“Humoso” reviewed by Mel Minter in the Nov. 3 Albuquerque Alibi.

Headed by guitarist John Maestas, with tenorist Aaron Lovato, bassist Asher Barreras and drummer/percussionist Enrique Chavez, this quartet plays with a mature restraint and a well-developed emotional sensitivity not typically found in such young players. Reflecting influences from South America, Spain and the West Indies, the program includes 10 well-wrought originals, ranging from Maestas’ hard-bop “Mayan Prophecy” and swinging “Strollin’ Down Senile Street” to Barreras’ Caribbean-inflected “Otra Vez” and Lovato’s shadowy “Jarmusch,” plus a couple of standards. The best moments come in the interplay between Lovato and Maestas, who anticipate and respond to each other’s impulses with relaxed precocity.

Mel Minter, writing for the Albuquerque “Alibi,” says this about Ila Cantor’s “Creature”:

“Thelonious Monk, M.C. Escher and Barry Melton (guitarist for Country Joe and the Fish) got together one weekend and knocked out an album. Actually, guitarist Ila Cantor composed the tunes on this album, and they conform to her own startling and lovely non-Euclidean logic. As insistent as rock and roll and as supple as jazz, these songs reveal Cantor’s special genius for unpacking what appear to be small musical ideas and discovering an expanding universe of expressive possibilities. Her adept collaborators, bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Tommy Crane, seem to know just what Cantor is getting at.”

That’s good, right? Very good!

Najulda Records is proud to announce the upcoming release (June, 2011) of our second disc, Humoso, by John Maestas! John is a brilliant young jazz guitarist and composer. This is his debut recording, an original and coolly smouldering mix of straight-ahead, poly-rhythmic, lyrical styles, featuring wonderful ensemble playing by the Humoso collective, with Asher Barreras on bass, Aaron Lovato on sax, and Enrique Chavez on drums. Eight originals and two beautifully arranged standards. A stunning debut by a group of young players destined to play a big part in the jazz of the next decade.

More info on John and Humoso