Alejandro Florez: Beaches of Riches

Guitarist and composer Alejandro Flórez is involved in a broad variety of projects as a band leader and sideman, bringing a hybrid stylistic sensibility to his approach to writing and improvisation. Beaches of Riches highlights his working trio with saxophonist Dan Blake and drummer Satoshi Takeishi in music that marries a rich harmonic palette with sophisticated rhythmic structures and a seamless approach to evolving forms.

The Alejandro Flórez trio began originally as a larger ensemble including tuba and, at one point, two drummers, but as the project developed, the flexibility and space of the trio made it a logical choice for a sustainable instrumentation. The connections between the members reflect each of their diverse musical activities. Flórez was aware of Satoshi Takeishi's work with Colombian jazz saxophonist Antonio Arnedo in addition to his active role in the New York Downtown scene. Blake and Flórez had played in various formations for several years with Ricardo Gallo’s projects and in free improvisation settings. The three musicians move through the varied material with the kind of fluidity that comes with many years of collaboration and understanding of the core principles behind the music.

The album opens with Darién, an angular high energy track grounded by a series of syncopated ostinati in the guitar roughly based on a “chalupa” rhythm, a derivative of cumbia. It plays with contrast between the melody and the bass, with the two often being interchanged and each establishing their own tonal center.

Ripples inhabits a more inward space, opening with a resonant, reflective guitar solo with atmospheric percussion before Flórez brings in the piece's hypnotic repeated cycle. Blake weaves countermelodies above Flórez' watery arpeggiated lines. The track dissipates into a schizophrenic improvisatory episode between saxophone and guitar that gradually evolves into a reprise of earlier material, with extra timbral grit. It is a sister track to Waves, both sharing a similar approach to harmony, where chords are built to create temporary tonal centers.

The six part Beaches Suite (2013) forms the core of the album, and is inspired by rhythms from the Atlantic coast of Colombia, with various degrees of abstraction in their melodies. The opening piece, "Beaches of Riches," is expansive in its register and phrasing, and its melodic structure is based on intervalic motifs. The rest of the pieces of the suite take a fragment of the first and “zoom in” on the intervals or harmonic content. The suite showcases Flórez' interwoven single-note writing, where soloistic composed lines are heard in both parts, at times in unison, at times breaking into complementary implied counterpoint before coming together for an accented punctuation of a phrase ending. The result is a blend of improvisatory energy with compositional rigor, with Takeishi spiking the rhythmic contour of passages and creating textural variety and propulsion. "Grey Sea" begins with a futuristic duet between Flórez' guitar and the live electronics it triggers, before leading into a slow burning groove supporting a unison melody between guitar and sax. Brief frenetic improvisatory episodes interrupt the prevailing texture, eventually blooming into a longer free dialogue led by fiery solo work by Blake. The intro to "Mad Crabs" is disjointed and quirky, with dry percussive gestures, fleeting blues motives, and subtle electronics coloring the background, eventually evolving into a moderate funk groove. "Beaches II" is a short, growling interlude that sits at the center of the symmetry of the suite, while the spacious chords of "Moralist" are colored by Blake's fragile high register trills, multiphonics, and timbral embellishments. "Energy Within" is an impetuous romp inspired by Flórez' youngest son; jagged distorted guitar leads, a driving shuffle rhythm, and uninhibited interplay between the three instruments capture the irrepressible enthusiasm of childhood. The suite closes with "Beaches III," expanding on the interval centered improvisation that shaped many of the freer sections of the earlier movements, before coalescing into Flórez' characteristically intricate written material.

Like Beaches, Monument 10 uses intervals to create gestures, in this case focusing on minor sevenths which become the germinal seed of the unfolding melody. Irregular phrases with slight rhythmic modulations create surprising moments and an unsettling texture, and the form of the compound melody becomes the template to support improvisation over the constantly shifting material.

Alejandro Flórez brings his boundless curiosity and broad range of experiences as a performer to bear in his writing, expertly creating a context with his trio colleagues to glue conceptual and stylistic elements together through natural, organic music making. The result is a compelling balance between rigor, earthiness, and lyrical expression that invites repeat listens, focusing on different layers of a multi-dimensional tapestry.

.– Dan Lippel and Alejandro Flórez

All compositions by Alejandro Flórez (b. 1979)

Design and artwork by Pipex

Recorded by Aaron Nevezie at Bunker Studio, Brooklyn, NY

June 9 and 10, 2021

Mixed by Aaron Nevezie at Bunker Studio, Brooklyn, NY

October 31, 2021

Mastered by Jeff Lipton at Peerless Mastering, Boston, MA

Assistant Mastering Engineer: Costanza Tinti

April 28, 2025