José Luis Canal (organ), Alberto Arteta (saxes), Juan Luis Castaño (drums) and the leader Raúl Sainz de Rozas (guitar). /
the baffle
The quartet presented its first album, ‘Short stories’, combining classic guitar-Hammond-saxophone jazz at the Andrés Isasi in Las Arenas
Live debut of the Organizing quartet, with the Navarran saxophonist Alberto Arteta in the line-up and center stage, this Saturday at the Andrés Isasi School of Music in Las Arenas. He presented his first album, ‘Short stories’ (Errabal, 2022), and he did it without external sound, playing bareback, as it were: Alberto Arteta blowing the tenor and soprano at the top of his lungs, the Spanish-Venezuelan based in Bizkaia Juan Luis Castaño beating his unamplified drums, the guitar of Bilbao-born leader Raúl Sainz de Rozas playing through a small speaker, and the organ of Bilbao-based Mirandese José Luis Canal (the only one who came out wearing a t-shirt instead of a shirt) exhaling his breath through a larger baffle. On both sides of the stage, symmetrical on the outside, there were two more speakers, but they were not used during their instrumentals.
The bolus lasted 89 minutes for 9 pieces, many of them versions. As Raúl, a professor at that music school in Getxo, explained, the repertoire sought “the conjunction between the guitar and the Hammond organ, in the manner of legendary trios and quartets such as those of Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery…”. They applied the formula with delight, perhaps reaching perfection in Sam Yahel’s ‘Truth and beauty/Truth and beauty’ (the organ started like the James Taylor Quartet, followed by the Brazilian sax…) and only one of the titles departed from that pattern, the last one before the encore, ‘Landscape with rain’, composed by the guitarist for his brother and which resonated with progressive fusion in the vein of Pat Metheny.
Alberto Arteta before attacking in the second, ‘Short story’ by Kenny Durham. /
The rest of the reper drew on classic airs, from the opening with ‘Fried pies’ by Wes Montgomery (“we’re going to start with a blues, how good things start,” Raúl said) to the encore swing with ‘Jeannine’ by Duke Pearson. Although the leader of Organizing is the guitarist because he has composed the original songs, his companions have as much prominence as he does, from the central Arteta (to the tenor sax he showed off in the after hours ballad ‘Lord Castle Theme’, original by Raúl for a friend his own, and brought out the soprano at the end, standing out in the also Brazilian ‘Samba do Lidia’, dedicated by Raúl to his daughter, present in the room) to the one dressed in a Canal shirt (the progressiveness, the funk…, all executed with a Crumar Mojo organ), although the Organizing quartet sounded very integrated in pieces like ‘Full house’ by Wes Montgomey (‘Local full’, which leads us to say that around 60 souls congregated at Andrés Isasi).
The concert was so good that at the end there was a queue to buy the CD. One lady even left a 10 euro bill and took a copy because there was still no one attending the table with the material.
José Luis Canal with his Crumar Mojo brand organ. /