Dave Schumacher & Cubeye, Agua Con Gas Review

Dave Schumacher & Cubeye’s Agua Con Gas Swings on Both Sides of the Rhythm

By Ferell Aubre

Dave Schumacher’s Agua Con Gas, performed by Cubeye, is an album that understands rhythm is not simply a groove to sit inside, but a language musicians inhabit together. Schumacher describes the music as “swinging on both sides of the rhythm,” and that idea runs through the entire recording, not as a slogan, but as an identifiable ensemble practice. Afro-Cuban phrasing, hard-bop articulation, post-bop harmony, Brazilian lyricism, and modern Latin jazz textures all move through the album naturally because the musicians clearly understand the stylistic feel behind each approach.

Just as importantly, they trust one another enough to let the music inhabit the style.

Cubeye is built around an ensemble deeply fluent in both Afro-Cuban and modern jazz traditions: trumpeters Alex Norris and Jesus Ricardo; saxophonist Peter Brainin; guest baritone saxophonist Roger Rosenberg; pianists Manuel Valera and Silvano Monasterios; bassists Alex Apolo Ayala and Luques Curtis; percussionists Yusnier Sanchez and Mauricio Herrera; drummer Joel Mateo; and clave artist Chegüi Metralla. Throughout the album, the group plays as a shared musical organism, constantly adjusting texture, phrasing, rhythmic weight, and dynamic shape in response to one another.

Schumacher’s role in that process is substantial. As a baritone saxophonist, composer, arranger, and ensemble leader, he shapes nearly every aspect of the album’s identity. His writing creates environments where rhythm sections, horn textures, and improvisers can interact fluidly without losing clarity. His improvising reinforces the rhythmic and melodic language at the center of the project. And his baritone playing is warm and lyrical, giving the ensemble a buzzing with low-register authority which acts like connective tissue between the Afro-Cuban pulse and the hard-bop vocabulary woven throughout the album.

The title track, “Agua Con Gas,” introduces this with Ayala and Valera establishing the opening tutti before Herrera’s congas and Mateo’s drums deepen the rhythmic foundation underneath the ensemble. When the horns arrive, Schumacher’s writing unfolds through flowing counterpoint that keeps developing as the form moves forward. You can hear the ensemble listening carefully to the shape of the texture itself, allowing parts to rise and recede naturally so the layers never become crowded.

Then the feel shifts.

The B section leans into swing and suddenly the band takes on the style breadth of a modern big band. The transition snaps with a swing feel that sharpens underneath the horns. Schumacher’s bari solo rides that shift beautifully, accenting both the Latin jazz eighth-note feel and the swing phrasing in a way that makes your foot tap unconsciously. Norris follows with a trumpet solo where the ensemble opens more space in the feel around him, building intensity naturally until the full swing pulse lands with force. The rhythm section is especially strong by interacting phrase by phrase to build the shape of the solos together.

Valera’s piano improvisation moves with opening modal colors grounded in the rhythmic environment. Modern post-bop harmony meets Latin jazz phrasing without either side losing its identity. By the time the ensemble trades phrases with Sanchez’s congas near the end of the track, the larger logic of the composition has fully revealed itself: movement, conversation, release, return.

“Yambú” pushes even further into Afro-Cuban language. Chegüi Metralla establishes the clave while Sanchez’s congas create a rhythmic melody underneath the ensemble’s layered entrance. A lower ensemble figure gradually emerges from within the texture, then other colors begin stacking around it. What stands out is the precision of the group’s internal balance. Even when the writing grows, like in the shout chorus that is richly textured with rhythmic figures and thick voicings, the music never loses clarity.

Schumacher’s baritone solo on “Yambú” reveals his sound, which is warm, robust, and buzzing across the full register of the instrument. The phrasing remains deeply relaxed and rhythmically grounded. He never sounds like he is forcing the groove forward. Instead, he settles directly into it. The big band punctuations behind the percussion passages add another layer of conversation, and by the final sections the ensemble circles back toward a more traditional Afro-Cuban jazz sound that reconnects naturally with the opening atmosphere. The whole track sounds like a gradual unfolding.

“Al Rosé” shifts the balance toward swing a bit more aggressively. Mateo opens alone, setting the energy immediately before the ensemble enters and the swing feel sharpens underneath the band. The call-and-response writing gives the composition momentum early, but what keeps the track alive is how fluidly the musicians move between modern big band textures and Latin phrasing.

