Jerry González took a global view of jazz in creating his unique brand of improvised music. While his trumpet and flügelhorn reflected the influence of Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, his personal cultural roots gave him a natural understanding of Afro-Cuban rhythms. As he explained to The Detroit News, "I am bilingual - I speak Spanish and English. I can play the blues and I can play the rumba." Launching his musical career in 1970 as a member of Dizzy Gillespie's band, González briefly joined Eddie Palmieri in the group El Son the following year. He soon left to join timbale player Manny Oquendo's band, Conjunto Libre…

In keeping with the recent trend of holding up jazz heroes for Latin listening audiences, a cause championed by Conrad Herwig and Brian Lynch in their tributes to Coltrane and Davis, Jerry Gonzalez & the Fort Apache Band offer up their talents to immortalize Art Blakey and his mighty Jazz Messengers. With some very creative renditions of Jazz Messengers B-sides, like "Crisis" done in a slinky Afro and "Madi's Smile" done in cha cha, Gonzalez shows himself yet again to be a great Latin interpreter of the jazz repertoire. There could not have been a better choice of group than the Fort Apache Band to pay the Messengers homage. They are without a doubt one of the finest Latin jazz outfits operating today, with superb balance and taste…

Recorded live in Zurich, this is one of the finest recordings by Jerry Gonzalez & the Fort Apache Band. Mixing together bop and post-bop with Latin jazz, Gonzalez's ten-piece group consists of his trumpet and congas, tenor saxophonist John Stubblefield, trombonist Papo Vasquez, pianist Larry Willis and a six-piece rhythm section including four percussionists. Gonzalez and his band show that it is possible to turn even such numbers as "Nefertiti," Miles Davis' "Eighty-One" and Thelonious Monk's "Jackie-Ing" into heated Afro-Cuban jazz.

Jerry Gonzalez, equally proficient at trumpet and congas, leads his Fort Apache Band through a live set concentrating on Latinized versions of bop standards and pieces directly from the Afro-Cuban santeria tradition. The bop pieces, Dizzy Gillespie's "Bebop" and Bud Powell's "Parisian Thoroughfare," are given rough and tumble treatments, bobbing along on extensive percussion and tight arrangements. They feature some fine soloing from pianist Jorge Dalto and altoist Wilfredo Velez especially, the latter stretching things a bit beyond the changes. But the real highlights are the songs by vocalist Frankie Rodrigues, including the title track (though it's listed in Spanish as "Rio Esta Hondo")…