Description
| 1. | Spain | 9:17 |
| 2. | Just The Way You Are | 6:17 |
| 3. | Boplicity | 5:34 |
| 4. | Pete Kelley’s Blues | 5:29 |
| 5. | Hi-Fly | 5:59 |
| 6. | Willow Weep For Me | 7:17 |
| 7. | There’ll Never Be Another You | 5:37 |
| 8. | Bobby’s Dream | 6:46 |
| 9. | Yesterdays | 3:58 |
| 10. | Night In Tunisia / Tonga | 10:33 |
“Enriquez builds solos that may start out with rumbling, rolling references to Erroll Garner, shift to a spatter of Art Tatum lacery, take off on some rollicking open-field running, twisting and turning through jagged, jumping figures and Roman candle explosions, with an apparently wild abandon that manages to stay very purposefully on the track.” -John S. Wilson of the New York Times
Cinch up your seatbelt, grab on, hold your breath, and get ready for another roller-coaster ride. Piano virtuoso Bobby Enriquez, “The Wild Man of Mindanao,” is back in town, this time recording live for a full-house crowd at Howard Rumsey’s internationally famous jazz club Concerts by the Sea, in Redondo Beach, California.
Forget about laid-back introversion and California mellow. Enriquez is an exuberant performer, thoroughly steeped in the hard-swinging traditions of American jazz – from Art Tatum to Charlie Parker to Erroll Garner to Oscar Peterson. He’s not above throwing in a few Rachmaninoff licks for the classical fans and a few elbow crunches for the Cecil Taylor buffs either.
As he demonstrates on these tracks, Enriquez, like Dizzy Gillespie, shines as a prankster who combines high-energy emotion with prodigious technique and a flamboyant sense of humor. He’s completely unpredictable as well. Enriquez can lay it down smooth as silk and then explode like a towering inferno – all within the span of a four-bar phrase.
Alto saxophonist Richie Cole nicknamed Enriquez “Th Wildman of Mindanao,” and aptly so. “Excitement,” “wild” and “Enriquez” are synonymous. Let’s face it, Enriquez has chops to burn, and one musical mission: to have fun, and share it with others. After listening to this live recording, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Jazz at its best certainly has its pensive side, perhaps exemplified by the late Bill Evans. But on the up-beat end of the spectrum, where we find Enriquez, jazz is something of a marvelous hybrid.
On the one hand, it gives us the hard-driving rhythms that swing, that make the body come alive, that awakens our earthy, heart-felt emotions. On the other hand, it gives us a heady dose of intricate, rhythmically complex variations of melodic themes and harmonic structures – the good stuff that dazzles the intellect. Body music, brain music, hear music – and Enriquez has it all.
Listening to these performances, you might think Enriquez grew up in a fast-paced urban center like New York or Detroit. Not so. He was born 41 years ago in the jungle mountains of the Philippines, in Bacolod City on the island of Negros, just north of Mindanao.
He began playing piano at age four. By the time he was 14, he was already a pro -which got him in trouble. “My mother wanted me to concentrate on school work. So, when I had a gig, I had to sneak out of my second-floor bedroom window at night and shinney down the coconut tree. After the gig, I had to shinney back up the same way.”
When his mother found out, she shut down the piano from Monday through Friday. Of course she meant well, but Bobby was a born musician. Without finishing high school, he ran away from home. The bright lights called.
In Manila, he studied jazz and piano with trumpet man Vestre Roxas. He also taught himself how to play nearly 30 other instruments, including xylophone, marimba, vibes, bass and drums.
From Manila, he moved to Okinawa, Taipei and Hong Kong. Throughout the ‘60s, he backed visiting jazz artists such as Lionel Hampton, Mel Torme and Tito Puente. When he moved to Honolulu, he landed a major job at the Golden Dragon Lounge, and eventually became Don Ho’s orchestra leader and musical director – without having to shinney up and down coconut trees.
He arrived stateside during the early ‘70s, struck up a lasting friendship with Richie Cole in the late ‘70s, and toured coast to coast with Cole during 1980-81.
At the 1982 Monterey Jazz Festival, trumpet man Dizzy Gillespie was about to play his set, but without a pianist. Producer Gene Norman persuaded to Diz to try Bobby Enriquez. Enriquez and Diz blew the house down, so much so that Dizzy hired Bobby to tour America and the rest of the world with him throughout 1983.
In 1980, Enriquez recorded his debut solo album, The Wild Man, which featured electric bassist Abraham Laboriel, drummer Alex Acuna and conga player Poncho Sanchez.
In 1982, he recorded The Wildman Meets The Madman, featuring his “alto madness” friend Richie Cole, San Francisco guitarist Bruce Foreman, San Diego bassist Bob Magnusson and Los Angeles drummer Shelley Manne.
In each of his albums, Enriquez brilliantly demonstrates his love and mastery of jazz classics as well as his ability to compose original material. For this CD, he was accompanied.
While jazz fans will appreciate Enriquez’ technique, imagination and humor, they will also recognize, underneath and throughout his music, the mind of a musician who is as serious as he is dedicated. Like Tatum, Parker, Gillespie, Garner and others, Enriquez likes fun, but he tempers his fun with unbounded love for the piano and total loyalty to the great and enduring tradition of jazz in its purest form. -Lee Underwood, West Coast Editor down beat (1977-1981)