Schumacher’s solo is especially enjoyable because of its rhythmic clarity. The melodic accents are easy to follow, the swing phrasing stays buoyant, and the lines never lose their shape inside the faster-moving ensemble energy. Norris brings a modern edge to his trumpet solo, while Brainin’s tenor improvisation digs deeper into the angular post-bop side of the record. Underneath it all, Ayala and Mateo keep the swing feel broad and driving while Valera colors around the solos with modern harmonic textures.

The trio section during the piano solo has a deep-with-feel quality to it that briefly changes the atmosphere of the track. Valera’s driving eighth notes weave through stacked fourths and fifths while the rhythm section keeps everything grounded underneath. Then the ensemble returns with a strong tutti figure that opens space for Mateo’s drum solo, first through call and response and then through freer momentum before the theme reappears.

Then the album changes mood with “Letters From Paris.”

Monasterios’ composition carries a Brazilian romanticism that softens the edges of the larger ensemble sound heard elsewhere on the album. The quartet setting gives Schumacher’s baritone room to sing. His phrasing is expressive, shaping the melody with subtle changes in color and dynamics. The full sound of the baritone carries warmth through the slower lines, and for a moment the album seems less concerned with rhythmic momentum than atmosphere and tone.

Monasterios’ harmonic movement underneath is elegant without becoming overly lush. His solo keeps the emotional center of the melody intact even as the harmonies drift outward. The quartet simply sounds comfortable together. Nobody rushes the pacing. Nobody fills unnecessary space.

That patience disappears quickly once “Cubism” arrives. The syncopated bass line and Herrera’s congas immediately push the album back toward Afro-Cuban momentum, but now the sonic center has changed because of the dual baritone setup with Schumacher and Roger Rosenberg. The lower-register textures buzz with enormous presence. The horns feel physical here.

Rosenberg’s solo pushes forward with clean resolutions and rhythmic motifs pulled directly from Latin jazz vocabulary, while Schumacher approaches the groove differently. His articulation during the eighth-note passages gives the solo a dance-like physicality, almost as if the phrasing itself is leaning into the percussion. Behind them, Mateo and Herrera gradually reshape the rhythmic feel toward a deeper Afro-Cuban pocket while Monasterios builds cascading right-hand figures across the piano.

By the end of the track, the montuno and horn figures begin stacking on top of one another until the ensemble opens outward into a broader Afro-Cuban texture. It never feels forced. The band understands these rhythmic languages too well for that.

“Barra-Cuber” brings in 60s and 70s rock influence without abandoning the album’s larger identity. Curtis’ bass solo moves across the instrument with ease and fluency before Schumacher enters with one of his more soulful improvisations on the record. His hard-bop phrasing remains intact, but the attack softens slightly into something bluesier and more groove-centered. Ricardo balances the rock-inflected fusion textures and Afro-Cuban phrasing particularly well, while Rosenberg’s solo builds through recurring intervallic and rhythmic motifs.

The trading sections later in the track gradually codify the energy already building underneath the ensemble. When the full group returns, the energy makes the toe tap.

That same sense of kinetic momentum carries into the closing arrangement of Wayne Shorter’s “Prince of Darkness.” Sanchez and Mateo establish a rhythmic landscape that feels fluid but anchored, while Ayala’s syncopated bass lines provide harmonic grounding underneath the shifting textures. Norris’ trumpet solo combines rhythmic accents with melodic color beautifully, but Schumacher’s solo may be the clearest summary of the album’s broader musical philosophy.

His long flowing phrases remain embedded in the clave while still carrying the melodic shape and forward motion of post-bop improvisation. The phrasing never sounds trapped between styles. Brainin’s soprano solo lifts the ensemble texture upward naturally after the weight of the baritone, and Valera’s piano solo adds another surge of energy before Mateo and Sanchez begin interacting more directly with the ensemble figures around them.

The ending feels celebratory. More than anything else, the camaraderie inside the group becomes audible.

What lingers after Agua Con Gas finishes is the rhythmic sophistication, compositional craft and importantly the depth of shared musical understanding inside the ensemble. Schumacher’s achievement as a leader lies in bringing together musicians capable of moving fluidly between Afro-Cuban traditions, post-bop language, Brazilian lyricism, and modern Latin jazz textures.

The album never feels like styles being fused together for effect. It feels like musicians speaking languages they genuinely know.

And through it all, Schumacher’s baritone remains at the center, guiding it through sound, phrasing, writing, and feel.