CoCo Loupe
Music and Choreography
Professors: Susan Hadley and Natalie Gilbert
Music Analysis Paper
November 14, 2004

This composition has at its heart the idea of complex, layered rhythms. Expressed through a percussion ensemble consisting of instruments such as marimba, clave, maracas, bongos, quijada, guiro, timbales and cencerros, the sounds of this piece pull, push, sway and drive with a Latin sensibility. In addition to this central idea of rhythm, Roldán emphasizes his interest in dynamic and texture range throughout the piece by quickly shifting between quiet, simple instrument solos and loud, forceful explosions of several instruments. Within two minutes and thirteen seconds, the composer succeeds in continually building tension between these two extremes until the macrostructure of tension versus release is made evident in a final intensely staccato crescendo.

The first thirty measures introduce all of the instruments in various combinations and within this introduction, Roldán flips back and forth between duple and triple form. The effect of this metric shifting is that the overall feel of the beginning of this piece is one of forward motion that halts, backs up, swings in place and then marches forward again. An advance and retreat is set up so that when he settles into a 2/4 time signature for the middle of the piece the forward motion is welcomed and accepted as gratifying to the ear. Even though the texture is changing throughout and becoming thicker and heavier, there is a sense of anticipation and inevitable destination in the near future. The change to 6/8 time in the last fifteen measures gives the piece a final thrust of motion as well as formidable peaks and valleys in sound that send the listener on a veritable roller coaster of energy. The composer then ends the piece in the middle of a measure with a syncopated bang. The last few notes are definitive in energy and clarity. They serve as a demonstrative resolve even though the place of the resolve is unexpected.

One subtle but extremely integral device that Roldán used to advance the landscape of the music as a whole was to pick up the tempo slightly around the fiftieth measure. The score reads "poco piu vivo" which means "with a little more life" or a "bit more speed." Without a major shift in pulse, the piece seems to lift and spread and push forward in an almost indiscernible fashion. This compositional choice, however small it appears, serves to alter the overall feel of the music in massive ways. The maracas have a new role in this tempo change as they seem more urgent and less decorative. The bend of notes that the quijada lends to the piece has a context in which to live. The curves of its sound grab and pull the other notes forward and the extra drums that are added seem to willingly jump into the fray of advancing motion.

Lastly, over and above any of the aforementioned compositional tools and devices, the clave rhythm that infiltrates the entire score adds syncopated excitement, a cultural notion of movement and a top layer to the piece that keeps the ear engaged. The low, rumbling and driving force of the last part of this music would be overwhelming if the clave did not serve as its high, hollow, snappy opposite. It provides the peaks to the marimbas valleys and completes the musical topography.

What seemed to be a pretty straightforward approach to contemporary, cool jazz with a Euro-twist, quickly became an evening of pop culture fused with avant-garde experimental flavor on top of emotional dynamism all twisted up and dependent upon range morphing of instrument capabilities. E.S.T. not only extrapolated funk, hip-hop, techno, and easy-listening ballad form from the jazz trio, they rallied behind the jazz standard while electronically warping the idea of instrumental music as a whole. Alongside virtuoso performances by each of the members of the trio, there was an idea that the music could transcend the conventional trappings of time, space, mood and sound normally associated with listening to jazz.

At times the music wafted through melancholy piano solos, pounced around wacky minimalist drum meditations and rode on the bow of a double bass "doubling" as an electric guitar/cello. The trio capitalized on the capabilities of distortion through electronic filters and reverb in its truest sense. This mixture of acoustic "real" sound and canned "created" sound added a psychological as well as musical thickness and edge to the music: boundary stretching sound without ever forgetting that the improvisational and syncopated rhythms of jazz were the base structure of it all.

Had this concert been experienced through headphones, the sheer effort and beauty of the long solos and intense speed of the rhythms would have been lost. The fact that the bass was transforming into "other" instruments would have not been evident and the electronic and manual manipulations of the piano would have not been clear to the ear either. It was an incredible way of hearing and seeing contemporary, experimental jazz being demystified and unveiled.