This montage of the October 23 Benefit for Puerto Rico at Poisson Rouge (the old Village Gate) was created and contributed by the very talented Garbriel Moreno of Tableaux Multimedia.
Select video of the actual concert will be coming soon. Watch for it here.
Jazz and Latin music have been brothers for as long as jazz has been an art form
Jelly Roll Morton laid it out:
“If you can’t manage to put tinges of Spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right seasoning, I call it, for jazz.”
In 1930, Don Azpiazu knocked down the doors of American popular music with The Peanut Vendor.
Machito and his musical hermano (and real life brother-in-law) Mario Bauzá kicked it into high gear with one of the greatest big bands ever to rock a jazz stage.
Then in 1947, thanks to an introduction by Bauzá, bepop pioneer Dizzy Gillespie teamed up with Chano Pozo to create a model for collaborations between Latin and Jazz musicians that has been going strong ever since.
Started by the Mario Bauzá’s rhythm section and jazzman Sonny Fortune, Monday night at the Gate was THE place to go with crowds lining up around the block to get in.
On Monday October 23, 2017, in support of the people of Puerto Rico, many of the giants who were part of this legendary time came back for a once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-repeated reunion with Bobby Sanabria‘s big band Multiverse.
Over time, we will be releasing video of this historic event.
Meanwhile, this is what it’s all about…
No sightseers please. We need givers right now. Please read how you can help.
Gershwin took a two-week holiday in Havana in February 1932 and came back with this.
The work, under the original title “Rumba”, later named “Cuban Overture”, received its première at New York’s now-demolished Lewisohn Stadium 16 August 16,1932, as part of an all-Gershwin program held by New York Philharmonic.
The concert was a huge success. As Gershwin wrote:
It was, I really believe, the most exciting night I have ever had…17,845 people paid to get in and just about 5,000 were at the closed gates trying to fight their way in—unsuccessfully
George Gershwin’s Cuban Overture. Recorded at the Berlin Philharmonie, September 8, 2012
Leonard Bernstein was a fan of Cuba too and, like Gershwin, took a two week-holiday there to recuperate after the commercial failure of his Broadway show Candide in 1955.
He came back from the trip rejuvenated. Some of this energy helped him persist in his ultimate success bringing “West Side Story” to the stage.
Leonard Bernstein’s “Mambo” from West Side Story by the Berliner Philharmoniker. Ingo Metzmacher, conductor. Recorded at the Berlin Philharmonie, September 8, 2012.
Igor Stravinsky visited Cuba too at the height of his career in 1946 to perform – and as a student of rhythm.
“How about Stravinsky?” The composer’s name is mentioned in Cachao’s curriculum vitae. And it has been said that Stravinsky’s use of rhythm sometimes resembles the Afro-Cuban.
“Stravinsky was my friend. I played the ‘Firebird’ and ‘Petrouchka’ with Stravinsky conducting in Cuba. He was a simple man, ugly like me…”
“No no,” the interpreter interrupted.
“…but very nice. Noble. He was interested in Cuban rhythms. I took him to the clubs to hear Cuban bands and he tried to notate the rhythms on paper. They are complex, very difficult to transcribe.” Cachao tapped a fast two-handed mambo beat on the table. Coffee cups bounced.
Then there’s Aaron Copland
A friend heard his “El Salón México” and asked him why he called it “Mexican” when it was clearly based on a Cuban Danzón.
Copland said that he first heard the style at a dance hall in Mexico City and didn’t realize it had is origins in Cuba and was a Cuban form.
To make up for his gaff he wrote “Danzón Cubano” which he plays here as a piano duet with his friend and colleague Leo Smit.
Aaron Copland’s “Danzón Cubano” performed by Copland and Leo Smit.
Here’s Copland performing “El Salón México.”
Still watching and reading?
Good!
Now here’s a secret about Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture” which very few people know.
This comes from the excellent movie: “Cachao: como su ritmo no hay dos” directed by Andy Garcia
The story of Gershwin and Pinero is interesting told to me by Ignacio Pinero himself.
