submitted on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 06:06 in Jazz Niche by Mike_Longo 
Listening to Avatar--pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba's first release since 2006--is kind of like eating unshelled lobster: It takes hard work and a will of iron to get to the meat. And while that meat may be succulent to some, the taste may not be for everybody.
The problem originates with the "shell" that surrounds most of the seven tunes on Avatar. Rubalcaba gets some terrific performances from his quintet, and does his usual stellar job at the piano. Unfortunately, there was a conscious decision to make most of the heads exceedingly dense--not dense in terms of intelligence (the compositions are nothing if not smart), but dense in terms of the amount of musical information the listener must process right from the outset...
Source: allaboutjazz
Author: J Hunter
