This past April 6, the Cuban-born drummer, educator, and bandleader Dafnis Prieto released his sixth record as a leader, Back to the Sunset. With help from the album’s producer, Eric Oberstein, Prieto gathered a seventeen-piece big band—along with special guests Brian Lynch on trumpet, Henry Threadgill on alto sax, and Steve Coleman on alto sax—to blaze through the drummer’s fervent Afro-Cuban-infused jazz compositions. Throughout the effort, Prieto’s signature polyrhythmic independence shines as he deceptively builds a mountain of sound behind a comparatively modest four-piece kit.

June 2018 Issue