Producer
Creed Taylor has inspired everything from praise to anger among jazz fans. His work has been brilliant at times, detrimental at others (his worst flaw being a tendency to overproduce).
Taylor plays a mostly positive role on
La Cuna, a jazz-oriented effort uniting
Ray Barretto with such first-class talent as
Tito Puente (timbales) and the late
Joe Farrell (tenor & soprano sax, flute). As slick as things get at times on
La Cuna,
Taylor wisely gives the players room to blow on everything from the haunting "Doloroso" and the driving "Cocinando" (a piece by
Carlos Franzetti that shouldn't be confused with
Barretto's major salsa/cha-cha hit) to a somewhat
Gato Barbieri-ish take on
Mussorgsky's "The Old Castle."
Barretto successfully moves into soul territory on
Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise" (which rapper
Coolio recast as his hit "Gangsta's Paradise" in 1994).
Barretto may hate the term "Latin jazz," but make no mistake:
La Cuna is one of his most memorable contributions to that genre. ~ Alex Henderson