Tag Archives: pianist

Musica de Camara, Artistic Director Eva de la O

November 1, 2009CorrientesAnthony Newton, Artist, Artistic Director, Carman Moore Commissioned, City, Director Eva de la, Howard Swanson, New York, pianist, Robert Nathaniel Dett, Scott Joplin, Works Byescalona

Third Piano Festival Concert:

The Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street
New York, NY 10029

Sunday, February 17, 2:00 pm

Guest Artist:
Anthony Newton, pianist

Works By:
African American Classical Composers
Including Howard Swanson, Robert Nathaniel
Dett, Scott Joplin and a World Premiere of Sonata II
by Carman Moore Commissioned by Musica de Camara

For More Information:
Eva de La O
(212) 410-5612

Paula Zadigian
(212) 534-1672 X 3393

Free With Museum Admission

TRIBUTE TO ED VEGA YUNQUE _ NOVEMBER 15, 3PM -7PM AT PRDREAM, 1355 Park Ave at 102nd St

November 1, 2009CorrientesAbigail McGlynn, Air Force, Alyson Vega, Amagansett, BRUCE WEBER, Cidra, Edgardo Alberto Vega Yunqu, Edgardo Vega Yunqu, great writer, Impenetrable Loisaida Jungle, Jay Vega, Julia Livshin, lez Cultural Center on the Lower East Side, Loisada Jungle, Lutheran Medical Center, Matthew, Miles Davis, minister, New Jersey, New York, New York University, Novelist, Pat Vega, pianist, Ponce, Puerto Rico, Rachel Horowitz, SINGER, Sunset Park, Suzanne Vega, The New York Times Book Review, Tom Colchie, writerescalona

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NOVEMBER 15 TRIBUTE: A non-stop, ongoing reading of Ed Vega’s “The Lamentable Journey of Omaha Bigelow into the Impenetrable Loisaida Jungle” — Magical Realism comes to Loisaida (and now El Barrio)! Bring your copy!

*****

September 9, 2008
Edgardo Vega Yunqué, Novelist of the Puerto Rican Experience in New York, Dies at 72

By BRUCE WEBER
Edgardo Vega Yunqué, whose novels and stories about life on the Lower East Side of Manhattan were picaresque, combustive and sometimes flamboyantly comic expressions of the Puerto Rican experience in New York’s multicultural maelstrom, died on Aug. 26 in Brooklyn. He was 72 and lived in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The cause was probably a blood clot, said his daughter, Alyson Vega, who said that he died suddenly during a visit to the emergency room at Lutheran Medical Center and that his family had not been immediately notified.

Mr. Vega Yunqué, who moved to New York from Puerto Rico at the age of 13 and spent his teenage years in a Puerto Rican and Irish neighborhood in the Bronx, resisted characterization both as a writer and as an individual. Angered by the expectation of Latin writers either to document ghetto life or to “dabble in magic realism,” as he put it, he was known as a contentious man with a philosophy founded on the sanctity of self-expression, and he wrote with a voice that was lyrical, insistent, irrepressible and often scathingly satiric.

In “The Lamentable Journey of Omaha Bigelow Into the Impenetrable Loisada Jungle,” (Overlook Press, 2004), he cast a comic, sardonic eye on the American response to the Sept. 11 attacks. His latest book, “Rachel Horowitz, Puerto Rican Sex Freak,” an earthy send-up of sexual politics, was scheduled for publication this summer but Overlook canceled it after a dispute with him.

“He was an iconoclast of the first order,” said his agent, Tom Colchie. “Ed was always cantankerous about editing. He would say, ‘I’m not going to be any publisher’s fuzzy-wuzzy.’ ”

With a counterculture-ish perspective and a penchant for florid turns of phrase and hyper-punctuated sentences, he had a literary relative in Tom Robbins, though his work often had a political fierceness about it as well.

His best-known book, “No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain’t Never Coming Home Again” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), is a sprawling tale of two families, one Puerto Rican and one Irish, and their intertwining over several generations. The Vietnam War plays a central role and so does American jazz, not only thematically — one main character is a pianist who walks away from the chance to play with Miles Davis when he joins the Marines — but stylistically as well, with narrative strains wandering improvisatorily away from the main tale and finding intricate paths that bring them back again. Julia Livshin, writing in The New York Times Book Review, said it was a “powerhouse of a novel” that “brings vividly to life, with its polyphony of voices, the simmering ethnic stew of the great American city.”

