Zaccai Curtis - LYDIALIEBMAN.COM

Sonoluminescence Vol. 1
Release Date: August 7, 2026
Label: TRRcollective

GRAMMY-winning pianist and composer Zaccai Curtis returns with Sonoluminescence Vol. 1. The record marks a distinct turn in Curtis's artistic evolution which finds him evolving from the Afro-Cuban focus of his GRAMMY-winning Cubop Lives! into a wider sonic landscape, rooted in the textures and grooves of 1970s jazz and funk while pushing confidently into modern territory.

The title is drawn from a real physical phenomenon: sonoluminescence is the emission of light from sound waves passing through liquid. For Curtis, the metaphor speaks to the transformative power of music; the idea that sound, when it truly connects, can produce something luminous and felt. His intention for Sonoluminescence Vol. 1 is equally visceral: to create a record that functions as a traveling companion, something to put on during a long drive and let carry the mind somewhere else entirely.

The album draws from a rich palette of influences, among them Ahmad Jamal, Herbie Hancock, Lonnie Liston Smith, Idris Muhammad, Santana, War, Mandrill, and Roy Ayers. The music leans into pocket grooves and Afro-Caribbean rhythms while leaving room for extended improvisation and compositional storytelling. Curtis has a fondness for long-form pieces where the soloists have space to develop ideas fully, and the eight tracks on this album reflect that, with several pieces stretching well past the seven-minute mark.

One of the hallmarks of Curtis's compositional approach on this record is his method of placing traditional Afro-Caribbean rhythmic concepts in unexpected parts of the ensemble. Cascara and montuno figures are relocated into the bass line, freeing the piano to focus on harmony and melody and the drums to function more openly around the groove. The result is music that is rhythmically intricate beneath the surface while remaining natural and grounded on top.

Curtis performs piano, Rhodes, Yamaha keyboards, and vocals throughout the album, and in several passages plays both piano and Rhodes simultaneously. With his right hand on the piano as a melodic voice alongside the tenor saxophone and his left on the Rhodes for texture and warmth, the combination gives the record a distinctive timbral quality.

The ensemble assembled for this project is notable. Craig Handy on tenor saxophone and flute is a cornerstone of the album's identity. Curtis has long admired Handy's compositional approach to improvisation so the record gives him full room to unfold, often across two solo sections within a single piece. Joe Dyson on drums anchors the music while Brevan Hampden on congas and percussion brings the Afro-Caribbean pulse that runs through the album's core, instinctively knowing which rhythmic textures the music calls for. Luques Curtis, Zaccai's brother and an original member of the ensemble from its earlier days and Mike Boone share bass duties throughout, each bringing their own distinct voice to the foundation. The album also features guest contributions from guitarist Aurelien Budynek, who has toured extensively with Curtis as part of Cindy Blackman Santana's band, and vocalist Julie Acosta.

The eight tracks on the album span the full range of the ensemble’s capabilities. Some pieces reach back decades, such as "Last Call," a staple of Curtis's early Boston ensemble Insight, and "A Patient Resolve," written in 2006, both of which have been shaped and deepened by years of performance. Others, like the funky, shape-shifting "Joust" and the groove-driven "Message," capture the band at its most kinetic. Several compositions double as illustrations of the album's rhythmic philosophy, where layered complexity underneath gives way to something that simply feels good on the surface. "Wellspring" is perhaps the clearest example, a melody that floats naturally above meter shifts that most listeners will never consciously register. The album closes with the title track, a slow, unhurried crescendo that delivers on the album's central promise: to take the listener somewhere else entirely.

Sonoluminescence Vol. 1 arrives as the follow-up to Cubop Lives!, the album that earned Curtis his first GRAMMY Award for Best Latin Jazz Album at the 2025 ceremony. Where that record was a deeply researched act of homage and preservation, Sonoluminescence is an act of exploration. It opens a new chapter in Curtis's body of work, one that finds him digging into a part of his musical identity that has not yet had its full expression on record.

