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Accompanied by a world-class crew consisting of clarinetist Don Byron, tenor saxophonists David Sanchez and Greg Tardy, alto saxophonists Miguel Zenon and Steve Wilson, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Bruce Cox -- all bandleaders and composers in their own right as well as being among the most important players and improvisers of their generation -- Gomez fully explores his concept for which this album is named. “The basic principle of Cubist music is very simple and can change the way a musician improvises instantly,” he maintains.

In essence, Gomez’s idea of Cubist music is a translation of Cubist art from visual to aural perception. “In very much the same way a Cubist painting portrays an image by combining cubes or building blocks, this concept consists of a search for melodies or patterns that are perceived to have a beginning and an end,” he explains. “I call these melodic motifs or complete unit patterns we search for ‘unitifs.’ For this recording, musicians were requested to search for these unitifs within their improvised lines and build their solos by juxtaposing and contrasting different unitifs just like cubes in a Cubist painting.”

Edsel adds that his first Cubist music epiphany came to him sometime after moving to New York in 1997. “I would go out to different places and hear so many great players who have so much music to offer. Everywhere you go in New York, even on the subway, you find somebody playing great. So I would hear all of this stuff and remember what somebody would play -- maybe one phrase that caught my attention. And I would think, ‘If I could just play one idea and then construct another idea to this one where one is fueled by another; if I could take the ideas that I like and just make a music out of those little ideas, that would be something unique.’”

He began experimenting with the concept while playing a gig in Philadelphia with David Sanchez and noticed immediate results. “I started employing these ideas on the bandstand and I felt that the audience reacted differently to what I played. And not only that, the guys around me reacted differently too. So I knew then that I was onto something and that I would have to work to develop this concept.”
Edsel’s process of breaking a melody up into small unitifs or fragments and then organizing them into an organic whole ultimately led to this Cubist Music project. It’s a remarkably ambitious and musically rewarding debut by the gifted pianist-composer who has earned a sterling reputation on New York’s highly competitive jazz scene.

Born in 1962 in Bayamon, near San Juan, Gomez began studying piano at age five. After copying the montunos of salsa star Eddie Palmieri, he started his first band at age nine and joined an amateur orchestra the following year. Inspired by jazz as a teenager, he enrolled at the Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1980, graduating in 1985. It was in Boston that Edsel met and befriended clarinetist Don Byron, who would become a key collaborator. Gomez has since appeared on three Byron recordings -- 1991’s Tuskeegee Experiments, 1995’s Music for Six Musicians and 2001’s You Are #6. “I met Don at the New England Conservatory in a rehearsal for somebody and what he was playing immediately caught my attention. I asked him what was he doing. He was very patient and showed me, and we became friends right away. He’s got an amazing mind. And it was that experience of playing with Don that led me to discover many things in music.”
In 1987, Gomez moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he lived for ten years and recorded three albums as a leader which were released in Brazil only. In 1997, he relocated to New York and began playing in a band led by David Sanchez, subsequently appearing on four Grammy-nominated recordings with the acclaimed tenor saxophonist -- 1998’s Obsession, 2000’s Melazza, 2001’s Travesia and 2004’s Coral. He has also appeared on recordings by guitarists Freddie Bryant and Sandro Albert, bassist Richard Bona, trombonist William Cepeda, trumpeter Tony Lujans and singers Janis Siegel and Eric Benet. He also plays on trombonist Conrad Herwig’s Grammy-nominated live at the Blue Note recording, Latin Side of Miles. All of these varied sideman experiences have enriched his own musical vocabulary and culminated in Edsel’s most fully realized project to date.