Edgardo Alberto Vega Yunqué was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on May 20, 1936, but he was raised in the town of Cidra. His father, a Baptist minister, moved the family to New York in 1949 when he took over a Spanish-speaking congregation in the South Bronx. Mr. Vega Yunqué was a radio operator in the Air Force, and during one home leave, he was asked by his sister to help clean out an estate in central New York. In the attic he found hundreds of paperback novels — by Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemingway and others — and he began reading them voraciously. That spurred him to write novels.

Mr. Vega Yunqué attended New York University and worked as a community organizer before publishing his first novel, “The Comeback,” in 1985. His other works include two collections of stories and the novel “Blood Fugues.” (HarperCollins, 2006.) In 1994, he founded the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center on the Lower East Side as a home for theater artists, dancers and visual artists, and he ran it until 2000, when he stepped down, his tenure marred by fierce disputes between the mostly Hispanic theater artists and the mostly white visual artists over the center’s management.

Mr. Vega’s marriage to Pat Vega ended in divorce, the culmination of what his daughter, Alyson, and his stepdaughter, the singer Suzanne Vega, described as a tempestuous home life. Her stepfather was passionate about knowledge and passed that zeal on, Suzanne Vega said. “But the thing that made him a great writer was the thing that also made him dangerous,” she added. “Any boundary or restriction he took as a red flag.”

In addition to Suzanne and Alyson Vega, both of Manhattan, Mr. Vega Yunqué is survived by a son, Matthew, of Amagansett, New York; a brother, Jay Vega, of Cape May, N.J.; a sister, Abigail McGlynn, of Queens; and a granddaughter.

PRdream mourns the passing of Joe Cuba, 1931 – 2009

November 1, 2009CorrientesAmerica, Aurora Communications Inc., Caribbean, CEO, Cesar, Charlie Palmieri, Cheo Feliciano, Councilwoman, Cuba, Dancing, David Fernandez, Devils, director of the sextet, director of Zon del Barrio, Eddie Palmieri, Emusica, Fania label owner, Georgia, Giora Breil, Governor, Grammy Award, Harlem, heart attack, Hector Maisonave, Hector Rivera, Ismael Rivera, Jerry Masucci, Jimmy Sabater, Joe Cuba Sextet, Joe Cuba Sextet Vol, Joe Cubaï¿½s Sextet, manager, Mardi Gras Music, Maria Calderon, Melissa Mark Viverito, Mitchell, Morris Levy, Motown, Mt. Sinai Hospital, Musical Director, Musician, New York, New York Boogaloo, New York City, Nuyroican, Panama, pianist, producer, R&G Ortiz Funeral Home, Ricardo Ray, Sabu Martinez, Stardust Ballroom, Vocalist, WBLS FM, WILLIE TORRES, Willie Villegas, Xavier Cugat, Yonkersescalona

Viewing on Wednesday & Thursday, February 18 & 19, 2PM – 10PM

R&G Ortiz Funeral Home
204 E. 116th Street, between 3rd & 2nd Avenues
212.722.3512

From: Aurora Communications, Inc.

Joe Cuba: Father of New York Boogaloo has passed away

The “Father of Boogaloo” Joe Cuba passed away on Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 4 p.m. at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. He was the most popular exponent of the boogaloo, a fused Latino and R&B rhythm that exploded onto the American top 40s charts during the turbulent 1960s & ‘70s. Hits such as “*Bang Bang,” “Push Push,” “El Pito,” “Ariñañara,” and “Sock It To Me Baby,” rocked the hit parades establishing Joe Cuba and his Sextet as the definitive sound of Latin New York during the ‘60s & ‘70s. The Joe Cuba Sextet’s unusual instrumentation featured vibraphones replacing the traditional brass sound. His music was at the forefront of the Nuyroican movement of New York where the children of Puerto Rican emigrants, America’s last citizens, took music, culture, arts and politics into their own hands.

Joe Cuba’s Sextet became popular in the New York Latino community precisely because it fused a bilingual mix of Afro-Caribbean genres blended with the popular urban rhythm & blues of its time creating a musical marriage between the Fania and Motown sound. His was the first musical introduction to Latin rhythms for many American aficionados. The lyrics to Cuba’s repertoire mixed Spanish and English, becoming an important part of the emerging Nuyorican identity.

Joe Cuba’s music validated the developing Nuyorican population whose language and music Cuba captured with his sound, underlines Giora Breil, CEO of Emusica, the company that now owns the Fania label and who has remastered many of the classics to a new generation of music lovers. “He led the urban tribe,” pointed Breil, “into a united front of cultural warriors that were defining the social and political times they lived in.”

