Arturo Stable - "Call (Origen Records)

TITLE: "Call" (Origen Records)

ARTIST: Arturo Stable Quintet

STARS: 4 Out Of 5 Stars

SOUNDS LIKE: Languorously romantic and subdued Latin jazz.

TEXT: The only way you'll probably know "Call" is Latin jazz is because it says so in the album liner notes. But the new recording from the Arturo Stable Quintet sounds nothing like the flamboyant and festive style of Latin jazz style made famous and familiar by the likes of Tito Punete or Chano Pozo.

On "Call", Stable takes those same Afro-Cuban rhythms and creates a lush and elegant romanticism. His percussive statements are never overpowering. They simply add sort of a hypnotic Latin tribal spice to elegantly layered and dreamily textured soundscape laid down by Pianist Aruan Ortiz, bassist Edward Perez, saxophonist Chris Cheek and drummer Ignacio Berroa.

The title tune has Cheek's bebop influenced sax soloing subtly sneaking in a distant sounding bongos and drum trance.

"Zabana" first comes across as a smoke-enhanced cool jazz set but soon melts into a dreamily self-absorbed and introspective piano by Ortiz with Stable providing beatnik styled congo beats.

Each song on "Call" can stand on its own. But the album works best when taken as a whole. From beginning to end the 10 songs on the album take you on a breathtakingly impassioned and calming romantic journey. It leaves you somehow refreshingly exhausted at the end.

Probably one of the best jazz albums of the year.