Written, arranged, performed and produced by Deborah "La Cocodrila" De La Torre (piano).  With Ron Bland (bass) and Thomas A. Blomster (percussion).  

This tune is a post-modern take on old-school Bop style happening on top of a distorted Cuban old-school Montuno-style bass line, with plenty of idiomatic flare happening all over the place, but which soon dissolves into a Cool Jazz quietude.   Ironic twang and cackle at the end.

Coño! (But With A Swing)

Bop Bop Bop Bop

Written, arranged, performed and produced by Deborah "La Cocodrila" De La Torre (piano).  With Ron Bland (bass) and Thomas A. Blomster (percussion).  

The first tune I wrote for this album, it starts off danceable but, no, I'm not going to leave it alone.  You're gonna have to have to count in 11's and 15's to get through it.   But I will bring you back to the dance later, ok?  Only to leave you hanging at the end, but in a pleasant way, ok?

Dulce y Caliente

Dulce Y Caliente

Written, arranged, performed and produced by Deborah "La Cocodrila" De La Torre (piano).  

Piano Solo. A rainy-day piano piece, kind of moody. Written in honor of all the people in love out there in the world, and two young couples in particular:  the one beautiful couple that got married this summer, and the other beautiful couple who attended their wedding. But there's also a lot of broken chords for all the broken hearts out there.

Luna

Written, arranged, performed and produced by Deborah "La Cocodrila" De La Torre (piano).  With Ron Bland (bass) and Thomas A. Blomster (percussion).  

This takes me back to the kind of songs I used to listen to on my favorite radio station while sun tanning on the beaches of Miami.  That mellow-rock, sexy-groovy kind of mood music, where you have an ice-cold drink with a little umbrella in it, just sitting there chillin out.  Hot sand burning your feet, sun beating down on your coconut-oiled skin.  By the time the fancy piano part comes along in the song, your glass is probably empty and you're pulling the fruit off the little sugar-cane toothpick.

Tres Mañanas

Tres Mañanas

Written, arranged, performed and produced by Deborah "La Cocodrila" De La Torre (piano).  With Ron Bland (bass) and Thomas A. Blomster (percussion). 

Speaking of hot, this song is about heat.  Oppressive heat.  Hot, sweaty sticky heat when you're stuck in your apartment with no air-conditioning and there's nowhere to go.  The air doesn't move, and that old propeller fan is just cranking away like a stupid useless thing.  Even the shadows are long hot fingers and they're slowly creeping up the window, coming to burn your skin.  It's so hot that your eyeballs are stuck open, and your mind just drifts off as the end part of the song repeats itself, until you notice that it's suddenly over and you're just sitting there, and you haven't moved in a long time.

El Sudor

Written, arranged, performed and produced by Deborah "La Cocodrila" De La Torre (piano).  With Ron Bland (bass), Thomas A. Blomster (percussion). Also Patricia Surman (flute) and David DeMichelis (electric guitar). 

This song is fun and funky, but also pretty deep and calls out from-and-to my Cuban heritage. After a few bars of intro, the wind chimes that start the main theme section are an homage to John Coltrane and his sleigh bells from his album Interstellar Space.

Oya's Funk

Written, arranged, performed and produced by Deborah "La Cocodrila" De La Torre (piano).  With Ron Bland (bass) and Thomas A. Blomster (percussion).  

This Zapateo is titled as a delicious desert that is Arabic in origin (almond nougat).  Turrón comes in many shapes, styles and forms, and  is often eaten at holidays and for special occasions, many times served with strong black café.  Turrón has traveled culturally from Spain throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, so eating it is an experience of journey in and of itself, back through our immediate family to our genetic ancestral memories.

Turrón

Turrón

Written, arranged, performed and produced by Deborah "La Cocodrila" De La Torre (piano).  With Ron Bland (bass) and Thomas A. Blomster (percussion).  

Also with Patricia Surman (flute) and Randy Runyan (trumpet).  The album's title song is an act of jodiendo with the rules of music genre-writing, starting off with a not-so-polite word.  It begins as an Afro-Caribbean call-and-response song that slows to a snarky swing with some smart-alecky flute and trumpet chisme cutting through, like it's their opinions or something.  Some crazy-ass scales and melodic son clave rhythm patterns talk smack to the bass solo.  How do you get back home to the main melody?  Well, you gotta run faster and hurry up, just to try to catch up.

Coño! (But With A Swing)

Written, arranged, performed and produced by Deborah "La Cocodrila" De La Torre (piano).  With Ron Bland (bass) and Thomas A. Blomster (percussion).  

So in Cuba when you say, "eso se resuelve" or "todo se resuelve," it means somehow it's going to get figured out, no matter what it takes, even if the way to get you there is not too correct.  It's a pretty little song is very Española with some modern rhythms,  some altered Montunos, and shortened sections, almost like they were cut off too short, or not quite melodic, or just scraping by, on purpose. But it gets figured out.

Resuelve

With Ron Bland (bass) and Thomas A. Blomster (percussion).  Also with Patricia Surman (flute) and Rodney Farrar (cello).  

This is a vintage-style tribute to my Cuban grandparents, their late-night dancing parties on the patio, with the parrot screaming in its cage, the teenagers disappearing into the shadows, and how when I was very little, I would fall asleep on the plastic-covered sofa as they joked or talked Cuban politics late into the night.

Monedas

Local Cuban-American jazz pianist announces the world premiere of her debut album “Coño! (But With A Swing),” featuring 11 original tracks composed, arranged & performed by Deborah “La Cocodrila” De La Torre, with Ron Bland (bass) and Thomas A. Blomster (percussion), also Patricia Surman (flute), Randy Runyan (trumpet) Dave DeMichelis (electric guitar) Rodney Farrar (cello). Recording Engineer/Mixed by Tyler Reed Hayden at Rocky Mountain Recorders, Denver, CO

La Cocodrila aka Deborah De La Torre

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