Arturo Sandoval
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Arturo Sandoval (born November 6, 1949) is a jazz trumpeter and pianist. He was born in Artemisa, Cuba.
Sandoval, while still in Cuba, was obsessed with bebop recordings by Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, and Dizzy Gillespie, finally meeting the latter in 1977. Gillespie promptly became a mentor and colleague, playing with Arturo in concerts in Europe and Cuba and later featuring him in The United Nations Orchestra. In 1998, Sandoval became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Sandoval's life was the subject of the 2000 TV film For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story, starring Andy Garcia.
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[edit] Background
Arturo Sandoval began to play music at age 12 in the village band, where he learned the basics of music theory and percussion. After playing many instruments, he finally settled on the trumpet. In 1964, he began three years of serious classical trumpet studies at the Cuban National School of Arts. By the age of 16 he had earned a place in Cuba’s all-star national band. By this time, he was totally immersed in jazz, with Dizzy Gillespie his idol. In 1971 he was drafted into the military. Luckily, Sandoval was still able to play with the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna. Because of this he was able to continue his daily practice regimen, an absolute necessity for trumpeters.
[edit] Style
Sandoval has proven to be extremely versatile, capable of playing competently in a variety of styles. He has done classical work, Salsa, Be-bop, and is one of the foremost Cubop players in the world. He can dazzle with his supercharged tone and bop-flavored flurries way up in the trumpet's highest register. Yet, on slower pieces, he has a golden, mellow tone on the flugelhorn, with a subtle sense of swing. He is capable of playing anything, proving it more than once by tackling classical arrangements as well as jazz in the same concert, and he has enough curiosity to search far beyond his Cubop base for repertory.
[edit] Artist's Role in the Jazz Scene
In Cuba, Sandoval co-founded the band called Irakere with Chucho Valdes and Paquito D'Rivera. They quickly became a worldwide sensation. Their appearance at the 1978 Newport Jazz Festival introduced them to American audiences, and garnered them a recording contract with Columbia Records. Sandoval was still exploring his musical possibilities and left the group in 1981 to form his own band. He continued to tour worldwide with his new group, playing a unique blend of jazz and Latin music. In addition to playing Latin jazz, he also performed classical music with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, and the Leningrad Symphony in the former Soviet Union. He has enjoyed a successful recording career that extends outside of mainstream jazz. He has recorded as a sideman with Johnny Mathis, Gloria Estefan, Kenny G, Paul Anka, Frank Sinatra, and Dave Grusin. He has also played in concerts with Woody Herman, Herbie Hancock, Woody Shaw, Stan Getz, Tony Bennett, Patti LaBelle and Céline Dion. In 2001, Arturo was featured on the album "Swingin' For The Fences" by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band. He played solos in Sing, Sang, Sung and Mueve Los Huesos (Move Your Bones ), the latter of which let him flex his latin jazz muscles.
[edit] Stylistic Influences
Sandoval’s raw talent has led him to associate with many musicians, but the most important would have to be Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy, who was a longtime proponent of Afro-Cuban music, has been referred to as a type of “spiritual father” by Sandoval. When the two great trumpet players met in Cuba in 1977, Dizzy was playing impromptu gigs in the Caribbean with Stan Getz. Sandoval later said: “I went to the boat to find him. I've never had a complex about meeting famous people. If I respect somebody, I go there and try to meet them.” Because of Cuba’s political situation, the country had been isolated from American musicians for nearly twenty years when Dizzy visited. Gillespie wanted to hear the music of the black neighborhoods where musicians play guaguanco (a popular style of rumba) in the street. Sandoval offered to take Dizzy around, and only later that evening when he got up on stage did Sandoval reveal himself as a musician.
[edit] Arturo Sandoval Jazz Club
In April 2004, Arturo Sandoval opened a jazz venue in Miami Beach, The Arturo Sandoval Jazz Club. Since opening its doors, the club has had both top-notch headlining jazz acts as well as local talent on stage. Open six nights a week for live music, past acts have included Joshua Redman, Roberta Flack, Roy Haynes, Omar Sosa, The Bad Plus and Danilo Perez. Sandoval himself plays at the club at least monthly.
[edit] Association with other Jazz Musicians
Sandoval has worked with: Vikki Carr, Luis Enrique, Mike Couzzi,George Noriega, Lee Levin, Tony Concepcion, Julio Hernandez, Rene Toledo, Rita Quintero, Dana Teboe, and Ed Calle and the Lincoln Center Afro-Latin Orchestra
[edit] Quotes
". . .[M]y philosophy has always been that I love music. Period. I don't want to be remembered as a jazz trumpeter. I'd like to be remembered as a man who loved music. Because I like to play piano, I like to compose. I like to do all those things as much as I like to play the trumpet."
--Arturo Sandoval in Billboard
“Whether striding out blues by Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, and Oliver, playing in the hot bebop styles of Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, and Clifford Brown, the muted, elegant silkiness of the warm, thin-toned masters such as Chet Baker, Harry James, and Miles Davis, or classical maestros such as Maurice Andre, Rafael Méndez, or Timofei Dokshizer and the full-throated sweetness of Bunny Berigan, Cootie Williams, Clark Terry, and Roy Eldridge, or the hard edgy sounds of Maynard Ferguson, or the technically perfect pitch of Marsalis, the effect is the same, perfection, and not just technical. The emotional resonances of these tunes ring as true as if Sandoval wrote them himself.”
--Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
[edit] Discography
- 1976 - Havana - David Amram
- 1977 - New York - David Amram
- 1978 - The Best of Irakere - Irakere
- 1979 - Irakere - Irakere
- 1982 - To a Finland Station - Arturo Sandoval
- 1983 - Breaking the Sound Barrier - Arturo Sandoval
- 1986 - No Problem - Arturo Sandoval
- 1987 - Tumbaito - Arturo Sandoval
- 1988 - Straight Ahead - Arturo Sandoval
- 1989 - Classics - Arturo Sandoval
- 1989 - Arturo Sandoval - Arturo Sandoval
- 1990 - Live at the Royal Festival Hall 1989 - Dizzy Gillespie
- 1991 - Flight to Freedom - Arturo Sandoval
- 1992 - I Remember Clifford - Arturo Sandoval
- 1993 - Danzon (Dance On) - Arturo Sandoval
- 1993 - Dreams Come True - Arturo Sandoval
- 1993 - Passion - Regina Belle
- 1994 - Cubano - Arturo Sandoval
- 1995 - Arturo Sandoval y el Tren Latino - Arturo Sandoval
- 1995 - Concerto - Arturo Sandoval
- 1995 - Arturo Sandoval & The Latin Train - Arturo Sandoval
- 1996 - Double Talk - Ed Calle
- 1996 - Swingin - Arturo Sandoval
- 1997 - Just Music - Arturo Sandoval
- 1998 - Hot House - Arturo Sandoval
- 1999 - Americana - Arturo Sandoval
- 1999 - Sunset Harbor - Ed Calle
- 1999 - Los Elefantes - Arturo Sandoval & Wynton Marsalis
- 2000 - Ronnie Scott's Jazz House - Arturo Sandoval
- 2000 - For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story - Soundtrack
- 2001 - Piedras Y Flores - Amaury Gutiérrez
- 2001 - L.A. Meetings - Arturo Sandoval
- 2001 - Swingin' For The Fences - Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band
- 2002 - My Passion for the Piano - Arturo Sandoval
- 2003 - From Havana With Love - Arturo Sandoval
- 2003 - Trumpet Evolution - Arturo Sandoval
- 2005 - Live at the Blue Note - Arturo Sandoval
