Black Music Sunday is a weekly sequence highlighting all issues Black music, with over 260 tales overlaying performers, genres, historical past, and extra, every that includes its personal vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll discover some acquainted tunes and maybe an introduction to one thing new.
Persevering with our celebration of Caribbean American Heritage Month we transfer from the English-speaking islands to those who communicate Spanish, and to father and son artists whose musical heritage is each Cuban and African—each are named Arturo O’Farrill.
The daddy of this duo, Arturo “Chico” O’Farrell, joined the ancestors on June 27, 2001. Music critic Ben Ratliff wrote his New York Occasions obituary:
Arturo O’Farrill was born in Havana to an upper-middle-class household; his father was from Eire and his mom had a German background. His mother and father despatched him to navy faculty in Georgia, the place he realized to play trumpet and heard big-band jazz for the primary time. His mother and father, horrified that he was consorting with black musicians as an alternative of pursuing a profession in legislation, didn’t share his pleasure, though his father organized for Mr. O’Farrill to check association with the Cuban composer Felix Guerrero.
He plunged into Havana’s nightlife, which was teeming with American jazz, and performed trumpet with a number of dance bands, together with Orquesta Bellemar, Armando Oréfiche’s Lecuona Cuban Boys and Los Newyorkers. On the time he was primarily desirous about jazz.
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Mr. O’Farrill, who had studied arranging in Cuba, used his data in a job with the Benny Goodman band, writing ”Undercurrent Blues,” a preferred quantity for Goodman’s bebop-inspired ensemble. (It was Goodman who bestowed the nickname Chico.) However most of Mr. O’Farrill’s work, as he recalled, was ghostwriting for ghostwriters, writing preparations for arrangers like Walter (Gil) Fuller, Quincy Jones and Billy Byers, who already had an excessive amount of work on their arms. Quickly he related with the impresario Norman Granz, who helped put collectively a Machito recording session together with Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips and Buddy Wealthy. ”The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite,” the piece they recorded on Dec. 21, 1950, was Mr. O’Farrill’s first masterpiece as a composer, an bold work that took the graduated crescendo of Latin big-band music and utilized to it a classical sense of contrasting themes and complex concord.
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He labored with Gillespie as nicely, writing ”The Manteca Suite.” In 1955 Mr. O’Farrill left New York, ducking marital and authorized hassle, ending up again in Cuba and, two years later, Mexico. He stayed in Mexico Metropolis till 1965, recording albums there with Cuarteto D’Aida, the pianist and singer Bola de Nieve and the percussionist Gírardo Rodriguez. He additionally composed one other of his main works, ”The Aztec Suite,” for the trumpeter Artwork Farmer, in addition to ”Six Jazz Moods,” a 12-tone piece.
AllAboutJazz continues his story:
His best-known piece of the interval, “Manteca,” was written with Dizzy Gillespie and has turn into maybe the signature variety of Latin jazz. On the peak of the mambo craze, O’Farrill fashioned his personal band and performed within the U.S. and Cuba. Round 1955, he moved again to Havana, after which to Mexico Metropolis, partially to keep away from numerous authorized and romantic entanglements. He did no matter writing and conducting jobs it took to get by, though he did handle to compose one other of his main works, “The Aztec Suite,” for the trumpeter Artwork Farmer, in addition to “Six Jazz Moods,” a 12-tone piece. He additionally labored with pianist Bola da Nieve and the Cuarteto D’Aida. He returned to the States in 1965, the place he continued to rearrange for Gillespie, Basie, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and Gato Barbieri. He additionally delved into the industrial market.
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It was not till the critically-acclaimed 1995 launch, “Pure Emotion,” that O’Farrill actually emerged from obscurity. “Pure Emotion” was nominated for a Grammy, and the Jazz at Lincoln Middle program commissioned him to jot down a bit, “Trumpet Fantasy,” that includes Wynton Marsalis.
