Latin Jazz
06/08/2011
01/06/2011
01/05/2011
Dialogues with Danilo
The cover story in the new issue of JazzTimes is about pianist, composer and educator Danilo Pérez, whose Grammy-nominated album Providencia captures much of the sweeping energy of his recent creative life. I went to Boston in the fall for Pérez’s album-release gig at Scullers, and then spent a few engaging hours at his well-appointed home in Quincy, Mass. (That link leads you to a preview; the full piece, which I obviously endorse, is only available in print.)
I saw this piece as something more than the story of Providencia; by my reckoning, 2010 marked the end of a momentous decade for Pérez. If you were paying attention in 2000, you may recall that it was the year of Motherland, and also the year Pérez joined Wayne Shorter’s new quartet. In the years since, he had served as the cultural ambassador for his native Panama, and started a festival there.
Pérez is a great interview: responsive and generous, unguarded, quick to seize on a suggested premise. What struck me about our conversation was how frequently it kept returning to Shorter, without very much encouragement on my part. Pérez’s affiliation with Shorter has been transformative, opening new spaces in his playing and realigning the public’s perceptions of his art. Rudresh Mahanthappa, the saxophonist featured on Providencia, told me that when he first heard Pérez, in the late 1990s, he initially chalked it up to high-level Latin jazz. “But when I saw him with Wayne,” Mahanthappa said, “that’s when I realized that his palette was so wide.”
04/03/2010
07/20/2009
Song for Sonia
This morning brought
news that pianist Arturo O’Farrill has been commissioned to write a piece for judge Sonia Sotomayor, premiering in November. To
the best of my knowledge, this will [NOT] be the first time a jazz musician has
composed new music inspired by a Supreme Court Justice nominee -- though I
suppose Don Byron could have an acerbic “Clarence Thomas Suite” stashed in a
drawer somewhere. [Oops. See comments below.]
The selection of O’Farrill for this commission makes all kinds of sense from an institutional perspective. He has experience with arts commissions, and a former affiliation with Jazz at Lincoln Center. His Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra is one of the city’s eminent large ensembles, with resident status at Symphony Space, which is sponsoring the new work in partnership with the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
But unlike, say, Eddie Palmieri, who has also been known to roll out a dynamic big band every now and again, O’Farrill doesn’t share Sotomayor’s Puerto Rican heritage. Born in Mexico, he hails from a different substratum of Latino culture. So while there are in fact jazz musicians forging rigorous new hybrids out of Puerto Rican music -- the best examples are saxophonists Dávid Sanchez and Miguel Zenón -- O’Farrill holds a less literal (i.e., ethno-political) claim on Sotomayor: La Celebración. (Need I point out he’s also not a woman?)
07/13/2009
Catching Up with Chembo
Wilson “Chembo” Corniel projects a measured ebullience. Hands moving in a blur across his tumbadoras -- i.e., congas, though he prefers the Spanish term -- he maintains a strict posture and only the faintest traces of a smile. It’s clear that he sees his work as serious business, even when his music sounds like the essence of jocularity.
At Creole Restaurant and Music Supper Club in East Harlem on Friday, he made a few genial attempts at stage humor, along the lines of “The more you drink, the better we sound.” The awkwardness of his patter underscored the composure of his playing. Showmanship may be among the requisites of a Latin-jazz bandleader, but Corniel illustrated just how sharply a performance could speak for itself.
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