ARTURO O’FARRILL, pianist, composer, educator and winner of the Latin Jazz USA
Outstanding Achievement Award for 2003, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York city. He was exposed to Afro-Latin music at an very early age: He’s the son of Arturo “Chico” O’Farrill, who helped popularize the jazz genre.
In 2002, Arturo O’Farrill created the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra for Jazz at Lincoln Center that have performed an extensive concert schedule both at Lincoln Center and through national and international tours. His debut album with the Orchestra 'Una Noche Inolvidable' earned a GRAMMY award nomination in 2006.
Arturo O'Farrill's Song for Chico
is an album that would have done his father very proud. The "Chico" of the title is Cuban-born Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill, the senior (b.1921; d.2001), the visionary Latin jazz composer who wrote, most notoriously, the "Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite," recorded in 1950 by Machito and his Afro-Cuban Orchestra. This release won the 2008 GRAMMY for Best Latin Jazz Album of the Year.The disc opens with "Caravan", written by Juan Tizol and made famous by Duke Ellington and transformed with Papo Vazquez's infectious chart, adding a dark piano vamp and prominent conga, with a sizzling improvised centerpiece featuring tenorist Ivan Renta, trumpeter Michael Rodriguez, and trombonist Renaldo Jorge. The sound is bold and brassy, one foot in the streets of San Juan, Puerto Rico or Havana, Cuba, the other in the concert hall.
"Such Love", a composition of Arturo O'Farrill, is dedicated to the late saxophonist Sam Furnace, a mainstay in Chico's band . It opens with a stream of waving reeds and a trumpet fanfare that rolls into some lush harmony, followed by an O'Farrill cascade that leads into the multiple percussion.
Arturo O'Farrill includes two of his father's compositions, the infectious "Cuban Blues" (using the original chart) and his own setting of the warm ballad "The Journey" featuring Jim Seeley's soulful trumpet and O'Farill's delicate piano work.
Arturo O’Farrill was commissioned by Symphony Space, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and RD Rice Construction to compose a new piece of music to honor Bronx native and prospective Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. O’Farrill and his Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra will premiere the music at Symphony Space on November 5, 2009, with a second performance scheduled for the following evening.
ARTURO O'FARRILL website:
http://www.arturoofarrill.com/
