BRATTLEBORO-The Vermont Jazz Center will launch its 2026–27 season with a concert Saturday, Sept. 19, featuring one of today’s most important living Cuban pianists — multi-Grammy-Award-winning Gonzalo Rubalcaba.
Rubalcaba will perform at the VJC’s Cotton Mill venue at 7:30 p.m. with his Trio d’Été (Summer Trio), which includes Matt Brewer on acoustic bass and Eric Harland on drums.
Rubalcaba’s impeccable piano technique, his harmonic depth, and his ability to transmit emotional content without being saccharine place him as one of the top pianists in all of jazz. Critic Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune claimed that “Gonzalo Rubalcaba ranks among the most accomplished jazz pianists in the world today and perhaps stands at the top of that elite group, thanks to a colossal technique and an unfettered musical imagination.”
Rubalcaba’s broad repertoire is fueled by his incessant curiosity and his search for new creative pathways. He collaborates with musicians known for their expertise in different styles, joining creatively with artists who are authorities on the music and culture of their own home countries.
His most recent recordings are diverse projects that evolve into pure, musical expression and are, to use an Ellingtonian phrase, “beyond category.”
The factor that unifies all these disparate projects is Rubalcaba’s sound and vocabulary — his sumptuous touch, his mastery of impromptu improvised lines, his dexterity, and his unflagging rhythmical precision. Rubalcaba chooses his projects based on their quality and musicality, but he also searches for a spiritual kinship that shapes all of his relationships, musical and personal.
He stated in a 2023 interview with German pianist/composer Pablo Held, “Love, at the end, is everything. […] Since the moment we visualize something [when it’s] just as an idea. The passion, love, has to be there. Because this is what really pushed you to have the faith [to say] ‘I will do it. I will run the risk. I [will] push myself. I want to see that.”
A clear example of Rubalcaba’s open-minded vision includes two collaborations with Polish singer Anna Maria Jopek. As described in a promotion for their joint album Minione, their collaborations “bring back to life the most charming pre-war Polish tangos...pieces [that bridge] the world of the thirties and present cultures […] and merge various cultures: Polish, Cuban, Jewish, Argentinian and American.”
Another unexpected partnership is a duo with Rubalcaba and Chinese maestro Dongfeng Liu, a pianist Wynton Marsalis brought to the United States to perform at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Another revealing alliance that demonstrates Rubalcaba’s inquisitive nature and ability to take on new, challenging repertoire is Collab, a recent release with Brazilian mandolinist Hamilton de Holanda. LatinJazzNet writer Raul da Gama recommended that listeners prepare themselves for magic: “Explosive creativity of an absolute unbridled kind ensues. This not even the kind where one of the musicians completes the other’s phrase; to suggest that would be to underplay the sheer magical interaction of these two musicians [...].”
Rubalcaba’s body of work also includes collaborations with a multitude of Cuban musicians who are unafraid to push expectations — like two discs of timba-influenced salsa with Aymée Nuviola and an unapologetically romantic collection of songs made famous by Nat King Cole with Cuban-American vocalist Jon Secada.
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For his Vermont Jazz Center concert, Rubalcaba will demonstrate his deep commitment to jazz music, especially the development of the North American construct of the jazz piano trio (i.e., Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett). This ties in with the fact that one of Rubalcaba’s first mentors was the legendary bassist, Charlie Haden, with whom he played upwards of 100 trio gigs and recorded four albums.
After hearing the twentysomething Rubalcaba play in a Havana hotel bar, Haden pressed him to find a music studio where the two could jam and record the session. Haden played the resultant cassettes to Bruce Lundvall, then president of Blue Note Records.
It took a while, but after hearing the material, Lundvall arranged for Rubalcaba to travel to Canada to record. (He wasn’t allowed in the U.S. at the time due to the U.S. embargo with Cuba.)
Rubalcaba’s first trio record for Blue Note was with bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Rubalcaba has continued to record in the trio format ever since — with renowned drummers, including Paul Motian, Horacio “El Negro” Hernández, Marcus Gilmore, and Ignacio Berroa, and with bassists Ron Carter, John Patitucci, Carlos Henriquez, and Larry Grenadier.
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The concert at the Jazz Center will take a deep dive into Rubalcaba’s perspective of the piano trio format.
Along with his mentorship with Haden, it is important to recognize the significance of the legendary trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie on Gonzalo Rubalcaba’s trajectory. The two first met in 1985, when Rubalcaba was playing with his jazz-rock fusion band, Grupo Proyecto, at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba.
Gillespie was in Havana to perform at the Havana Jazz Festival and to shoot the documentary film A Night in Havana: Dizzy Gillespie in Cuba. The festival organizers invited Gillespie to the hotel where Rubalcaba was playing to see and hear the local talent.
In a 2020 interview with trumpeter John Daversa, Rubalcaba tells the story of how Gillespie walked up to him after checking out his set. Gillespie was so impressed that he asked Rubalcaba to join him on stage the next day in his headlining performance at the festival.
A Cuban recording company captured this concert and can be heard on their album Gillespie en Vivo. There is a beautiful video of the 22-year-old Rubalcaba playing a duet with Gillespie on Dizzy’s classic composition “Con Alma.”
Gillespie continued to champion Rubalcaba after that encounter, setting up international gigs, including a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival, which helped launch Rubalcaba’s trajectory.
Along with Haden, Gillespie advocated to the U.S. State Department to permit Rubalcaba to come to the States but died in 1993, before his protégé would attain a visa.
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At the Jazz Center, Rubalcaba will play in the context of the piano jazz trio. Trio d’Été is an unabashedly creative jazz ensemble that focuses on original music. Its repertoire features complex melodies and unexpected, tricky forms playable only by virtuosos like Rubalcaba, Brewer, and Harland.
Their command of their instruments and their communicative skills defy belief, yet there is a certain humility in the breathtaking technical skill of this trio.
Come indulge in that profound experience and listen closely.
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For those unable to attend in person, check out the VJC’s livestream at vtjazz.org.
Admission is $25 (additional donation appreciated). Thanks to sponsorship engagement, VJC operates using a subsidized ticket system which lowers the cost per ticket, even though the value per seat is more than double that amount.
Tickets can be reserved at vtjazz.org or at 802-254-9088, ext. 1. To arrange for mobility accommodations, email or call to schedule a time for one of our staff to meet your party.
Eugene Uman is director of the Vermont Jazz Center. The Commons’ Deeper Dive column gives artists, arts organizations, and other nonprofits elbow room to write in first person and be unabashedly opinionated, passionate, and analytical about their own creative work and events.
This Arts column was submitted to The Commons.