Eliane Correa En El Aire Project
@ the PizzaExpress Jazz Club
1 June 2016

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Biography

Eliane Correa is a Latin pianist, composer and bandleader. Hailing from Havana, Buenos Aries, Barcelona and London, Correa can be seen at various venues throughout London including Camden’s Jazz Café and the PizzaExpress Jazz Club to name a few.

Correa’s debut album “Rumba Con Flores” was part recorded in Havana, Cuba and London where over thirty musicians were invited to bring to flower the compositions written, in their entirety, by Correa. The album expresses her deep devotion to jazz and the Afro Cuban tradition and her love of contemporary neo-soul, R&B and urban Latino music. 27-year-old Correa explains, “the way traditional Cuban jazz and Latin jazz have been shaped - we're trying to break that mould and go somewhere new.”

This was made possible by using a sterling cast of musicians and the growth in the Cuban scene in London over recent years. Players on the record include Graeme Flowers (Kylie Minogue, Moloko, Imelda May), drummers Ernesto Simpson (Richard Bona, Herbie Hancock, Gonzalo Rubalcaba) and Michel Castellanos, saxophonist Roberto Manzin (Laura Mvula, Alejandro Sanz), Afro-Cuban folklore ensemble Osaín del Monte and some of Cuba's top young batá drum players.

Eliane Correa attended Luxembourg Conservatoire while still in her teens. Her mother and father, from Argentina and Cuba via Spain, provided unsuspecting musical guidance but there was to be a moment of eclipsing significance later in Correa’s childhood during her quest to connect with her Cuban ancestry. When she was 17 years old she left Europe for Havana, Cuba to continue her music study. A dream came to light but that was quickly darkened after she found out she had tendinitis in her hand hindering her ability to play the piano. Undeterred she immersed herself in music, hanging out in jazz clubs like La Zorra y el Cuervo mixing with local jazz, son and rumba musicians all the time steering her musical vessel. During this period she worked as a tour guide up and down the Malecón coast downtown Havana and in the midst of keeping her head above water she was invited to a spiritual drumming ceremony. The Afro Cuban batá drum and deities from the Lucumí (“Santería”) devotion changed Correa’s life and musical perspective.

Eliane Correa has carved out her career in London in recent years, most notably as writer and performer in global urban music collective WARA, Correa’s multifarious identity as an artist is striking in the natural way she breathes so many diverse forms of music.

Following on from a sell out at London’s Latin Jazz Festival in 2015, Eliane Correa and her 10 piece band played at the Jazz Café to a rapturous welcome. Correa and band continue to make waves wherever they perform.