He’s coming to SFJAZZ at last! After being obliged to bow out of last fall’s San Francisco Jazz Festival due a scheduling conflict, NEA Jazz Master and six-time Grammy-winner Paquito D’Rivera comes to San Francisco on Sunday, June 11 to dazzle a Bay Area audience with his virtuosic sax and clarinet.

A co-founder in 1973 of the now-legendary Afro-Cuban jazz group Irakere (also featuring fellow Latin jazz maestros Chucho Valdés and Arturo Sandoval), D’Rivera defected to the United States in 1981. His music in the intervening 25 years has come to define a perfect synthesis of Cuban and American cultures. As Time Magazine wrote of his 1982 record, Mariel: “The bopped-up, romantic, salty, and sensuous jazz that he makes recognizes no real political boundary. It has roots equally in the hothouse Latin rhythms of his homeland and in the high flying horns of Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Lee Konitz.”

In addition to the longtime adulation of the American jazz audience, D’Rivera has earned unparalleled recognition in U.S. government circles: in 2005, he was added to the pantheon of NEA Jazz Masters and was awarded the National Medal of Arts, the nation’s highest honor for artistic excellence. In its tribute to D’Rivera on the Jazz Masters website, the NEA wrote, “Anyone looking for a picture depicting the joy of music-making need look no further than the optimistic visage of saxophonist-clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera.”
 

Paquito D'Rivera Quintet Sunday, June 11 • 7pm Herbst Theater

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This week's question, in honor of the upcoming "Fat Albert: Live Jazz + Classic Cartoons" concert on June 3:

In the ’70s Fat Albert cartoon, and in Bill Cosby's earlier stand-up routine based on his own childhood, what kind of monster was it that "ate up New York City"?

The 5th person to email us the correct answer will receive two free tickets to the June 3 concert.

Email Your Answer (include "Fat Albert" in the subject line of your email)

The fine print: Our contest winner will be notified directly by email, and both the winner’s name and the correct answer to the question will be published in next week’s e-News. The following are not eligible to enter: employees and current contractors of SFJAZZ and its seasonal sponsors; past e-News Jazz Trivia Contest winners.