dafnisprieto.com

------ Clinics and Workshops -------

- Master class with Billy Higgins and Tootie Heath at Stanford University , California, 1998.
- Music and Dance workshop with Judith Sanchez at Stanford University, California.1998.
- Steve Coleman workshops at Berkley University, California 2001, as well as concerts and workshops at Tonic, NYC 2003.
- Eddie Palmieri Salsa Meets Jazz Residency at Goddard College, Vermont.
- Yamaha Drums Clinic at Berklee College of Music, Boston.
- Martes Class at the Festival International of Percussion in Puerto Rico.2003.
- Series of conference at New School University "Cuban Culture" In and Out of Cuba Today "Music and Dance" with Judith Sanchez, and a Latin Jazz Presentation with Yosvany Terry Quintet 2002.
- NYU Jazz Master Class series spring 2004.
- Master Class at ECU, 2005.
- Dafnis Prieto is a member of the NYU Jazz Faculty since Sept /2005.

/////// Reviews ///////

CD Review The New York Times
PLAYLIST
By BEN RATLIFF
Published: March 20, 2005

Dafnis Prieto "About the Monks"

Since he arrived in New York in 1999, the Cuban drummer Dafnis Prieto has been translating centuries of hand-drum tradition into jazz percussion for the trap set. His playing often involves three fast rhythms at once, and his precision is mesmerizing. At first he was an overbooked sideman with bandleaders as far apart as the avant-gardist Henry Threadgill and the salsa patriarch Eddie Palmieri. But he has developed his own compositional ambitions, and at last here's the result. On "About the Monks" (Zoho), his own first record, he plays with his most frequent collaborators - the trumpeter Brian Lynch, the saxophonist Yosvany Terry, the pianist Luis Perdomo and the bassist Hans Glawischnig. It's some of the best of New York's new Latin-jazz movement, distinguished by complex, jaggedly modern writing, but also by a deep cultural literacy of Cuban folklore.

About the Monks
Dafnis Prieto | ZOHO Music

By Mark F. Turner
If you're curious about new directions in Latin jazz, then let percussionist Dafnis Prieto's About the Monks point the way. Upon arriving from Cuba in 1999, Prieto has been a key performer with some heavy names, like avant garde saxophonist Henry Threadgill and Latin heavyweights Eddie Palmieri, Chucho Valdes, and Michael Camillo. Not just your typical Afro-Cuban drummer, Prieto combines cultural rhythms with mainstream and free jazz styles that speak of a fresh outlook similar to other younger jazz artists, such as pianist Luis Perdomo and saxophonist Yosvany Terry, who both appear on Prieto's new release.
These compositions were written by Prieto and feature a hot quintet including Perdermo and Terry, along with veteran trumpeter Brian Lynch and bassist Hans Glawischnig. While the infectious horns and Cuban clave rhythms comprise the essential ingredients, the underlying spirit draws from integrated sources on pieces such as “Ironico Arlequin” and “Danzon Santa Clara,” which include dance rhythms and heavy improvisation. One of the most captivating pieces is “On and On,” which dons shifting melody patterns, horn arrangements, and strong solos from Lynch and Terry.
Prieto's drumming is kinetic yet never overpowering. He unselfishly allows his band the lion's share of the solos, yet his presence is the heartbeat of the recording. Added touches include Perdomo's Fender Rhodes work on “Trio Absolute,” guest violinist Ilmar Gavilan's playing on the abstract ”Mechanical Movement,” and Prieto's one man carnivale show, “Conga En Ti,” which keep things interesting and stretch them beyond the norm.

Descarga.com Peter Watrous
Dafnis Prieto
About The Monks
CD (Zoho 200502), Released 2005.
Editor's Pick:
Here’s the record a lot of the improvising Latin world has been waiting for. Prieto, the young Cuban drummer, has been inciting plenty of attention since he moved to New York several years ago. He’s taken a bunch of high-level jobs, and About the Monks shows why: Prieto is gifted. His drumming is light and forceful. He’s exceptionally interactive, talking back to the soloists. At first it’s hard to hear what he’s doing because he’s doing so much—check out the solo around a piano and bass tumbao on "Ironico Arlequin," where he pushes and pulls against the time. He’s joined by Brian Lynch on trumpet, his old band mate Yosvany Terry on saxophone, Luis Perdomo, on piano and Hans Glawischnig on bass. All the writing’s by Prieto and it’s often stunning, based in 70s fusion, but sounding like a real step away from those antecedents. Here’s the real deal.
Highly Recommended. (Peter Watrous, 2005-01-29

Recordonline.com
Feb 4, 2005

New CD by Dafnis Prieto "About the Monks"

