Folks cheered at last year’s Miami Film Festival after witnessing pianist Michel Camilo’s muscular trio onscreen in the documentary/concert flick Calle 54. Little wonder. Camilo, a native of the Dominican Republic, Cuban-born drumming dynamo Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez (also of Los Hombres Calientes) and American six-string contrabass master Anthony Jackson constitute a veritable Latin-jazz power trio.

That identity is reaffirmed with Triangulo, the group’s first full-length disc together: The three again acquit themselves as virtuosos, deeply rooted in Afro-Caribbean rhythms, alternately able to rip on intricate up-tempo pieces and demonstrate the greatest sensitivity on lush romantic ballads.

“Anthony’s Blues,” one of six tunes here penned by Camilo, is a prime example of the former, with the pianist and bassist locking together on sleek unison lines and then chilling out for Hernandez’s polyrhythmic sizzle before burrowing deep into the funk-edged groove.

Camilo finds inspiration in more traditional Cuban rhythms on “Descarga for Tito (Puente),” a bright, high-energy track that embodies the spirit of the late percussionist and bandleader. Another Latin-jazz great, Dizzy Gillespie, is saluted with a rolling, subtly shifting version of the trumpeter’s oft-recorded “Con Alma.”

Camilo, too, takes on “La Comparsa,” giving new life to the familiar Cuban standard, topping its sticky rhythms with Technicolor piano chords and opening it up for some bracing improvisations. Muy contagioso.
- PHILIP BOOTH

(This review originally appeared in CMJ New Music Monthly)