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"Latin Jazz Master Il"

Paquito D'Rivera Quintet

Sunday, June 11 • 7pm

“[His] virtuosity beams forth from the first note of any performance.”
—The New York Times

An NEA Jazz Master and a onetime member of the Latin jazz supergroup Irakere, Cuban-born clarinet and sax master Paquito D’Rivera is “one of the premier reed stylists of the last 30 years” (JazzTimes) and an all-around “formidable musician” (The New York Times). With six Grammy Awards to his credit, he has received a new Grammy nomination for his 2005 disc, Paquito D'Rivera & The Jazz Chamber Trio.

Tim & Nancy Howes

Program Notes

Perhaps the most successful Cuban artist to soar to jazz glory in the U.S., reeds player Paquito D’Rivera has scored six Grammy Awards, become a marquee performing artist around the world and is a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. JazzTimes has written that D’Rivera is “one of the premier reeds stylists of the last 30 years.” He’s also one of the most jovial and jocular musicians in the business. His presence at any show, whether he’s the leader or a sideman, buoys the proceedings.

Born and raised in Havana, D’Rivera was classically trained from a young age. But he gravitated to jazz after hearing the 1938 recording of Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall with Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa and Teddy Wilson. Upon hearing a track from that concert at a Down Beat Blindfold Test at IAJE three years ago, he said, “Benny was my first influence after my father, who was a saxophone player. My father played me that famous album, which was the first jazz record I owned.”

Well-versed in many styles of music, D’Rivera went on to become a founding member of two of Cuba’s greatest groups, the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna and Irakere, pioneering ensembles for integrating the Afro-Cuban tradition with American jazz. Both also featured Arturo Sandoval and Chucho Valdes. Irakere was signed to Columbia Records, which recorded the band’s self-titled U.S. debut, a Grammy-winner in 1979. A year later D’Rivera defected to the U.S., moved to New York, performed with Dizzy Gillespie and McCoy Tyner, and soon after formed his own bands.

Last year D’Rivera was the honoree of a star-studded tribute to his “50 years and 10 nights” in show business at Carnegie Hall. The show, starring and hosted by D’Rivera, featured the crème de la crème of Latin jazz.

— Dan Ouellette