Buenos Aires Herald: Jazz in Town/New Recording
Originally released in 2006 and 2010 through and independent label, now these two albums by multi-instrumentalist and composer Juan «Pollo» Raffo have just been edited by Sunnyside Records in digital format (which means they are to be found in iTunes).
por Miguel Bronfman
Having traversed for many years the vernacular progressive rock circuit (collaborating with artists like Miguel Cantilo, Ciro, Juan Carlos Baglietto, Ratones Paranoicos, Soda Stereo, Divididos and countless others), but also the jazz scene as well, Raffo produced these two albums that bring a very personal musical vision, and represent both his popular and academic inner sides. A classically trained musician, Raffo manages to build a complex structure, in both albums, in which local rock, but also tinges of Argentine folklore, as well as candombe ab murga, merge together through the spirit and language of jazz to form a colorful and extremely vivid picture of any given Buenos Aires neighbourhood. Raffo refers to Flores, but truth is that his music amply surpasses the frontiers of his own vicinity, reaching further away, even to Uruguay.
Whith a basic group thatis enlargered in several tunes (at times achieving the dimension of a whole orchestra), Raffo unfolds his fertile imagination both in the melodies and in the large conceptual range of the albums, and in the microscopic developments that recieve each of his songs. Being the work of a patient and meticulous artisan, both albums deserve close and repeated listening to be fully appreciated. Through Vol. II (Diatónicos Anónimos) is much better accomplished -in the overall sound and in the way that builds a captivating tension, gradually and theme after theme- both records offer a valuable depiction of the many musical sonorities hat inform the urban landscape of the Río de la Plata as contemplated and lived by a contemporary composer in Flores, B.A.