Longtime manager and promoter Hector Maisonave recalls Cuba as ”an innovator who crossed over into mainstream music at an early time. He was the soul of El Barrio. After Joe Cuba, El Barrio is just a street that crosses an avenue.”

In 1962, Cuba recorded “*To Be With You” *with the vocals of Cheo Feliciano and Jimmy Sabater whose careers he spotlighted after the bands introductory appearance at the Stardust Ballroom prior to its summer stint in the Catskills.

Born in 1931 in the heart of Spanish Harlem, his Puerto Rican parents arrived in New York City in the 20s. Christened “Gilberto Miguel Calderón,” Cuba was a “doo wopper” who played for J. Panama in 1950 when he was a young 19 year old before going on to play for La Alfarona X, where the young “congüerro” percussionist replaced Sabu Martinez tapped to play with Xavier Cugat.

By 1965, the Sextet got their first crossover hit with the Latino and soul fusion of “El Pito” (I Never Go Back To Georgia), a tune Cuba recorded against the advice of the producer later to be “broken” by a DJ over WBLS FM in N.Y.. The Dizzy Gillespie “/Never Go Back To Georgia” chant was taken from the intro to the seminal Afro-Cuban tune, “Manteca.” Vocalist Jimmy Sabater later revealed that “none of us had ever been to Georgia.” In fact, Cuba later comically described a conversation he had with the Governor of Georgia who called him demanding why he would record a song whose chorus negatively derided the still segregated Southern town. The quick thinking Joe Cuba replied, “Georgia is the name of my girl.”

“Joe Cuba exemplified the power that comes from collaboration.” highlighted East Harlem’s councilwoman Melissa Mark Viverito. “Through his music, Joe brought together Latinos and African Americans and his art form reflected the influences of both cultures, Furthermore, his music united Harlem and East Harlem by reflecting the growth both communities experienced during the 1960s and ’70s. Joe Cuba made Spanish Harlem proud as he bravely brought his particular New York Latino identity to stages all over the world.”

In 1967, Joe Cuba’s band ––with no horns– scored a “hit” in the United States National Hit Parade List with the song “Bang Bang” – a tune that ushered in the Latin Boogaloo era. He also had a #1 hit, that year on the Billboard charts with the song “Sock It To Me Baby.” The band’s instrumentation included congas, timbales, an occasional bongo, bass, piano and vibraphone. “A bastard sound,” is what Cuba called it pointing to the fans, the people, as the true creators of this music. “You don’t go into a rehearsal and say ‘Hey, let’s invent a new sound or dance.’ They happen. The boogaloo came out of left field.“ Joe Cuba recounts in Mary Kent’s book:” Salsa Talks: A Musical History Uncovered. “It’s the public that creates new dances and different things. The audience invents, the audience relates to what you are doing and then puts their thing into what you are playing/,” pointing to
other artists such as Ricardo Ray or Hector Rivera as pioneers of the urban fused rhythm.

“I met Joe up in the Catskills in 1955,” /recalls nine time Grammy Award winner *Eddie Palmieri*. “When I later started La Perfecta,” Palmieri muses, “we alternated on stages with Joe. He was full of life and had a great sense of humor, always laughing at his own jokes,” chuckles the pianist. Palmieri pointed to Cuba’s many musical contributions underlining the power and popularity of his small band and bilingual lyrics while providing a springboard for the harmonies and careers of Cheo Feliciano, Willie Torres and Jimmy Sabater. “He was Spanish Harlem personified,” describes Palmieri recalling the “take no prisoners” attitude Cuba had when it came to dealing with those who reluctantly paid the musicians. Recalling their early recording days with the infamous Morris Levy, Palmieri cites the antics of Joe Cuba, Ismael Rivera and himself as the reason for Levy selling them as a Tico package to Fania label owner, Jerry Masucci.

Funny, irreverent and with a great humor for practical jokes, Joe Cuba, or Sonny as he was called by his closest friends, was raised in East Harlem. Stickball being the main sport for young boys of the neighborhood, Cuba’s father organized a stickball club called the Devils. After Cuba broke a leg, he took up playing the conga and continued to practice between school and his free time. Eventually, he graduated from high school and joined a band.

“He was not afraid to experiment/,” said *David Fernandez*, arranger & musical director of Zon del Barrio who played with the legendary Cuba when he arrived in New York in 2002.

By 1954, at the suggestion of his agent to change the band’s name from the Jose Calderon Sextet to the Joe Cuba Sextet, the newly named Joe Cuba Sextet made their debut at the Stardust Ballroom. Charlie Palmieri was musical director of the sextet before his untimely 1988 death from a heart attack.

