Trumpeter Sandoval opens jazz series
Trumpeter Arturo Sandoval has a busy year ahead: so many presentations and concerts that even a pop star or rock idol would feel some envy.
Sandoval, who also has a new CD, will be at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, opening the 2015-16 Morgan Stanley Jazz series. Patti LaBelle and Tony Bennett are scheduled to perform in the series early next year at the downtown Orlando venue.
His concert promises to be splendid. Sandoval will come to Orlando with his own band and original material. And it is his originality, among other things, that has kept him a popular performer among jazz enthusiasts.
Sandoval, 65, has been awarded 10 Grammys and been nominated 10 times; he also has received six Billboard Awards and an Emmy. In 2013 he was a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient.
And the Cuban-American artist recently added another accolade to his résumé: the 2015 Hispanic Heritage Award, presented by the Hispanic Heritage Foundation. Sandoval said he was moved by the gesture.
“While it is an honor and a great pride, it is also a challenge, because [this special recognition] forces you to continue doing your best, to continue being a [role] model, especially for the young, so that they can see that there is always a chance to improve and space to develop a career,” he said from his home in California.
It has been a very long road for Sandoval, born in 1949 in Artemisa, a small town on the outskirts of Havana.
He began his classical-trumpet studies when he was 12. He was one of the founding members of the group Irakere, which caused a sensation for its mixture of rhythms such as jazz and rock with traditional Cuban music.
At age 40, he defected to Florida, where he lived for decades.
Today, Sandoval has plenty to say about U.S.-Cuban relations.
“While the intention [of the United States to open a dialogue with Cuba to push for freedoms] is noble, and we appreciate it, the [Cuban] government has responded by continuing to suppress our people, continuing to put political dissidents behind bars, continuing to beat people with sticks on the streets and simply doing what they’ve been doing for the past 56 years: running a perverse and opprobrious dictatorship that has destroyed the island,” Sandoval said.
He added that the new relations between the U.S. and the island are “a double-edged sword that has confused many people to the reality of what is happening in Cuba.”
“Nothing has changed in people’s daily lives there,” he said.
Sandoval has written songs for movies such as 1992’s “The Mambo Kings,” starring Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas, and last year he released a tribute to Mexican singer and composer Armando Manzanero, the first record in which Sandoval sings.
“I don’t know what people will say about singing, but I enjoyed it a lot, and I understand that he [Manzanero] is very grateful and pleased with the production. The arrangements are by Jorge Calandrelli, an Argentinian successful musician based in the U.S. and in demand by artists such as Tony Bennett and Barbra Streisand,” Sandoval added.
His most recent CD is “Live at Yoshi’s.” The venue in Oakland, Calif., is a mecca for jazz fans and, according to Sandoval, “the best jazz club” in the country.
The Dr. Phillips Center is “excited to have such a dynamic performer” launch the jazz series, said president and CEO Kathy Ramsberger in an email.
“Arturo Sandoval is a true treasure of the jazz world,” she said.