   What a great way to hear some of jazz's hottest new talents – and some fabulous new Latin jazz.
   Just pick up Dafnis Prieto's debut album, "About the Monks."
   Prieto is a 30-year-old Cuban-born drummer, percussionist and composer who leads a band featuring young New York City lions such as trumpeter Brian Lynch, saxophonist Yosvany Terry and bassist Luis Perdomo.
   Remember those names.
   Thanks to Prieto's original tunes and rippling rhythmic direction, they make edgy, prismatic music that crackles with propulsive, syncopated polyrhythms and bursts with surprises. It's also music of dynamic depth that includes rumbling rhythmic ruckuses and sweet soprano sax and trumpet harmonies.
   Most of all, Prieto, who plays with leaders that range from avant-gardist Henry Threadgill to Caribbean fusion vibraphonist Dave Samuels, never plays it safe. He challenges the music and musicians to take Latin jazz to new places. And he succeeds.

   Steve Israel

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January 17, 2002, Thursday

The New York Times
From Cuba, With Rhythm, Taking Jazz By Storm; Dafnis Prieto Makes His Mark in New York
By BEN RATLIFF

Most young jazz rhythm-section players come to New York to study, keeping their eye on the main chance. A few lucky ones hit the jackpot with one of the few regularly touring bands. But the overwhelming majority struggle to keep afloat, and their names might not be singled out for 5 or 10 years or, in some cases, ever.

There is, however, a small tradition of Cuban drummers who hit New York like asteroids -- powerhouses who are expert writers and readers of music, who can teach it and who spur on everyone around them.

Dafnis Prieto, from Santa Clara, Cuba, is the newest one.

Mr. Prieto, a soft-faced 27-year-old with the small, compact build of a soccer forward, came more than two years ago with a work visa from playing American festivals with the American saxophonist Jane Bunnett's group. He quickly became a major force connecting Afro-Cuban roots, the mainstream jazz tradition of the last 40 years and the avant-garde.

''What I really like is that I get to play in different styles,'' Mr. Prieto said. ''Now, since maybe three years ago, Latin music is really developing something from the inside. It's an intuitional change.''

His story reflects something about how the jazz bandleaders' grapevine operates, and about the power of Cuban drummers in jazz since Chano Pozo changed the music irrevocably in 1947 when he came to New York to work with Dizzy Gillespie's Afro-Cuban jazz orchestra.

Mr. Prieto's timing was perfect. By the late 90's, Latin jazz was ready to leap ahead. Among musicians there was an upsurge of interest in all things Latin-American, and young bandleaders from Cuba, Puerto Rico and elsewhere, arriving in New York, created a new, learned synthesis of indigenous song forms and all kinds of jazz.

Since his arrival, Mr. Prieto has played in 15 different groups. In some of these he's been a substitute, and in about half he has become a first-call member. It is not unprecedented for a musician to work so widely, but it just doesn't usually happen so quickly and with such fertile music as a result.

The essence of Mr. Prieto's style is his collation of various Afro-Cuban percussion sounds -- from old religious music to modern music -- within one set of trap drums. His playing is infernally complicated, and infernally precise; the blizzard of accents he throws into any pattern have their place as surely as pixels in a computer image.

One of his first jobs after arriving in New York was with Henry Threadgill's band Zooid. It was a natural fit: Mr. Threadgill, one of the most famous names of the jazz avant-garde, writes meticulously accented music. Since then, Mr. Prieto has worked with Claudia Acu? band, playing mixtures of straight-ahead jazz and traditional South American rhythms like the Venezuelan joropo and the Argentine chacarera.

He has played in Eddie Palmieri's Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, making its dance-band makeup more densely percussive. He has performed and recorded with the pianists Andrew Hill and D. D. Jackson, the bassist John Ben?z, the trumpeters Brian Lynch and Roy Hargrove, the saxophonists Steve Coleman and the vibraphonist Dave Samuels.

And he has become a moving part in a new crop of Latin-jazz bands that have been regularly featured at the Jazz Gallery, which has become an important new jazz space in Lower Manhattan over the last two years.

Mr. Prieto lives in the northern part of Washington Heights, at the intersection of Dominican and Eastern European neighborhoods. His building, managed by a Cuban landlord, is a little enclave of Cuban intellectuals -- a few musicians, some computer programmers, products of Cuba's state universities and the old educational system, which funneled Cuban students to Moscow. His wife, the dancer Judith S?hez Ru? has worked with him, most recently in a Threadgill performance at Aaron Davis Hall at City College last October.

Mr. Prieto is specific when he speaks about music, pointing to this drummer, that record, that rhythmic structure. When he talks about learning music in Cuba, he uses the word ''information'' a lot, as in ''We didn't have that kind of information.''

A creole, he grew up in a black neighborhood in Santa Clara, a small town about 150 miles from Havana; his father is an elevator mechanic and his mother an accountant at a factory that makes equipment for sugar-cane manufacturing plants. His earliest exposure to music came from the conga players who would practice for the annual carnival in the street outside his house. (''There was a lot of rumba and fighting,'' he recalled.)