Since then, the Joe Cuba Sextet and band has been a staple of concerts and festivals that unite both Latinos, African-Americans and just plain music lovers in venues all over the world.

In 2003, the following CDs were released:

* “Joe Cuba Sextet Vol I: Mardi Gras Music for Dancing”
* “Merengue Loco” and
* “Out of This World Cha Cha”.

In 2004, Joe Cuba was named Grand Marshall of the Puerto Rican Day Parade celebrated in Yonkers, New York. Musician *Willie Villegas* who traveled with Joe for the past 15 years said, “It didn’t matter where we played around the world Joe would always turn to me and say, To My
Barrio…. With Love!”

Joe Cuba is survived by his wife Maria Calderon, sons Mitchell and Cesar, daughter Lisa, and grandchildren Nicole and Alexis.

Condolences can be sent directly to Joe Cuba’s widow: Maria Calderon at mariacuba1@verizon.net.

PRdream mourns the passing of Manny Oquendo

November 1, 2009CorrientesAlfredo de la Fe, Andy Gonzalez, Angel "Papo" Vazquez, Arca, Arsenio Rodrï¿½guez, Aurora, Aurora Flores, Barry Rogers, bassist, bongo chair, Carlos Medina Orchestra, cent, Chair, Chano Pozo, Charlie, Columbia, Columbiaï¿½s Journalism School, complete drummer, Conjunto Libre, Dan Reagan, Dora the Explorer, Eartha Kit, Eddie Palmieri, El Boy, Eugenio Maria de Hostos, first female music correspondent, first Latina editor, Frank Figueroa, Frank Garcia, heart attack, Herman Olivera, Hispanic America, Horseshoe Park, Ignacio Pineiro, improvisational infrastructure, Jazz drummer, Jerry Gonzalez, Jimmy Bosch, Joe Loco, Joe Mannozzi, Johnny Pacheco, Jose Curbelo, Jose Fajardo, Jose Fajardo and Orquesta Aragon, Jose Rodrigues, Katherine Dunham, Kelly Street, king, La Perfecta, Latin New York, Latin New York Magazine, Latina, Luis del Campo, Machito, Mambo, Manny Oquendo, Manuel "Canario" Jimenez, Manuel Oquendo, Marc Diamond, Marcelino Guerra Band, Max Roach, Mozambique, musical historian, Musician, Musicianï¿½s Union, Nestor Torres, New York, Nickelodeon, Nico Saquito, Noro Morales, Orquesta Aragon, OSCAR, Oscar Hernandez, percussion teacher, pianist, piano chair, President, Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricoï¿½s Radio Station, Rafael Hernandez, Ray Co, Reynaldo Jorge, Rosario Chï¿½vez, Sam Ulano, self-taught musician, senior statesman, SINGER, Smithsonian, Steve Turre, TITO PUENTE, Tito Rodriguez, Tito Rodrï¿½guez, Tommy Lopez, United States, Vocalist, www.zondelbarrio.com/Press.php, Xavier Cugatescalona

MANNY OQUENDO
January 1, 1931 – March 25, 2009

Bandleader, percussionist Manny Oquendo passed away March 25, 2009 of a heart attack. A self-taught musician, Oquendo was a senior statesman of the Latin percussion instruments of timbales and bongos before founding and co-directing the critically acclaimed Latin music band, Conjunto Libre for more than 35 years.

A member of the seminal recording “Grupo Folklorico Experimental Nuevayorquino” Parts I & II, Manny Oquendo was known for his understated yet aggressive solo improvisations on both the timbal and bongos. His was not a race as to who could play the fastest, or who could do the most paradiddles, excessive drum rolls or “contra-clave,” Manny Oquendo’s style was a school in and of itself. “The Timbalero must always keep the beat,” he emphasized in interviews. “Never overplay,” was his most consistent rule.

His style was found in the roots of Cuban bands such as Arcaño’s or Orquesta Aragon, never flashy, never overstated. For influence and inspiration he looked to the drummers of the vintage Cuban bands such as bongocero, Ramón Castro, who played with the Orquesta Casino de la Playa and later with Pérez Prado or Conjunto Casino’s Yeyito Iglesias or Papa Kila (Antolín Suárez) who played with Arsenio Rodríguez or Sonora Matancera’s Manteca (José Rosario Chávez). Manny Oquendo was known by what he said on the timbal, not how many things he could do to it.