Right here’s O’Farrill’s and Gillespie’s “Manteca” traditional:
Jazz followers who rejoice Charles “Yardbird” Parker (or simply Hen) might not be conscious of his work with Chico. Musician and jazz critic Raul de Gama at LatinJazzNet reminds us of one thing usually missed:
The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite is essentially remembered as a Norman Granz fee. The rationale for that is that the legendary Charlie Parker participated within the first Suite, accomplished and recorded in December, 1950. Furthermore, even lots of the musical arts cognoscenti will recall this primary Suite as music carried out by Machito. Most listeners overlook that it was Chico O’Farrill who wrote, organized and carried out the piece first for Machito and his Afro-Cuban Orchestra. Then in 1952, Mr. O’Farrill organized and carried out what he known as The Second Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite, this time with the vastly expanded Chico O’Farrill Orchestra
Give it a pay attention:
After a few years out of the jazz public eye, Chico O’Farrill’s “Pure Emotion” album in 1995 spearheaded his comeback. Richard S. Ginell at AllMusic posted this assessment:
After not having led a recording session below his personal title in 29 years, O’Farrill got here from seemingly out of nowhere to steer a terrific Afro-Cuban huge band date on this CD. O’Farrill claims that he turned down presents to steer normal seven or eight-piece salsa bands on information over time, preferring to attend till an enormous band alternative got here alongside – and clearly, he was bursting with accrued charts courting from the Sixties by means of the Nineties. Not an excessive amount of has modified since O’Farrill’s thrilling string of albums for Clef within the Nineteen Fifties; if something, his arranging hand has turn into surer, extra refined, completely in contact as ever with all kinds of influences. Most putting of all is how O’Farrill was capable of construct a hearth beneath the musicians within the band, which incorporates leaders in their very own proper like trombonist Robin Eubanks, conguero Jerry Gonzalez and drummer Steve Berrios, in addition to Tito Puente’s tenor sax/flute participant Mario Rivera and O’Farrill’s son Arturo Jr. on piano.
“Perdido” from the album, has me up and dancing!
I discovered a terrific clip of Chico conducting his band in NYC—sadly haven’t been capable of pinpoint the place and when this was recorded.
Chico’s son Arturo O’Farrill was born in Mexico on June 22, 1960. Right here’s a section of his biography from his web site:
Arturo O’Farrill, pianist, composer, and educator, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York Metropolis. Arturo’s skilled profession started with the Carla Bley Band and continued as a solo performer with a large spectrum of artists together with Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Belafonte.
In 2007, he based the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance as a not-for-profit group devoted to the efficiency, schooling, and preservation of Afro Latin music. […]
In December 2010 Arturo traveled with the unique Chico O’Farrill Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra to Cuba, returning his father’s musicians to his homeland. He continues to journey to Cuba commonly as an off-the-cuff Cultural Ambassador, working with Cuban musicians, dancers, and college students, bringing native musicians from Cuba to the US and American musicians to Cuba.
NPR featured him in a Tiny Desk live performance again in 2013:
NPR video notes by Felix Contreras provides some context of the live performance:
The octet you see on this video is a stripped-down model of the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, which is at the very least twice as giant — do not assume I did not attempt to get the entire band behind Bob Boilen’s desk — and devoted to each preserving the legacy of the elder O’Farrill and documenting the youthful musician’s efforts to maneuver the music ahead.
The musicians with whom Arturo O’Farrill surrounds himself all play with depth that attracts from each traditions. It was a thrill to listen to such great late-night music so early within the morning — and an honor to have O’Farrill ask me to sit down in with the band and share the conga chair with Tony Rosa. Enjoying with musicians of this caliber all the time steps up your recreation, and on this present day, I did my finest and had numerous enjoyable within the course of.
In 2015 he was featured on NPR’s Jazz Night time in America, opening a musical dialogue in Cuba:
The video notes:
The pianist and composer Arturo O’Farrill is aware of higher than nearly anybody that over 50 years of a commerce embargo between the U.S. and Cuba hasn’t totally prevented the change of jazz between the 2 nations. He is recognized it since he first visited Cuba in 2002. Not that he is completely happy concerning the relationship. Years of fruitful dialogue between musicians have been misplaced, and because the chief of an enormous band often known as the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, that is an issue he desires to handle.
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Arturo O’Farrill’s newest file with the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra is named Cuba: The Dialog Continues. He bought six composers to examine, in their very own methods, the continuation of a musical dialog that Gillespie and Pozo began. And he recorded it in Havana — simply days after President Barack Obama introduced that the U.S. was looking for to normalize relations with Cuba
This 2016 article about him posted at HuffPost could be very related in at the moment’s political local weather:
The creatively vibrant chief whose huge band does a weekly Sunday night time residency at Birdland (nevertheless, November is darkish), Arturo is the outspoken son of the late Chico O’Farrill, the Afro-Cuban jazz legend who composed and organized within the lineage of Duke Ellington and who wrote the extraordinary “The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite,” which jazz icon Charlie Parker performed on. Whereas dad was a quiet, slight, soft-spoken man (with a terrific humorousness), son has turn into not solely one of many pack of forward-looking Afro-jazz leaders and mentors however along with his boisterous character additionally a socio/political critic of the sorry state of the fracturing union–from assist of the Black Lives Matter motion response to the escalation of police killing unarmed black males to vehement critiques of the insanity of this yr’s zany presidential race. His favourite goal? Naturally, Donald Trump.
