FRANCE MUSIQUE - FRANCE
On MARC MARON’s podcast (Check after minute 30)
DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE:
With his latest effort, Argentine pianist/composer Pablo Ablanedo pronounces a sense of joy. In the liners, the artist emphasizes that this work “alludes to the happiness of creation.” To that end, Ablanedo and his octet disseminate a set of emotive musings via a Spanishtinged luster combined with polychordal horn charts and more.“ (4 ½ stars) Glenn Astarita, Down Beat Magazine (US)
"Argentine composer Pablo Ablanedo makes a disarmingly gentle but firm debut notable more for his ascetic, introspective writing than his low-profile piano. This band plays the through-composed and chamber-like pieces understatedly rather than in-your-face, slowly unfolding a mature, inclusive world vision.” (4 Stars) Fred Bouchard, Down Beat Magazine (US)
An article about Chistreza (January 2020)
BIRD IS THE WORM:
Everything Pablo Ablanedo does sounds Big. And Ablanedo makes the achievement of the epic appear effortless. His songs have a persona that presents themselves as music of a noble grandeur, of music that attains great heights with a graceful ease and a fluid motion. As such, his newest recording,ReContraDoble, elicits thrilling shifts in anticipation, encapsulating the expansive in a way that exposes the beauty residing in the tiny details. Dave Sumner, Bird is the Worm (US)
PRESS IN EUROPE:
“Most of it is magnificent and will stand the test of time.” (4 Stars) (JazzWise) (UK)
“ReContraDoble” is an impressive piece of work, a meticulously crafted album that features intriguing compositions, colorful and innovative arrangements and some excellent playing from a highly competent ensemble. It’s unmistakably Latin music but avoids all the clichés of the genre, this is Latin music played with discipline and precision rather than wild abandon and to these ears, it’s all the more satisfying for that. (4 Stars) The Jazz Mann (UK)
“One of our most inventive young jazz composers and one of the most innovative contemporary ensembles. It’s music you need to know.” (5 Stars) Lee Prosser , Jazzreview France
ABOUT CHISTREZA:
I often gripe that while contemporary jazz is full of interesting rhythms and bravura arrangements, melody, soul, and meaning often missing. Buenos Aires-born pianist Pablo Ablanedo brings it in Chistreza. Chistreza was one of the finest jazz recordings of 2020. By Ken Micallef - Stereophile Magazine
Featured Album · Editor’s Pick - Latin Jazz Network (LJN) - Canada
The most remarkable aspect of the music of Pablo Ablanedo is the compositions themselves. As an artist Mr Ablanedo has a prodigious gift for sonic architecture. It appears that sound – acoustics of the empirical kind, that is – seems to speak to Mr Ablanedo in a very private and special way. Note frequencies are revealed in secret, which results in magical combinations of notes – and therefore sounds – which together are strung up like artifacts of immense beauty; remarkable dalliances of melody and harmony; agitated atoms and molecules glued together in rhythms that are at once ancient and yet modern. Even more extraordinary – I suspect – is the fact that Mr Ablanedo could be anywhere in this world and music would resonate within him in exactly the same way as it does. By this, I suppose, is the fact that Mr Ablanedo is Argentinean by birth, but his music reflects an otherworldly source, quite independent of what may be his own cultural skin and sensibility. By Raul Da Gama - The Latin Jazz Network
The art fuse magazine - USA
Every piece here seems to play by its own rhythmic rules, and yet nowhere does the music sound academic or formal.
Now living in Cambridge, MA, Ablanedo first recorded as a leader in 2001. His From Down There from that year also featured Scheinman and Cohen. That long time familiarity with these musicians may be a key to the nature of his new recording and its success. The music is rhythmically and sometimes structurally complex; it’s always melodically satisfying. Making it all work depends on the restraint of musicians who are able to hold delicate balances in place. Many of the players here are bandleaders themselves. They move into Ablanedo’s world gracefully; there are no displays of ego or even examples of rash virtuosity. The rhythm section — Fernando Huergo on electric bass, Franco Pinna drums, and Monder on guitar — deserves special mention for the unassuming way they play different patterns. Ablanedo must be a persuasive, as well as a talented, man. By Michael Ullman - The Arts Fuse
ALL ABOUT JAZZ - USA
Ultimately, it's a highly crafted showcase by an artist who substantiates his creative perspectives with compelling pieces that integrate a harmonious integration of structure and improvisation. By Glen Astarita -AAJ
About RecontraDoble:
As exuberant and spirited as a Piazzolla or a Dino Saluzzi, but also reaching out far beyond their tango-derived sound into the maelstrom of pulsating contemporary jazz at the same time, ReContraDoble works at a very technical level even if it does not lose any impression of spontaneity. Stephen Graham on Marlbank (North Ireland)
There are times in the score when the music feels so lithe and delicate and tenuous that the charts feel as if they are literally angular and elastic, and the notes inhabit the musical tapestry forming a kind of shifting sand in the rhythm section. Ironically it is also this section of the ensemble that is the glue that holds all the other musical instruments together. This is especially true of the composer’s pianism that is full of rhythmic and harmonic subtlety that seems to be barely there, but at the same time forms the diaphanous fabric of the music that flows throughout the background—and sometimes the foreground—of each of the musical compositions and interpretations. There is no tango, no waltz, no chacarera, no Milonga, but all of these rhythms and forms are spectrally present throughout. In fact, the music of Mr. Ablanedo seems to be written and performed in four dimensions—those that are obvious to the mind’s ear and those that are suggested and understood only by the spirit and its soul. Such is the beauty and power of this music. (5 Stars) by Raul da Gama Latin Jazz Network (Canada)