For more than 60 years, Manny Oquendo’s said many things through his percussive strength and musical vision. His profound yet understated sounds were part of the Latin New York music scene from the ‘40s until today.

Born José Manuel Oquendo on South Fourth St. Brooklyn, he was called “Manolo” before he became “Manny” in his teens. The family later moved to East Harlem in 1939 where Oquendo was captivated by the sounds of music. “Music was everywhere,” he recalled.

East Barrio’s first Latin music record store “Almacenes Hernandez” (originally located at 1600 Madison Avenue and opened in 1927) was just one flight down from the Oquendo family’s apartment. The swinging big bands of Machito, Jose Fajardo and Orquesta Aragon became the soundtrack of his childhood. “There was music constantly coming out of that store, and that was my education,” he recalled.

His first set of drums were a pair of “tom toms” with the skin on both ends. Played with sticks from a wooden hanger, Manny played along to records from his parents’ victrola. Spanish language radio stations were always on in his home. Later, when Oquendo visited his parent’s roots in Ponce, he discovered the cuatro through his grandfather.

After the “tom toms,” Oquendo got a pair of wooden timbales and began playing with Sexteto Sanabria but not before taking a few drum lessons at a school on 125th Street at 25 cents per lesson. Later on, he studied privately with Sam Ulano, a well-known percussion teacher. Jazz drummer Max Roach also studied with Ulano alongside Manny. Whenever they’d run into each other they’d reminisce on their school days. Oquendo always kept his set of trap drums.

By the 1940s, the Oquendos moved to Kelly Street in the South Bronx unknowingly joining a community of likeminded musicians. Pianist, Noro Morales lived down the street from Manny on Stebbins Ave.; Joe Loco was by Horseshoe Park; Tito Rodríguez was on Rogers Place; Tito Puente on 163rd Street, while Arsenio Rodríguez and Ray Coén both lived on Kelly Street.

Oquendo began playing with New York’s top orchestras. He played with the Carlos Medina Orchestra, the Charlie Valero Band and Xavier Cugat’s former singer Luis del Campo before playing with the legendary Marcelino Guerra Band.

From here Oquendo played with trumpeter Frank Garcia and his vocalist, El Boy, where he met Chano Pozo who performed with Miguelito Valdes at a local show and stayed to play with the fledging timbalero. Chano remained with the small group until he got a better paying job. Oquendo moved on as well, joining pianist Jose Curbelo’s orchestra where he performed on a full array of drums owing to their diverse repertoire that included tangos, sambas and American swing music. “It gave me the feeling of being a complete drummer.” He mentioned in an interview to Frank Figueroa over Latin Beat.

From here, Manny Oquendo joined Pupi Campos’ band playing many venues on Long Island alongside Tito Puente and his Picadilly Boys. Since they were both working in the same area, Tito and Manny would ride together to their respective gigs with Manny playing in Tito’s band as he waited for his own show to begin. When Tito’s regular bongocero Chino Pozo left to tour with Katherine Dunham, Tito asked Manny to take over that chair. When Little Ray Romero took a job with Eartha Kit, it was Manny Oquendo who Tito Rodriguez called to fill his bongo chair.

Manny had his Afro-Antillian chops chiseled under the bands of Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, Johnny Pacheco and others. He had hung with the legendary Chano Pozo, taking the Musician’s Union cabaret license test for him enabling Pozo to work in New York clubs during his stay between 1946 –’48.

By the 1960s, everything Cuban was forbidden. Manny listened to the Mozambique sounds of Pello El Afrokan over short wave radio and on pirated records. Back in his apartment on Kelly Street in the Bronx, he’d practice hitting the timbal with the left and playing the rhythm on the right until he nailed the Cuban genre so well he made it his own.

In 1963, Manny Oquendo joined “La Perfecta,” the conjunto organized by pianist Eddie Palmieri. Alongside congüero, Tommy Lopez, Manny crystallized the Mozambique sound creating a powerhouse rhythm section alongside Palmieri’s improvisational infrastructure.

In 1974 Oquendo and bassist Andy Gonzalez left Palmieri to move in their own direction. Leaving the traditional structures behind, the duo incorporated jazz, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Puerto Rican rhythms while exploring alternatives. The goal was to “free” the music from restrictive content and Libre was born. During 1976 to 1981, Oquendo became a musical historian of the tipico sound he’d perfected with Palmieri. Libre’s first albums included classics by composers Ignacio Pineiro, Rafael Hernandez and Nico Saquito, as well as a traditional Puerto Rican plena by Manuel “Canario” Jimenez.

