Respected reedman Paquito D'Rivera's latest recording project, Paquito D'Rivera with Strings -- 100 Years of Latin Love Songs (Heads Up HUCD 3045), may surprise a few fans who have come to regard the Cuban-born musician and Grammy winner as a standard-bearer of the fiery Latin jazz movement. Revealed on this set are the virtuoso’s warm and melodic interpretations of the most popular love songs from Latin America. Described in the album's liner notes as "10 decades worth of sumptuously romantic tunes from 10 different Hispanic countries," this is yet another illustration of the accomplished artist's diverse tastes and talents.

Born in Havana in 1948, D’Rivera’s musical education began at the age of 5, when his father--a classical tenor saxophonist and representative for Selmer instruments--gave him his first soprano sax lessons. By the following year, the child prodigy was already performing in public.

At the age of 8, D’Rivera became the youngest artist in the world to endorse a musical instrument. “Even a child can play a Selmer,” the French company’s ads proclaimed.

In 1958, the young Paquito was seen performing the Weber Clarinet Concerto No. 2 at Havana’s Teatro Nacional, under the baton of the legendary maestro Gonzalo Roig. Two years later, he entered the Havana Conservatory, where he studied clarinet, composition, and harmony. That same year, he played a concert in the Big Apple, soloing with an orchestra on a short tour of New York, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

In 1961, he got his first professional job with the all-star houseband of Havana’s Teatro Musical. There he had the opportunity to work alongside Jesús “Chucho” Valdés, a young pianist who was destined to become the greatest influence in his career.

In 1967 D’Rivera joined the government-sponsored, all-star Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna (OCMM), initially directed by the prominent saxophonist and arranger Armando Romeu. Oddly, D’Rivera ended up conducting the OCMM for a couple of years. Although D’Rivera wanted the OCMM to play jazz, his plans were squelched by the Castroite regime, which ensured that the band was reduced to little more than a backup group for vocalists.

D’Rivera and seven other progressive members eventually broke away from the OCMM and joined forces with three other like-minded artists to form Irakere, the most influential and explosive Latin American band of all time. Led by “Chucho” Valdés, Irakere revolutionized Latin music throughout the world with its marvelously innovative fusion of jazz, rock, classical music and traditional Cuban genres.

For most of its early years, Irakere was confined to the island. Things opened up somewhat in 1978, when Irakere was allowed by the Cuban regime to make its first major foreign tour, which included sensational performances at the Newport/New York and Montreaux Jazz Festivals. Irakere even made history as the first post-1959 Cuban group to record for an U.S. label. In 1979, Irakere’s first Columbia album won a Grammy, which Valdés, who remains in Cuba, finally received a few years ago.

By 1980, D’Rivera had grown increasingly dissatisfied with the Cuban government’s cultural intolerance and political constraints. In May of that year, during a European tour with Irakere, he sought asylum in the U.S. embassy in Madrid. Five months later, upon his arrival in New York, D’Rivera became the North American jazz world’s first major defector from Castro’s Cuba. With the help of people like Mario Bauzá and Dizzy Gillespie, D’Rivera began recording and touring extensively, and performing with such giants as Carmen McRae, Phil Woods, McCoy Tyner, Arthur Blythe and Tito Puente. His own discography includes about two dozen albums in which he has proudly introduced the diverse rhythms from such countries as Cuba, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Venezuela and Perú into the jazz language. As the late Mario Bauzá once explained: “Paquito D’Rivera is the only musician I know on the scene playing real Latin jazz, all others are playing Afro-Cuban jazz.” In 1997, D’Rivera became a recipient of the Grammy Award for the Best Latin Jazz Performance with the Chesky recording “Portraits of Cuba.”

In addition to his duties as leader of the Havana-New York Quintet, D’Rivera functioned in recent years as co-leader of the multicultural Caribbean Jazz Project (CJP), along with vibraphonist/marimbero Dave Samuels and steel pan master Andy Narell. The CJP’s two spectacular Heads Up sessions, The Caribbean Jazz Project (HUCD 3033) and Island Stories (HUCD 3039), blended contemporary jazz elements with abundant Caribbean and South American rhythms.

Furthermore, upon the demise of Dizzy Gillespie, D’Rivera assumed the leadership of his mentor’s United Nation Orchestra, the most renowned Latin jazz big band of our times. Like the late trumpeter, D’Rivera is a generous bandleader and keen judge of talent who has nurtured the solo careers of many former cohorts-Claudio Roditi, Michel Camilo, Mario Rivera, Daniel Ponce, Giovanni Hidalgo, Danilo Pérez, David Sánchez, etc.

In view of his clinical eye for gifted sidemen, it is not surprising to find D’Rivera surrounded on this occasion with a splendid group of talented young musicians, such as the versatile Argentine pianist Dario Eskenazi, the solid Peruvian bassist Oscar Stagnaro and the virtuoso Chilean-Pakistani guitarist Fareed Haque. One must also mention the outstanding contributions of the tasteful Chicagoan drummer Mark Walker and the magnificent Cuban percussionist Luis Conte, among others.

Variety is the spice of D’Rivera’s cross-cultural music, and 100 Years Of Love Songs is not an exception. The repertoire is drawn from diverse epochs and sources-from early tango, germinative vallenato and seminal bossa nova to bolero classics and contemporary ballads. Needless to say, a wide range of Latin American composers is represented here, including bolero legends Gonzalo Curiel and Osvaldo Farrés, bossa pioneer Antonio Carlos Jobim and New York salsa icon Rubén Blades.

Much diversity can also be found in the new album’s instrumentation. Six of the love songs are propelled by the exuberant support of a full string orchestra, and the remaining tracks feature variable instrumental settings, from a wonderful clarinet/acoustic guitar duet to an octet format which includes Aquiles Baez’s Venezuelan cuatro (a guitar type related to the Cuban tres, the Brazilian cavaquinho and the Andean charango) and Heads Up recording star Roberto Perera’s 36-string, diatonic Paraguayan harp.

In terms of D'Rivera's strategy and artillery, 100 Years of Latin Love Songs delivers some refreshing surprises. Though he's known as a fiery Latin jazz soloist with a blinding technique and bent for blistering tempos, this recording finds the bandleader taking a more subtle and melodic approach. His sparkling current of lustrous lyricism is the perfect complement to Grammy award-winning producer Bob Belden's fluid arrangements.

As fans might expect, D'Rivera's breathtaking clarinet wizardry and the bright, enormous alto sound for which he is most recognized are highlighted in half of the new disc's repertoire. In a change of pace, the other half showcases his dazzling command of the soprano sax -- his original instrument but one that had been dropped from his armory in other recent albums.

With its heavy emphasis on the passionate melodies, arousing harmonies and sensual rhythms found in the 20th century Latin American songbook, Paquito D'Rivera with Strings -- 100 Years of Latin Love Songs promises to propel one of the jazz world's most deserving artists into the popular limelight. Its romantic themes will no doubt encourage even more listeners to embrace the emotion and excitement of instrumental Latin American music.