He played guitar and percussion, learning traditional son and rumba more formally from age 7 at a community school. He studied classical percussion for four years at a local conservatory before moving to Havana, where he attended the National School of Music, continuing classical studies and beginning to play jazz on the side.

Before leaving school, he was already playing in European jazz festivals. But his exposure to American jazz was spotty. He had studied Elvin Jones's drumming on John Coltrane's album ''A Love Supreme'' and had a fascination, as so many young Cuban musicians do, with the technically fearsome work of the saxophonist Michael Brecker and the drummer Steve Gadd.

In 1996 he was deeply imprinted by a visit to Cuba by the American jazz saxophonist Steve Coleman, who traveled there for a recording project, but also worked with Cuban musicians in other ways. ''With Steve,'' Mr. Prieto recalls, ''more than playing in his band, I did research. I looked at South Indian music; we did a trio project about the sun, moon and the Earth; and we did a thing about yin and yang.'' Mr. Coleman's music is dense, hard, polyrhythmic, scientific; Mr. Prieto, who has an empirical cast of mind, responded enthusiastically.

Mr. Prieto knew that America, and specifically New York, was his destiny, but didn't feel ready to come -- even when he finally came. He approached it in stages. In Cuba, He worked with Jane Bunnett, the Canadian saxophonist; they had first met in Paris, when Mr. Prieto was playing with the pianist Carlos Maza. Later, he joined Ms. Bunnett's band, Spirits of Havana, touring international jazz festivals.

In Canada in 1999, working with Ms. Bunnett, he decided to use the visa that he had already secured to play a few tour dates in America and headed nervously for New York. He has the necessary work permit; to extend his stay, he has applied for residency.

''The kind of music I was doing there in Cuba,'' Mr. Prieto explained, ''was sort of on the side of jazz -- avant-garde Latin music -- and I didn't see myself in Cuba doing that for long. The only guys I saw playing that kind of music were the ones who were already playing with me, so there was nowhere to go."

When Mr. Prieto got to town, he immediately got the job with Mr. Threadgill, and then the circle widened. Brian Lynch, the trumpeter, had met Mr. Prieto at Stanford University in 1998, where Mr. Prieto had gone to attend a jazz-percussion master class via an arts grant. When Mr. Lynch saw him again, he immediately asked him to join his band.

''He brings the intelligence level up,'' Mr. Lynch said. ''He knows form, and he remembers things. He'll be swinging, he'll be in the clave rhythm, but he'll make these little shifts with it -- just a little spurt, where there's an impossibly complex rhythm, but it's all precise. From that, I can go and skitter off into my own direction.''

Eddie Palmieri, the great bandleader of the salsa era and a long-time agent of change in Latin music, heard about Mr. Prieto from the Puerto Rican drummer Paoli Mejias. ''He's extraordinary,'' Mr. Palmieri said. ''A rhythmic stimulus. He comprehends the two most incredibly difficult rhythmic genres -- being Cuban and being an extremely talented jazz drummer.'' Before hiring Mr. Prieto, Mr. Palmieri rarely included a trap-set drummer in his orchestra; his band was generally a conjunto, or a standard Latin dance-band lineup. With Mr. Prieto, he has felt free to experiment.

Among younger players, the drummer has found a close circle of collaborators. Nearly all of them -- horn players, bassists, drummers, pianists -- are bandleaders, and they use Mr. Prieto as a matter of course. Through them, the connection between jazz and Latin is no longer a tenuous linking of formal elements, the borrowing of a scale or a stiffly delineated rhythm. In Mr. Prieto's own music, rearranged danzons jostle against experiments in meter and harmony; his music switches between smoothly cushioned rhythms and spiky ones.

Dale Fitzgerald, who runs the Jazz Gallery, the six-year-old nonprofit performance space on Hudson Street in the South Village, has encouraged the new Latin jazz by booking bands in their nascent stages; he also created an atmosphere in which the musicians like to come and see one another's gigs.

He was the first to book Mr. Prieto's own group, last March, and has just received grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and New York City's Department of Cultural Affairs to commission new works and performances from six of the composers who appear there regularly. Mr. Prieto will be one, and will perform with his own ensemble at the club, at 290 Hudson Street, from May 23 to 25. (He will also play there on Feb. 1, in Peter Apfelbaum's group; on Feb. 2 with Ron Blake and on Feb. 15 with Yosvany Terry.)

''I'm learning the tradition of American drumming -- Max Roach, Ed Blackwell, Billy Higgins,'' Mr. Prieto said. ''I didn't have much information about them when I was in Cuba. Also, now, the thing is to go wider. I've started doing arrangements of my own songs, and I'm not just thinking about my own position. I'm trying to be part of the whole picture.''

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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Dafnis Prieto / DAFNISON MUSIC