“ReContraDoble” is an impressive piece of work, a meticulously crafted album that features intriguing compositions, colorful and innovative arrangements and some excellent playing from a highly competent ensemble. It’s unmistakably Latin music but avoids all the clichés of the genre, this is Latin music played with discipline and precision rather than wild abandon and to these ears, it’s all the more satisfying for that. (4 Stars) The Jazz Mann (UK)
Everything Pablo Ablanedo does sounds Big. And Ablanedo makes the achievement of the epic appear effortless. His songs have a persona that presents themselves as music of a noble grandeur, of music that attains great heights with a graceful ease and a fluid motion. As such, his newest recording,ReContraDoble, elicits thrilling shifts in anticipation, encapsulating the expansive in a way that exposes the beauty residing in the tiny details. Bird is the Worm (US)
The album shows a mature composer, who creates wonderfully personal expressions while leaving ample room for the improvisational identities of his band members. There’s a deep-rooted sense of tradition within the music that is balanced by a forward-looking feeling; this is some powerful stuff worth hearing. Chip Boaz, The Latin Jazz Corner (US)
Pablo Ablanedo es un pianista innovador y convincente al mismo tiempo, un pianista que desarrolla una paleta de colores vasta aunque sutil, huyendo de efectismos pero capaz de desarrollar sus propias composiciones con una sensibilidad que conecta al instante, una de esas figuras que deberían estar en todos los festivales a pesar de no tener una gran discográfica detrás, uno de esos artistas enormes que no llegaríamos a conocer jamás si no fuera por la globalización de Internet. Félix Amador-Gálvez,Jazz, ese ruido (Spain)
About Alegría:
“With his latest effort, Argentine pianist/composer Pablo Ablanedo pronounces a sense of joy. In the liners, the artist emphasizes that this work “alludes to the happiness of creation.” To that end, Ablanedo and his octet disseminate a set of emotive musings via a Spanishtinged luster combined with polychordal horn charts and more.“ (4 ½ stars) Glenn Astarita, Down Beat Magazine (US)
“One of our most inventive young jazz composers and one of the most innovative contemporary ensembles. It’s music you need to know.” (5 Stars) Lee Prosser , Jazzreview France
“Alegría has cemented Pablo Ablanedo’s reputation as an innovative and yet disciplined composer who promises even more noteworthy work in the future." Bill Donaldson, Cadence Magazine (US)
“Most of it is magnificent and will stand the test of time.” (4 Stars) (JazzWise) (UK)
Jazz Times Magazine (US) Top 10 CDs 2003 Pick by Javier Antonio Quinones-Ortiz
1. Pablo Ablanedo Alegría (Fresh Sound New Talent)
2. Tord Gustavsen Trio Changing Places (ECM)
3. Abdoulaye N’Diaye Taoue (Enja)
4. Elio Villafranca Incantations (Pimienta)
5. Papo Vázquez Pirates Troubadours Carnival in San Juan (Cubop)
6. Samo Salamon Quartet Ornethology (Sazas)
7. Truco & Zaperoko Música Universal (Libertad)
8. Tino Derado Luminescence (Sunnyside)
9. Poncho Sánchez Out of Sight (Concord Picante)
10. Martin Scorsese The Blues(Hip-O)
On AAJ (US)
About From Down There:
"Argentine composer Pablo Ablanedo makes a disarmingly gentle but firm debut notable more for his ascetic, introspective writing than his low-profile piano. This band plays the through-composed and chamber-like pieces understatedly rather than in-your-face, slowly unfolding a mature, inclusive world vision.” (4 Stars) Fred Bouchard, Down Beat Magazine (US)
“Pablo Ablanedo Octet is hot. However, to describe the octet in simple terms is to do the group a disservice, because their performances on From Down There are exciting, complex, intricate and fun." Katie DeBonville, Northeastern Performer (US)
What a pity that at this point the band is limiting their appearances to the Boston/New York region. Great that one can until that will change, at least listen to this CD. Frank Bongers, Jazz Dimentions (Germany)
”…be sure that Pablo Ablanedo’s work has its own personality: you will be pleased to listen and listen to From Down There.” Claude Colpaert, Jazz Hot Magazine (France)
“Ablanedo has a talent for combining multi-line horn parts and shifting harmonies with the relaxed intensity of classic Latin rhythms…." Jon Garelick, Boston Phoenix (US)
"The newest works by this Argentinean pianist and composer are as mature and sophisticated as any of the best modern Latin jazz." Bob Young, Boston Herald (US)
"It would be a mistake to pigeonhole the pianist/composer Pablo Ablanedo as a "Latin jazz artist”: the lush, complex weave of his writing for octet on the new Alegría (Fresh Sounds) has as much to do with Gil Evans as with the tangos of Ablanedo’s fellow Argentine, Astor Piazzolla." Jon Garelick, Boston Phoenix (US)
"There’s a certain brooding quality that extends into the realm of jazz music that the great nation of Argentina has contributed to us. This CD is an excellent example of how well constructed and interesting compositions, created from within the structures of this very sensual and emotional music can extend itself into and beyond the reaches of jazz. Peter La Barbera, The Jazz Zine (US)