy sound of Cubeye.

Brooks Geiken is a retired Spanish teacher with a lifelong interest in music, specifically Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, and Black American music. His wife thinks he should write a book titled “The White Dude’s Guide to Afro-Cuban and Jazz Music.” Brooks lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.