He told me one night he was walking around. It was 1936 or 1937 and along the street as it often happened in Havana, all the doors and windows were open and he heard this music.
“Ah, that sounds familiar.”
He went to the house and asked the lady there: “What is that?”
She replied “That’s the “Cuban Overture” by the great George Gershwin.”
So in the Cuban Overture by great George Gershwin there were various chunks of “Echale Salsita.” (Pinero’s composition!)
They asked Piniero if he wanted to sue Gershwin.
He replied: “Oh, no, no. I’m satisfied that the great George Gershwin considers me a part of Cuban Folklore.”
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
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Thanks.
Bobby Sanabria explains what’s in store for the audience this Monday, October 23 at Poisson Rouge in New York City: an unprecedented meeting of Jazz and Latin superstars to benefit Puerto Rico.
August 2017, Jazz on the Tube brought Havana jazz educator Camilo Moreira to New York City and the Bronx to experience US jazz and meet his Latin jazz “uncles” and “cousins” in the U.S. first hand for the first time. (Camilo has been up before but always with heavy work loads that didn’t permit him to do any of his own explorations.)
Bobby Sanabria kindly took us around the Bronx to learn about the mostly unknown history of this most important and under-appreciated hotbed for musical innovation in America. We also hit the clubs and other resources like the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, the Bronx Music Heritage Center and the Schomburg Center in Harlem.
The Bronx: One of the most innovative music communities on earth.
Coltrane, Monk, Miles, Dizzy, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, and others all found audiences in the borough’s vast network of live music venues as did Machito, Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, Celia Cruz, Mongo Santamaria, and many others.
Bobby Sanabria, Mike Amadeo, and Camilo at Casa Amadeo. Amadeo, proprietor of the oldest Latin music store in the Bronx, is the author of over 300 songs written for and performed by the likes of Celia Cruz, Danny Rivera and Cheito Gonzalez.
An original mint condition disk of the super hit of 1930, “El Manisero” (The Peanut Vendor), the first million seller in Latin music history.
The remaining facade of one of over one hundred live theaters, concert halls and night clubs that used to dot the Bronx.
The South Bronx in 1976 when presidential Jimmy Carter candidate visited for a photo op. Devastated by highways built through the community, bank redlining, the heroin epidemic launched by the Vietnam War and calculated government neglect, this immigrant and working class community was plunged into social and economic chaos. The sense of unease felt by the outsiders, including New York City’s mayor at the time, is palpable in this photo.
The Puerto Rican community fought back against long odds on many fronts. The “Three Sisters” (Las Tres Hermanas) Evelina Lopez Antonetty, Lillian Lopez, and Elba Cabrera took leadership roles in the arts, libraries and the public school system demanding and winning equal treatment for the Bronx.
Bobby shares some details of the history of the Bronx’s Puerto Rican community at the Bronx Music Heritage Center where he is Co-Artistic Director.
Camilo stands with Las Tres Hermanas in front of the Casita Maria Community Center.
Here’s the text of the plaque Camilo is standing in front of in the first picture:
This neighborhood has been the incubator to more different styles of music than any other area in New York City. A home for Jazz, Doo Wop, R&B, and Latin music in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s, the area continues to be a home to many of the innovators of Hip Hop.
On any given night from the 1940’s through the 60’s, one could see and hear jazz legends such as Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Maxine Sullivan, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Charlie Parker, Helen Merrill, Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins, Nancy Wilson, Henry “Red” Allen and Elmo Hope perform in any one of the area’s many music venues.
These clubs, such as Blue Morocco, Club 845, The Tropicana, The McKinley Theater, Freddie’s, The Embassy Ballroom and The Hunt’s Point Palace also gave rise to Doo-Wop and R&B greats such as the Chantels, The Crickets, The Limelighters, Arthur Crier, The Chords, The Morrisania Revue, The Wrens, Mickey and Sylvia and the Jimmy Castor Bunch. Local Latin Jazz and Salsa stars who could also be heard here included Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, Machito, Celia Cruz and Mongo Santamaria.
These celebrated musicians lived, worked and played here and pioneered new genres of music and dance that continue to inspire future generations.
Ella Fitzgerald