Musicians spread joy of Afro-Latin jazz

How were you introduced to jazz?

My cousin was the top steel guitar player in Texas. When I was a teenager, he came to visit and broke out the steel and started learning “Mercy Mercy Me,” the jazz version, by ear. He was one of the few steel guitar players that could play jazz. I decided that was what I wanted to play. I loved the freedom and the blues feeling. That was it for me. I sent away to Berklee School of Music in Boston and started studying jazz theory by correspondence. I studied and practiced and listened on my own. Late one night, I was listening to a jazz show on the radio and heard jazz artist Daniel Jackson. He was offering a jazz class at the historic Black and Tan Club on 30th and Imperial. I was there the next night and Daniel became my mentor and teacher. That started my intense study of jazz via the oral tradition. I went into the woodshed, which is when you practice eight to 10 hours a day. Daniel and other jazz musicians would guide me and show me things. Eventually, I began performing and have ‘til this day.

Tell us about Samsara.

The group that is performing for this project are all old friends. Ignacio Arango is from Cuba and I worked for 10 years with him at Croce's downtown with the group Kokopelli. Robert Felcher is from New York and is another old friend I have worked with through the years and a monster conguero. Cesar Lozano is a genius drummer, a legend, one of the best jazz drum soloists I have ever heard. We will also be joined by special guest, multi-instumentalist Dave Millard, another genius who is one of my oldest friends. So, I guess you could say this is a band of old friends who love each other dearly. You can hear that love and respect in the music.

You all started this AfroLatin Jazz jam session series at the end of April. Where did the idea for this come from? I have done this project three times before. First, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, at Hermann's Jazz Club. It was wildly successful and led to us creating the Victoria Latin Jazz Festival, where I performed with Adonis Puentes and we brought Jane Bunnett and the Spirits of Havana. When I returned to Mexico from Canada, I did the project in Rosarito at CultureBeat, which was one of Makeda Dread's binational centers. The Mexican people were so in love with jazz and eager to learn. It was wonderful. Then, a few years later, we did the project in Tijuana at El Tunal, another of Makeda's centers, for two summers bringing in all the top jazz artists of Tijuana and many from San Diego, lots of youth. Incredible.

What is it about Afro-Latin jazz that appeals to you? What is it about this genre that you want to share with audiences?

Turiya Mareya was 5 when she began learning to play the piano and she figures her family of musicians probably expected her to play in church. She had other plans.

“I studied a little bit of classical music, but quickly got bored with that. I didn't want to play the same thing every time. I wanted to improvise even before I knew what that was,” she says.

Growing up in Texas, her uncles were professional musicians who played country music, but loved playing the blues. One of her cousins was a popular, skilled steel guitar player who played the jazz version of Marvin Gaye's “Mercy Mercy Me” during a visit, and she was in love with the genre. For more than 45 years, Mareya's music career has focused on Latin jazz and included tours in Asia, Europe, Mexico, and Canada. She is joined by some of her musician and artist friends in bringing their Afro-Latin jazz jam sessions to the WorldBeat Cultural Center for the summer. Now in its third week, Mareya and Samsara — Cesar Lozano, Ignacio Arango, and Robert Felcher — perform from 3 to 6 p.m. every Sunday. (There's no cover charge and dinner reservations can be made by calling the cultural center.)

Mareya, 71, lives in Spring Valley and took some time to talk about this series, its focus on young people and communities of color, and a goal of using music as a bridge to bring San Diego communities together.

Latin jazz is about joy. It is also about spirituality. The rhythms that came from Africa to the new world were created in Africa to communicate with the creator, to bring the community together for celebration and ritual. For me, these rhythms are a door straight to heaven where our prayers are heard. They also make your body dance and move in response. When the music of Cuba and Puerto Rico came to New York in the 1950s, there was a fusion of New York jazz and the Caribbean. This created salsa and Latin jazz. It is a music I am passionate about and love to share.

What is the plan for the series?

We plan to run through the summer. We hope to bring in special guests and artists from Tijuana. Last week, we featured bassist Ray Casas, who is a rising star in Mexico. A phenomenal artist. Like most jam sessions, we start off with the house band and then bring up guests to showcase them. We would also love to feature spoken word artists and dancers with the music. Each week, we'll go where the spirit leads. We want to encourage openness and flexibility.

You've mentioned that there will be a special emphasis on youth and BIPOC

(Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities. What does this special emphasis look like, specifically? And, why do you want to focus on these groups of people in this music series?

When I started out, all the jam sessions were in the Black community where there was a vibrant music scene. After the construction of the [State Route] 94, the Black community was divided and, in a sense, isolated. All of a sudden, there were less and less opportunities for Black artists. I brought the first integrated band into Croce's in the early ‘90s. More and more young people of color stopped studying jazz, which was a music that, historically, came right out of their communities. Jazz became accessible more only in schools and universities and left the streets. We wanted to create a more diverse and welcoming environment for people of color. Having this project at an Afro-centric center like WorldBeat was intentional. In my years workfrom ing with Makeda Dread [executive director and founder of the World Beat Cultural Center], we have always tried to use music and art to educate and bring the different communities in San Diego together.

Can you talk about the ways that this music series will educate people and engage the community?

We will use this platform to talk about the history of the music and encourage diverse communities to come together to create music together. I can think of nothing more intimate. People that play music together must listen to each other on a deep level. Hopefully, they will learn to love each other. We are living in a time of horrific racial divides. Music, Makeda's wonderful food, and people talking, eating, and just physically being together will help bridge that ignorance and divide.

You've mentioned that “the WorldBeat Center is using music as a weapon to bring attention to traditionally marginalized communities and promote interaction between all areas of our city.” How is your series bringing attention to marginalized groups and promoting this interaction? The center itself is educational, with presentations of Black history that are being driven our schools and universities. The center is full of artwork and a museum, which teaches and enlightens. We are reaching out to artists in the Black and Latino communities and providing them a showcase. We are bringing artists from Tijuana and introducing the fantastic music community of the border that people of San Diego never get to experience. The power of the music itself is healing. There is a magic that is beyond words.

What's been challenging about your work on this current series at the WorldBeat Center?

The main challenge is helping people to understand the different goals and purposes of this project. It's a sensibility based on third-world musical traditions and cultures. It's a different approach. We do this for God, not for fame or even money. This is a deep passion built over a lifetime of social activism. As MLK said, “I just want to do God's will.” This is not to show off technique or for ego. This is for love, for God, for community.

What's been rewarding about this work?

It is always wonderful to work with WorldBeat, Makeda, and their incredible, selfless staff. I am honored and humbled to work with the caliber of musicians we have on this project. They are also the sweetest and kindest people imaginable. I love playing this music and sharing this music.

What has your work on this series at the WorldBeat Center taught you about yourself? I am never done. Every day, I have to challenge myself, not just in my playing, but in my own self growth, working with my own seeds of anger and ignorance. I have to learn more, be more, give more, love more.

What is the best advice you've ever received? [Jazz artist] Daniel Jackson told me to “play every time like it is the last time you will ever play.” That means that in that moment, I give everything I have, every bit of myself, being totally vulnerable and open.

What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?

That I still love country music. I don't play it, but it was the soundtrack of my childhood. I love the stories and it takes me back to my childhood in Texas. I remember my uncles and cousins playing and coming in at dawn from their gigs. My family came to Texas from Appalachia. All my great uncles played fiddles and guitar in bars all over Austin. My grandmother played mandolin. The deep history that came from Kentucky and West Virginia is in that music. It runs deep in my bones, as well.

Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend. Being with the people I love.