Dafnis Prieto Si o Si Quartet (one-sheet pdf here)

Since his arrival in New York just over a decade ago, Dafnis Prieto has steadily enhanced his impact as an instrumentalist and composer. Reviewing a 2009 Si o Si Quartet performance for the New York Times, Nate Chinen praised Prieto as  “a spectacularly proficient Cuban drummer” and hailed his music as “dynamic to the extreme ... a slippery amalgam of complex polyrhythm and incantatory melody.” And by adding the Si o Si Quartet to a roll call of bands that includes the Proverb Trio, the Absolute Quintet, and the Dafnis Prieto Sextet, the 36-year-old native of Santa Clara, Cuba, strengthened his reputation as one of the premier bandleaders in jazz today.

The Si o Si (“Yes or Yes”) Quartet features longtime Prieto collaborators Manuel Valera on piano, keyboards, and melodica; Charles Flores on acoustic and electric bass, and Peter Apfelbaum on tenor and soprano saxophones, bass melodica, and percussion. All three are core members of Prieto’s sextet, and with the leader adding vocals and clave, Si o Si becomes a thrillingly multifaceted ensemble, with an orchestral richness to match its rhythmic complexity and breathtaking energy. Tapping its profound fluency in folkloric Cuban idioms, and taking daring plunges into modern jazz harmonies and improvisation, the Si o Si Quartet enthralls audiences hungry for music at once familiar and new. In his four star Downbeat review of the band’s debut CD, Live at Jazz Standard NYC, Jim Macie confirmed the magic of the quartet's appeal: “Prieto has made some exciting albums previously, but those who catch him on a regular basis know that the bandstand is where the real action is.” 

Proverb Trio (one-sheet pdf here)
Dafnis Prieto Sextet
Absolute Quintet (with violin and cello)