At the same time, the group attracted a creative crop of innovative young artists in Latin music. The Gonzalez brothers, Andy and Jerry Gonzalez are founding members; Alfredo de la Fe is featured on various incendiary violin solos with singer Herman Olivera making his recorded debut over a Libre recording while flautist Nestor Torres was also a featured guest. At various times, Barry Rogers, Jose Rodrigues, Angel “Papo” Vazquez, Jimmy Bosch, Reynaldo Jorge, Dan Reagan and Steve Turre held down the trombone line, while Oscar Hernandez, Joe Mannozzi, and Marc Diamond rocked the piano chair.

Last year, Puerto Rico’s Radio Station, Z93 dedicated its National Salsa Day to Manny Oquendo.

Manny Oquendo is survived by four sons and two sisters.

According to Manny Oquendo’s wishes, there will not be a viewing. We will post any information regarding a memorial in the future.

A video from Salsa Sunday’s Conversations with the Masters has been posted on our website at www.zondelbarrio.com/Press.php

About Aurora Flores:
Twenty-first century Renaissance woman Aurora Flores is the recipient of numerous awards and is included in Who’s Who in Hispanic America. Currently the President of Aurora Communications, she was the first Latina editor of Latin New York Magazine and the first female music correspondent for Billboard Magazine. While attending Columbia’s Journalism School, she broke into mainstream journalism and today has thousands of articles to her name.

A musician by training, Aurora founded her own septet, Zon del Barrio, bringing together modern music genres, Afro-Boricua folklore and Afro-Cuban salsa. She lectures on Latin music, has composed bilingual songs for Nickelodeon’s “Dora the Explorer,” and recently edited and wrote the foreword for ¡Salsa Talks! A Musical Heritage Uncovered. Aurora can be seen in BET’s Pasos Latinos; BRAVO’s “Palladium, When Mambo was King;” the Smithsonian’s “Latin jazz, La Combinación Perfecta;” and in Edward James Olmos’s “Americanos: Latino Life in the U.S.” alongside the late Tito Puente, playing a composition she co-wrote. She is a proud descendent of Puerto Rican visionary, Eugenio Maria de Hostos.

MUSICA DE CAMARA PRESENTS SOPRANO CAMILLE ORTIZ IN A SPRING CONCERT

November 1, 2009CorrientesAlice Tully Hall, ALMA, Andre Expedition, Anton Nel, Artist, Austria, Bronx Lebanon Hospital, CAMILLE ORTIZ, Caribbean, Carlos Chavez Hall, Carnegie Corporation, City, Claude Debussy, Con Edison Company, Credit Suisse, Delmar Foundation, Deloitte LLP, Dominick Argento, East 104th Street, East Harlem Chamber of Commerce, EMK Enterprises, Enrique Granados, Fiddler, First Republic Bank, founder-director, Gerda Lissner Foundation, Germany, Granada, Hugo Wolf, Hunter College, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jeanne-Minette Cilliers, Jesus Guridi, Joan Patenaude-Yarnell, Kaufman Cultural Center, Lincoln Center, Manhattan School of Music, Martina Arroyo, Merkin Concert Hall, Mexico, Michigan, Musica de Camara Inc., New York, New York City, New York City Council, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, New York State Senate, Painted By Sea, pianist, pianistic poet, Puerto Rico, Rome, San Francisco, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Tenri Cultural Institute, Teresa Berganza, the 2008 Gerda Lissner Foundation Award, the University of Michigan, United States, Universidad Nacional Autonoma, Vega Baja, Vinciescalona

CAMILLE ORTIZ IN A SPRING CONCERT

Musica de Camara Inc. presents a concert, “Painted By Sea and Sun”, at the Museum of the City of New York, featuring the soprano Camille Ortiz on Sunday, April 5th, 2009 at 3 pm. The Museum os located at 1220 Fifth Avenue at East 104th Street in New York City. Admission is free. Ms Ortiz will sing works by Jesus Guridi, Enrique Granados, Hugo Wolf, Claude Debussy and Heitor Villa Lobos. She will be joined at the piano by Jeanne-Minette Cilliers.

