For those unaware, Cry Me A River is the highly anticipated release by celebrated Cuban-Canadian composer and piano virtuoso Hilario Durán.

On this recording, Durán leads his remarkable 19-piece ensemble alongside guest talents Paquito D’Rivera, Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez, and OKAN. This big band album, his first in 17 years, present Durán’s Cuban roots and inventive arrangements, intertwining tradition with uninhibited improvisation across nine enchanting compositions.

Available in various formats, including CD, streaming, and digital platforms like DOLBY ATMOS + Hi Res Digital, the album highlights a fusion of genres as seen in “Claudia,” featuring D’Rivera’s alto sax, and the jazz-meets-classical allure of “Fantasia Impromptu,” adorned by D’Rivera’s clarinet.

1. Pacá por Juanito
2. Mambo y Tumbao
3. Claudia
4. I Remember Mingus
5. Cry Me A River
6. Night In Tunisia
7. Wild Blues
8. Esperando la Carroza (Waiting for the Float)
9. Fantasia Impromptu

On an album where throughout its course the Grammy-nominated and Juno Award-winning Durán actively throws overboard melodic, harmonic, and structural hooks that have become expressively blunted through overuse, building big band charts that bloom in color and texture and atmospheric beauty, it opens on the flourishing Pacá por Juanito and the sweeping Mambo y Tumbao and then brings us the delicately ornate Claudia, the atmopsheric I Remember Mingus and then we are brought forth the sweepingly elegant Me A River (featuring OKAN).

Along next on this veritably translucent new recording is the melodious Night In Tunisia (featuring “El Negro” Hernández), which is in turn backed by the sterner fare of the fervent Wild Blues, the album rounding out on the joyously sculpted Esperando la Carroza (Waiting for the Float), coming to a close on the gyrating rhythmic scope found within the playful Fantasia Impromptu.

“I have waited almost twenty years to record another big band album,” Durán says. “But there was plenty of preparation for this moment.” He refers to the four radio broadcasts of his compositions and arrangements with the great WDR Big Band in Koln, Germany. “It was great to showcase my music and to ‘workshop’ some new arrangements… aspects of the craft I learned working with the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna in Habana which I inherited from Chucho Valdés… So much to be grateful for the gift of music… it seemed that the time is right for this new album, Cry Me A River.”

Hilario Durán and his Latin Jazz Big Band - Cry Me A River [Official Promo EPK]

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