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Ramón Valle
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Ramón Valle (born 1964) was only seven years
old when he started studying the piano at the
Escuela Provincial de Arte in his home town of
Holguín, Cuba. He graduated from Havana's
Escuela Nacional de Arte in 1984.
As solo artist and as leader of the jazz quartet
Brújula, Valle appeared at numerous festivals
and was soon an established name in the Cuban
and Latin American jazz scene. In 1991 Silvio
Rodríguez, founder of the Nueva Trova, asked him
to join his band Diákara, which he stayed with until
1993.
"The greatest talent among our young pianists,"
Chucho Valdés, prominent musician and founder of Irakere, used these words to introduce Ramón Valle
on his debut album "Levitando" (1993). On this first CD, Valle revealed himself as a pianist with a sound
of his own. Rather than being a pianist who plays Latin Jazz or Cuban Jazz, Valle is a Cuban jazz pianist.
He produces pure, contemporary jazz. Although clearly present, his Cuban roots never form the basis of
his pieces. In his own words: "I am a Cuban musician who falls within the category called 'jazz', but my
music borders on many other musical forms. Some- times I feel like a troubadour, because I tell stories,
stories without words."
At the same time, Valle charms his audiences with charisma and expressiveness he brings to his
renditions. His relationship with the piano is completely physical. His musical stories grip and enchant
from the first. They tell themselves.
After this European debut, Ramón Valle went on to great success at other European and Latin American
venues. In 1998 Ramón Valle settled in Europe, where his tours of Germany, Spain and Scandinavia have
elicited unanimous praise. The audience was witness to this at his first appearance in North Sea Jazz
(2000), where Valle was described as the great surprise of the festival.
In 2002 Valle was discovered at international festivals such as Montreux Festival, the Leverkusen Festival,
in his own country, at the Festival de Jazz Plaza Habana as a pianist and composer who is clearly following
his own path in his music. In 2002 Valle met the trumpeter Roy Hargrove, and their musical rendez-vous
resulted in a performance by the Ramon Valle quintet featuring Roy Hargrove during the North Sea Jazz 2003.
In the same year Valle proved his talents as orchestra leader and composer in the large hall of the Royal
Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, where "Mixed-up Mokum" was premiered, a composition for the city of
Amsterdam commissioned by the Amsterdams Foundation for Arts. It is intended for an ensemble of ten
musicians, and moves in the shadowy area between jazz, improvised music and classical music. In four
movements Valle tells us about his first impressions of Amsterdam.
Valle has recorded seven albums under his own name. "Playground" is his last release on which he plays
again as a trio with Omar Rodriguez Calvo (bass) and drummer Owen Hart jr.
His own approach is, as he puts it himself "not one hundred percent Cuban, but one hundred percent me,
my trio. I would like to break with the label latin jazz that everybody knows so well and that people
associate with hot congas."
Find out more about Ramón Valle and listen to his music on www.ramonvalle.nl