Camille Ortiz was born in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico and completed her Master’s Degree of Music at the Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of Joan Patenaude-Yarnell. She appeared in the Festival of Interpretation of Spanish Song in Granada, Spain where she worked with the acclaimed Spanish mezzo soprano Teresa Berganza. In Italy, she sang leading opera roles with the Centro Studi Lirica and at the Scuola di Leonardo da Vinci in Rome, she completed her Italian studies. Among the numerous venues in which she has been presented in concert are the Carlos Chavez Hall at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma of Mexico, the Sala Manuel de Falla in Granada, Spain, the Tenri Cultural Institute and the Bruno Walter Auditorium. She has been the subject of a nationally broadcast television program on the network Telemundo and last season, after participating in a Master Class conducted by the renown soprano Martina Arroyo, Ms. Ortiz won accolades for her opera portrayals in the subsequent concert “Prelude to Performance” at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. A winner of the 2008 Gerda Lissner Foundation Award and a finalist in the coveted 2009 Liederkranz Competition, she is founder-director of ALMA, an organization that promotes Hispanic American classical repertoire.

Currently on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, South African pianist Jeanne-Minette Cilliers has been called “a pianistic poet” and has garnered rave reviews for her color-rich and imaginative performances. Much in demand as a collaborator, she has performed in Austria, Germany, Israel, Japan, Sweden, South Africa and across the United States. She fosters a strong interest in contemporary music and her recording of Dominick Argento’s “Andre Expedition” will be released next season. Ms. Cilliers has earned both her Bachelor and Master’s Degress of Music with distinction at the University of Michigan, while studying with fellow South African Anton Nel who is a Naumberg Competition Gold medalist. Ms. Cilliers remains the first and only recipient of an Artist Diploma in Vocal Accompaniment from the Manhattan School of Music. Her upcoming schedule of performances include appearances in New York City, San Francisco, Sweden, South Africa and the Caribbean.
Now celebrating its 29th Year, and founded by soprano Eva de La O, Musica de Camara has presented Puerto Rican, Hispanic and non-Hispanic classical musicians in concert in major concert venues such as Alice Tully Hall; Lincoln Center, the Merkin Concert Hall; Kaufman Cultural Center as well as community centers, schools, colleges, churches and museums. The organization also travels to public schools in under-served communities with its Lecture Demonstration Program.

This concert has been made possible in part with the support of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Council, the New York State Senate and Assembly, the East Harlem Chamber of Commerce, the Museum of the City of New York, the Con Edison Company, Bronx Lebanon Hospital, Consultiva Internacional of Puerto Rico, EMK Enterprises, Deloitte LLP, First Republic Bank, Credit Suisse, Fiddler – Gonzalez – Rodriguez PSC, the Delmar Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

At Home in Two Traditions: Jazz and the Sounds of Puerto Rico

December 5, 2008The Forumbasketball, bassist, BEN RATLIFF, Berklee College of Music, Caribbean, Charlie Parker, Christmas, composer and saxophonist, Drummer, Elga Castro, Esta Plena, Guggenheim, Hans Glawischnig, Hector (Tito) Matos, Henry Cole, Ismael (Cocolai) Rivera, Jazz Gallery, jazz saxophonist and composer, John Coltrane, Juan Gutiï¿½rrez, Los Pleneros, Luis Perdomo, MacArthur Foundation, Marsalis Music, Miguel Zen, Miles Davis, Modesto Cepeda, New School, New Year's Day, New Yearï¿½s party, New York, Obanilu Allende, pianist, Puerto Rico, Ram, San Juan, Sigur Ros, USD, Viento de Agua, Washington Heightsescalona

G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times

Miguel Zenón with his band, including the bassist Hans Glawischnig, the drummer Henry Cole and Obanilu Allende, in hat, who plays plena rhythms.
By BEN RATLIFF
Published: December 3, 2008

When the jazz saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenón visits his native Puerto Rico to see his mother and other relatives every year around Christmastime, he rarely hears any jazz. Instead he’s surrounded by plena, a century-old Afro-Caribbean musical tradition, a kind of movable street-corner folksong.

The composer and saxophonist Miguel Zenón.

Plena is made with three different-size panderos (like tambourines without the cymbals) and voices singing about island myths and scandals, cultural identity, political reality, love and plena itself.

“It’s really common,” he said in an interview last week in Washington Heights, where Mr. Zenón, 31, now lives with his wife, Elga Castro, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the New School. “And it’s so simple that you find it at a basketball game, at church — anywhere.”

Panderos are easily portable, as opposed to the barrel-shaped drums used in bomba, another island music. And the four-beat plena rhythm has also been part of the holiday-season ritual of parranda, which is akin to Christmas caroling: surprise late-night musical visits to the neighbors.

Part of the jazz tradition is using whatever’s in front of you, and Mr. Zenón, a New Yorker since 1999, has done this before. His album “Jíbaro” (Marsalis Music), from 2005, dealt with the song form of Puerto Rican back-country troubadours, and it had a preoccupation with numbers, particularly in the décima, a 10-line stanza with specific rhyme schemes.