At this yr’s North Sea Jazz Competition in Rotterdam, Holland, the place the orchestra performed two nights, the New York-based O’Farrill’s delivered his composition “Trump, Fuck Trump,” a tune he expounded on by saying he was heartbroken by that “horrible fat-fingered man with an orange toupee and orange skin whose heart doesn’t care and who brings people to divide.” With a dissonant and fractured piano open, a stop-and-start whirl of horns, turbulent percussion, ALJO instrumentally blasted the Republican Celebration presidential candidate, and as if on cue, a canine outdoors the Congo stage tent incessantly barked all through the music.
In a curated dialog on the competition, O’Farrill informed me, “Do politics and music go together? Oh yeah. Think of the history of jazz–this music that was born in a bordello in New Orleans at a time of extreme racism and segregation. That’s about the most political thing you can talk about. So jazz is a subversive, politically charged music. You can’t separate it. People may commodify it to make it safe, but this music is revolution. You can’t play or listen to this without understanding the struggle of blacks and whites and poverty. I can’t ignore this in good conscience even if it may hurt my career. But it’s really about the music and the truth in social causes. It’s because I care.”
O’Farrill held an absorbing dialog final yr, on the Library of Congress’ music division. Right here’s hoping that these sorts of packages can proceed.
I’m a fan of stay Latin music, and particularly wish to see it introduced into communities the place individuals can stand up on their ft and dance, so right here’s a clip of Bilongo performing the Afro-Cuban traditional “La Negra Tomasa” stay in New York’s Bryant Park final yr.
Journalist Brooks Geiken just lately lined O’Farrill on this assessment of his tribute to jazz composer, pianist, and organist Carla Bley:
Mundoagua Celebrating Carla Bley, Arturo O’Farrill and The Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra’s fifth file for the Zoho label, is a triumph, plain and easy. The album is split into three sections: the primary, Mundoagua, focuses on the political/international implications of water; the second contains 4 Bley compositions entitled “Blue Palestine Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4”; the third, Día de Los Muertos, is impressed by O’Farrill’s childhood rising up in Mexico Metropolis.
In “Mundoagua I: Glacial” the whole trumpet part struts its collective stuff. Adam O’Farrill, Rachel Therrien, Seneca Black, and Bryan Davis all take turns enjoying sizzling jazz for a decidedly cold-titled music. “Mundoagua II: Mundoagua” advantages from the cliché-free work of baritone saxophonist Larry Bustamante. Lastly, throughout the closing half, “Mundoagua III: The Politics of Water,” a jarring model of “The Star Spangled Banner” emerges throughout the efficiency of the primary composition, leading to a chaotic musical assertion.
The following part, “Blue Palestine,” consists of 4 Bley compositions and, given the state of affairs of the world at the moment, these items couldn’t be extra well timed. Bley was a gifted and politically engaged composer, a devoted fighter for human rights by means of the Liberation Music Orchestra. In these 4 severe compositions she has introduced the dire state of affairs in Gaza straight into the listener’s ears. Within the third motion, Bley’s daughter, Karen Mantler, solos on harmonica after which fantastically states the melody on organ.
The first riff in “Día de Los Muertos I Flowery Death” was impressed by Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo’s “Manteca.” O’Farrill distorts the tune simply sufficient to suit his personal fashionable sensibility and it’s a fascinating interpretation. The second part, “Día de Los Muertos II La Bruja,” begins with Sergio Ramírez’s lilting acoustic guitar intro and Rachel Therrien’s muted trumpet work. O’Farrill writes in his notes that the final motion, “Día de Los Muertos III Mambo Cadaverous,” is pure cartoon. Try J.M. Posada’s drawings, which embody dancing skeletons, and you’re going to get the thought. A rumba rhythm precedes the doorway of the orchestra, which proceeds to play in a jaunty, up and down method, suggesting the jiggly motion of the skeletons.
Give a hearken to the title monitor, “Mundoagua:”
In closing, I wish to be aware {that a} third O’Farrill, Adam, has entered the musical dialog:
Be part of me within the feedback part beneath for extra latin jazz, and for the weekend celebration of musician birthdays and departures.
