Video of the Day: Dafnis Prieto and his Sí o Sí Quartet share 'Conga Ingenua'

Twenty five years after his arrival in New York, the GRAMMY-winning and Latin GRAMMY-nominated drummer, composer, and MacArthur Fellow Dafnis Prieto has utterly shifted the sonic landscape of the jazz and creative music scene. With Prieto’s appearance on the NYC jazz scene likened to “an asteroid hitting the city” (The New York Times), and a reputation that rightfully lauds him as “one of the most multidimensional artists working today” (JazzTimes), the Cuban drummer is poised to strike once again with his upcoming 10th album, 3 Sides of the Coin. This album marks the studio return of Prieto’s acclaimed Sí o Sí (“Yes or Yes”) Quartet, a rightfully jubilant cohort comprising Peter Apfelbaum on woodwinds, Martin Bejerano on piano, and Ricky Rodríguez on electric bass, brought together to commemorate both the bandleader’s quarter century in the United States and his 50th birthday.

The album, 3 Sides of the Coin, began as a series of musings on the eternally undulating concept of one’s interpretation of the world and how each person’s view may dramatically differ. “The concept of the album was born from the intriguing and puzzling concept of ‘perception of reality,’ of how different people can perceive and interpret a specific circumstance or a simple object,” Prieto says. Using the analogy of a coin, Prieto explores how in addition to the two objective sides that are always evident on a coin, there is an unspoken third, which is an individual’s interpretation of the physical fact of the coin. “This album is about that third side: the side that looks, observes, and interprets in a personal way a reality that might not coincide with others – your own perception of life,” Prieto says. He further expands on this idea of the tangible coin: “The coin brings a quality of ‘solid physicality,’ yet even it can be interpreted in so many ways. Therefore, the meaning that we give to those objects and/or circumstances is completely relative to how we are able to interpret them, whether collectively or individually.”

See the video below and for more info visit dafnisonmusic.com/3sidesofthecoin