Cubop Lives
Release Date: May 10, 2024
Label: Truth Revolution Records

GRAMMY WINNER

Cubop Lives! is an album that stands as the culmination of Zaccai Curtis' work as a composer/arranger, performer, and educator steeped in the Afro-Cuban Jazz tradition. It's an album born from a passion of the heart. As a musician who is so deeply steeped in the Jazz and Bebop tradition and so vivaciously immersed in the worlds of Afro-Cuban Jazz, Curtis found himself wanting to pay homage to the great musicians in whose steps he has trod who brought together the distinct fusion of these musical cultures. “I wanted to make a period piece album that brought a new perspective to an older style - one that wasn’t covered the way I thought it could be,” Curtis says. “Cubop Lives! points out the earliest of “jazz fusion” and the combination of cultures that related to each other socially, politically and, of course, musically.” Curtis’s love for the genres led not only to his meticulous curation of the pieces - both historic and original - but to the intentional selection of the band itself. “It takes musicians that have mastered their craft as well as understand complex jazz concepts and form,” Curtis says. “There are only a handful of people that can pull off this style of music as they do. These arrangements were developed to highlight each individual's unique voice.” The album’s personnel list includes a cast of heavy-hitters within the world of Afro-Cuban Jazz: Willie Martinez (drums, voice, timbales), Camilo Molina (percussion), Reinaldo De Jesus (percussion, drums), and bandleader’s brother, Luques Curtis (bass).

The album’s title holds manifold meaning as it pays tribute to the music that has come before it. “Cubop” refers to the cultural and musical fusion of Cuban Music with Bebop. By referencing Cubop in the title, Curtis has deliberately aligned the album to acknowledge and denote the music of luminaries such as Machito and his Afro-Cubans, Dizzy Gillespie, Mario Bauzá and Chano Pozo. The implication of the title, then, states that the influence of these trailblazers permeates the music of the present. As a whole, the phrase Cubop Lives! is also an inherent reference to the influence of Charlie Parker by referencing the phrase “Bird Lives!”, and moreover the influence of Jackie McLean, who composed the famous piece of that title. McLean himself was one of Curtis’s major influences and mentors. With such a layered meaning in the worlds of both Bebop and Afro-Cuban music, it is the perfect phrase to encapsulate the goals of Curtis’s project.

Musically, Curtis leans into what he describes as “two sides of the same coin” within Afro-Cuban jazz: Instrumental Mambo Jazz (a phrase coined by Eddie Palmieri), and Cubop. The former fuses jazz melodies and improvisation with Mambo music, and was spearheaded in the 1940s by Mario Bauzá, the musical director of the ensemble Machito and his Afro-Cubans. Curtis delineates Cubop as “bebop composition with Afro-Cuban elements in the rhythm section,” or at least veers “more toward the bebop side” of the musical fusion.

The pieces on this album, whether composed or arranged by Curtis, make clear the lineage of artistry from which he draws his inspiration. One of the most notable ways he does this is through the “Noro Morales Suite”, a collection of four pieces by the great Puerto Rican pianist, Noro Morales. The suite begins with “Maria Cervantes” and continues with “Oye Men”, before going into “Stromboli” and concluding with “Rumbambola”. “I’m not sure if there is another homage album to Noro, but I’m happy to acknowledge him on this recording,” Curtis says. “His contribution to Latin Jazz is vast and his style and music deserve to be explored more.” One of the most intriguing arrangements on Cubop Lives! is that of Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag”. As Curtis was revisiting this Ragtime standard, he noticed a striking number of correlations and similarities to contemporary Afro-Cuban piano playing. The way Joplin’s right-hand part is “broken” in octaves, striking single notes or chord tones in the upper reaches strongly resembles how the pianist plays a montuno in Cuban music. The entire piece is compatible with a clave rhythm, and as a result, Curtis’s arrangement leaves the right-hand part almost entirely unaltered from Joplin’s original, only making some adjustments to the left-hand part to add more of the “Spanish Tinge” that Jelly Roll Morton talked about. “There are so many more connections with ‘Latin’ music in this piece,” Curtis says. “The chord changes, root movement, pianistic triadic arrangement and even the ending of some of the sections may have elements that are commonly used in Afro-Cuban Music. Is it possible that the technique for playing a guajeo is linked with the technique in Ragtime?”

In addition to arrangements, the album also features three of Curtis’s compositions, entitled “Let’s Do It Again”, “Earl”, and “Black Rice”. The former is a mambo, originally recorded in 2016 with a horn section. Here, the tune exclusively features a rhythm section and deeply leans into bebop sensibilities with twists and turns of the chord changes. “Earl” pays tribute to Bud Powell, Curtis’s all-time favorite pianist and “a true innovator in Afro-Cuban Jazz.” Lastly, “Black Rice” is a blues, but one that can be played either as a straight-ahead swing tune or locked into a clave. For this recording, Curtis chose the latter.

Cubop Lives! Strikes a resounding chord with its listeners as it revitalizes an often unvisited section of Jazz history that has dramatically shaped the landscape of Jazz and creative music ever since its inception in the 1940s. By bringing new life to the depth of the music from this time, while simultaneously pairing it with new music that is so stoically rooted in this tradition, Curtis proves the mantra his title states to be utterly and undyingly true: Cubop Lives!