David Sanchez Sextet

It is very fitting that saxophonist and composer David Sánchez came to international prominence as a member of trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation Orchestra. The musical pioneer was a champion of exploring and bringing out the Afro-Cuban roots in jazz.

Sánchez’s new suite, La Leyenda del Cañaveral, also digs deep. The extended composition, made possible by a grant from Chamber Music America, embraces the sounds he heard growing up in Puerto Rico, connecting them with music from East Cameroon and Tanzania. Based on a poem written by his sister, the piece was inspired by the travels of African slaves brought to the Caribbean and North American to work on sugar cane plantations.

“Sánchez allows that the ‘backbone’ of this new work is jazz, but what he does in the composition process is to reinterpret these African music forms through jazz conventions,” says New York Newsday. “But the more he studies African music, the more he sees unexpected connections with the music of his Caribbean homeland.”

At the age of twelve, Sanchez took up the saxophone and began to study the European classical tradition at La Escuela Libre de Musica. An epiphany came at age 16, when he heard recordings by Miles Davis and Billie Holiday for the first time. He received a scholarship from Rutgers University in New Jersey where he studied with pianist Kenny Barron, saxophonist John Purcell (World Saxophone Quartet) and the late guitarist Ted Dunbar.

As a recording artist, each subsequent project Sanchez has released has been greeted by more exuberant praise. His 2000 Melaza (Columbia) incorporated Puerto Rican rhythms, while his Grammy-winning 2004 album Coral (Columbia) explored significant Brazilian and Argentinean pieces with the City of Prague Chamber Orchestra.

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• David Sanchez, tenor saxophone