“Jíbaro” threads Puerto Rican folklore through small-group jazz played at a high level, led by Mr. Zenón’s limpid and graceful alto saxophone sound. The album helped establish Mr. Zenón as one of the important contemporary revisers of Latin jazz and spread his reputation for delivering excellent music from a complicated premise, a reputation that reached the secret committees of the MacArthur Foundation, which awarded him one of its $500,000 “genius” grants in September.

This year Mr. Zenón also received a Guggenheim research grant and took a long fact-finding trip back to Puerto Rico. To ask for introductions to the living plena masters, he sought out Hector (Tito) Matos, a plena practitioner who has played with the long-running New York band Los Pleneros de la 21, as well as his own group, Viento de Agua.

Mr. Matos pointed him toward historians and older musicians like Modesto Cepeda and Ismael (Cocolai) Rivera so that Mr. Zenón could understand the music’s origins and functions. He learned about the subtle differences, for instance, between the San Juan-style use of the open hand on the pandero and the slower-tempo “punta de clavo” fingertip style of Mayagüez.

An insight from Ramón López, an ethnomusicologist who has written about plena, helped Mr. Zenón with his work. “He said something to me about how the moment you put plena onstage, it’s not the real thing anymore,” Mr. Zenón said. “So he told me not to worry about it, because it’s already different from what it’s supposed to be.”

Mr. Matos said: “That he decided to focus on plena for a whole recording and a whole research project, that surprised me right away. It’s very important what Miguel is doing, to open the music we play to more ears around the world.”

Mr. Zenón used his research for his composition “Esta Plena,” a work in 10 parts: half instrumental, half with singing. (He wrote his own lyrics too: about the nature of plena, about an all-night New Year’s party at Mr. Matos’s house, about political corruption and the disappearance of cultural tradition.) It will be performed for the first time this week, Thursday through Sunday, at the Jazz Gallery in the South Village. The performances feature his working quartet — Mr. Zenón, the pianist Luis Perdomo, the bassist Hans Glawischnig and the drummer Henry Cole — as well as three extra musicians playing plena rhythms and singing: Mr. Matos, Juan Gutiérrez and Obanilu Allende.

Again in “Esta Plena” Mr. Zenón used numbers as an organizing principle. “There are three panderos in plena,” he said. “So I dealt with the number three. In terms of form I wrote a lot of phrases in three or six. Harmonically I started thinking in terms of major-third intervals and augmented triads, and from there I built melodies and chord progressions.”

That the basic plena rhythm is always in four — with the biggest drum accenting the one and three, the middle one accenting the three and four, and the smallest providing improvised accents — didn’t deter Mr. Zenón. Through “Esta Plena” he has kept the four-beat percussive plena rhythm steady, while writing melodic cycles for the rest of the band in three or nine.

If you think that sounds complex, you’re right. (Mr. Zenón graduated from Berklee College of Music in 1998 and had no formal math training beyond high school. Still, he has a math-and-science way of thinking.) Yet his compositions are always clear and organized, and when they’re making references to folklore, they keep the feeling of dance in them.

The number three, incidentally, has no other significance than the three panderos. Mr. Zenón laughed at the notion that it could signify the trinity. “When I write anything, I need something concrete to help me, something outside of music,” he explained. “On another project it might be letters.”

After the shows at the Jazz Gallery Mr. Zenón will record “Esta Plena” for his next album. And — given the financial freedom of the MacArthur award — then what?

He has an idea. Recently, he said, he was watching the documentary “Heima,” about how the Icelandic rock band Sigur Ros thanked the fans in its home country by playing an unusual series of free concerts: in factories, small-town community centers and even in fields and caves. Mr. Zenón said he got the urge to do something similar in Puerto Rico, particularly in small towns and mountainside areas where jazz is almost never heard.

It could make a difference, he said, to play jazz of the sturdiest sort; not his own, but music by Charlie Parker or John Coltrane or Miles Davis. He might also talk to audiences about improvising, play them records, offer clinics.

“When I grew up there,” he said, “there wasn’t really any live jazz. It was usually background music, and it was always the same eight or nine guys in San Juan. So I saw this movie, and I started thinking: man, if I could do that, just play the music, without having to worry about the business part — tickets, publicity, who’s going to pay the guys, are enough people going to show up — it would be incredible.”

Miguel Zenón performs Thursday through Sunday, 9 and 10:30 p.m., at the Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, South Village, (212) 242-1063, jazzgallery.org.