Don’t tell Cuban trumpet player Arturo Sandoval he plays Latin jazz.
“Latin is the language of the church,” he says on the phone from his California home.
Don’t tell him he plays salsa, either.
“Whenever anyone talks about salsa, that tells me one thing. They don’t know anything.”
Then he launches into a labeled discussion of South American countries and their distinctive rhythms – cumbias from Columbia, the bomba and plena rhythms from Puerto Rico and the like.
Sandoval is an exceptionally strong player with a lot of strong opinions. UApresents is bringing Sandoval and all his talents to the downtown Fox Theatre on Saturday along with five of his favorite musicians for an evening of “bebop, funk, some Cuban music, a bunch of different stuff. Yes, there will be tango from Argentina, too.”
Sandoval calls this sextet his small band, his core group of Los Angeles guys who have played together for years.
“We all know each other very well,” says the bandleader. “This won’t be just a jam,” he promised.
Historically, Sandoval became an American citizen in 1999. He was born to working-class parents near Havana in 1949. At age 12 he began studying classical trumpet but was quickly drawn to jazz. In 1977 he met Dizzy Gillespie, who was on tour in Cuba.
The two became fast friends as Gillespie developed his Afro-Cuban jazz approach. In 1990, while touring Spain in Gillespie’s band, Sandoval defected to the United States. Gillespie is said to have played a significant role in Sandoval’s escape. The bebop innovator’s love for Cuban jazz is well-documented.
So is Sandoval’s role in co-founding the high-intensity Cuban jazz band Irakere, along with pianist Chucho Valdés and reedman Paquito D’Rivera. Irakere first came to the U.S. in 1980 to play the Newport Jazz Festival.
The most casual dip into YouTube reveals Sandoval’s effortless ease playing incredibly complicated bebop solos, floods of notes cascading from every chord change.
His lengthy résumé of recordings with other artists ranges from Woody Herman to Michel Legrand, Stan Getz to Johnny Mathis, Frank Sinatra to Rod Stewart, Paul Anka to Alicia Keys.
Over the years in those recording studios, Sandoval has won nine Grammy awards and received 19 nominations. Earlier this year, President Obama presented Sandoval with the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“This is just what I do,” he said, about as casually as Albert Einstein might describe his theory of relativity saying with a shrug, “This is just what I do.”
Genius is genius.
“If you can imagine the burst of a young Gillespie, the roaring of Fats Navarro, and the sweet and light articulation of Clifford Brown, then you have some idea of what Sandoval can do,” is how the London Observer once described the trumpet player’s expansive talent.
Sandoval is also a classical musician of note, appearing with symphony orchestras in many countries. He recorded John Williams’ “Trumpet Concerto” with the London Symphony Orchestra.
“I’m not a Latin artist,” he repeated. “Mainly I play jazz, but I play classical, too.
“I never like very much when they put me in a box. That’s not what I do.”
So forget the box. Forget any limitations, geographic or stylistic. For Tucson concertgoers, Sandoval offers this advice:
“Settle back in your seat, close your eyes and open your ears ... and your heart.”
