Ramón Valle, Omar Rodriguez Calvo, Owen Hart Jr.
Biography Ramón Valle, Omar Rodriguez Calvo, Owen Hart Jr.
Ramón Valle
was born in 1964 and has been living in Holland since 1998. He is not just a brilliant technician with a direct attack and the ability to create the finest nuances of sound, but also is a full-blooded musician who understands how to open his heart and soul through the use of the keyboards. It requires extraordinary musicianship to be able to play in this way: his sound is never sickly or too thick. Seldom has the jazz piano sounded so warm and thus so free from frippery. Valle’s piano style can be considered particularly “authentic”. He has a well-developed approach which could be no-one else’s, which comes from having a great self-awareness. And he treads a narrow path, never straying into excess with his musical beauty. Or at least: he knows how to play “beautifully” because he knows how to avoid making his music sound kitsch. Valle himself has confirmed that despite his background as a Cuban musician, he doesn’t want to sound 100% typically Cuban but 100% typically Valle. Latin jazz which doesn’t descend into cliché is his aim. It’s most apparent in his piano solo pieces: no sweet playing around with his right hand and no excessive of rhythmic trumps. Valle shows his Cuban identity between the lines of his musical style. His piano approach is technically brilliant with a lyrical and melodic litheness. A rhythmic subtlety forms an implicit foundation – but that comes from the inner elements of his compact, personal approach, and not from its external effects.
Omar Rodriguez Calvo
was born in Matanzas, Cuba in 1973. He began his music studies (classical music, double bass) at the conservatory in Matanzas in 1984 and then studied double bass, electric bass, classical music, jazz and popular music at the School of Music (E.N.A - Escuela Nacional de Arte) and the I.S.A (Instituto Superior de Arte) in Havana from 1988 - 1992. He began playing with Argelia Fragoso at the age of 17 and later with Carlos Maza and Ramon Valle.
He moved to Hamburg in 1994 and has since played with artists such as Ramon Valle, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Bigband, Joe Gallardo, Matthias Höfs, Jenaer Philharmonie, Tingvall trío, Kurt Elling, Orlando "Maraca" Valle, Nils Landgren, Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, Perico Sambeat, Ernesto Simpson, Roy Hargrove, Mike Stern, Omar Sosa, Jesse van Ruller, Gerardo Núñez, Chano Dominguez, Ulf Wakenius, Orange Blue, Anette Maiburg, the formation Classica Cubana, the hr-Bigband (Parcifal Goes Habana)
In addition to three ECHO Jazz and five Gold Jazz Awards with the Tingvall Trio and the HANS for Production of the Year 2011, he received an ECHO Klassik with the formation Classica Cubana.
Further nominations: ECHO Jazz 2015 and 2016 as instrumentalist of the year national in the category double bass/e-bass[:en]1984 began to study classical music in Matanzas Cuba (E. V. A.) from 1988-1994 in La Habana (E. N. A.) and (I. S. A.) acoustic bass, electric bass, classic, and jazz. He has played with, Ramon Valle, Hamburger Symphoniker, NDR Bigband, Joe Gallardo, Matthias Höfs, Jenae Philharmonie, Tingvall-trio, Kurt Elling, Orlando "Maraca" Valle, Nils Landgren, Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, Perico Sambeat, Ernesto Simpson, Roy Hargrove, Mike Stern, Omar Sosa, Jesse van Ruller, Gerardo Núñez, Chano Dominguez, Ulf Wakenius, Orange Blue, Anette Maiburg, the Formation Classica Cubana, hr-Bigband (Parcifal Goes Habanna).
