Gonzalo Rubalcaba
Looking in Retrospective
Blue Note
By George W. Harris

Pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba is an artist of incredible dextrous skill, as evidenced on this album. With a full band going through a series of complex and advanced post-bop, he is almost veering towards the dangerous waters of being so technically adroit that the emotions and feeling of his music are almost capable of being lost. Like Eddie Daniels has finally managed to do, he needs to tone in the chops and replace it with a bit more nuance and restraint. Aggressive tunes like ”This is It” and “Infantil” are chock full of sophistication and complexity, but it is almost lost in it’s technical dryness. He’s obviously capable of doing so, as he demonstrates on the haunting version of “Peace”; he just needs to appreciate that ability a bit more so, or he may simply turn into a technical side show, something that he is much higher in deserving.