This story is featured in CityBeat’s July 26 print edition.
Acclaimed trumpeter Arturo Sandoval has a packed summer schedule of international and national gigs, and fortunately, he’s scheduled for an appearance with Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra’s Summermusik series Aug. 19-20.
Sandoval highlights Summermusik’s “A Night in Havana,” playing his Trumpet Concerto No. 2 on Saturday evening and on Sunday, he fronts an afternoon of Afro-Cuban music.
Speaking from his home studio in Los Angeles, surrounded by keyboards and photos of music legends, Sandoval could be everyone’s favorite abuelo (grandfather), puffing on a huge cigar and smiling warmly. He was clearly pleased by the lineup of Cuban and Spanish composers Tania León, Silvestre Revueltas, Ernesto Lecuona and Joaquín Rodrigo included in “A Night in Havana” program. George Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture” opens the program.
“It’s a great honor to be playing this music and to know the audience will hear the sounds of Cuba and Spain,” Sandoval told CityBeat over Zoom. And with characteristic modesty, he added, “I’m just putting my little grain of sand in this concert.”
A sand dune is a better metaphor. At 73, Sandoval has racked up ten Grammys, an Emmy and the 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom. Since arriving in the U.S. in 1989, Sandoval has become a sought-after soloist, sideman, composer and educator. His recording credits extend from Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett to Gloria Estefan and Junior Mance. His jazz compositions are part of the canon, especially “Funky Cha-Cha” and the elegiac “A Mis Abuelos” (To My Grandparents), in addition to scores for TV and film.
In his native Cuba, he helped establish an orchestra that led to the formation of Irakere, the Afro-Cuban jazz ensemble led by pianist Chucho Valdés.
“I was obsessed with jazz since the first time I heard it when I was 12,” he said. “But jazz musicians didn’t get a lot of respect until Irakere began touring the world.”
Sandoval made a name for himself as a young musician in Cuba with stratospheric high notes and rapid-fire melodic lines of a seasoned veteran. Those remain part of his arsenal, but they’re not the priority.
“I’m not after the high notes,” he insisted. “I want to make the best sounds I can — whatever I’m playing.”
Sandoval’s compositions are rooted in his love for Western classical music. His trumpet concerto is just one of several pieces he has written for soloist and orchestra. The Concerto No. 2 was written in 2017; Sandoval did the orchestration and arrangement for a large orchestra. The CCO performs a chamber version by Gregg August.
The concerto is more on the order of a wordless song cycle for the trumpet.
“It isn’t Cuban; it’s romantic,” Sandoval said. “I love a beautiful melody and giving it a scoring that brings out that beauty.”
The first movement is an elegant allegro, the second, a plaintive lament and the final movement is a repeated melody with occasional Latin flourish on the trumpet.
And unlike a standard concerto, the trumpet doesn’t have a cadenza, an elaborate solo spotlighting the soloist’s virtuosity. The master of the trumpet’s high notes and melodic fireworks ceded that honor to the first chair violinist.
“It’s not necessary for the trumpet,” he shrugged with a smile.
The evening concludes with Sandoval singing a love song to his hero, iconic trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.
“I wanted to learn his music the first time I heard it,” Sandoval recalled. “I wrote ‘Every Day I Think of You’ because I do, every day.”
Gillespie was in the vanguard of bebop, known for breakneck tempos, chord changes and improvising. His colleagues were among jazz’s greats: Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk. He was unmistakable with his signature 45-degree bent-angle trumpet, his cheeks ballooning as he played.
Gillespie was the first American jazz musician permitted to perform in Cuba. He and Sandoval first met in 1977 and whenever Gillespie returned, the two spent hours playing and talking, forging a lasting friendship.
In 1989, Gillespie invited Sandoval to join his United Nations Orchestra tour of Europe. Through Gillespie’s connections and intervention, Sandoval, his wife and son defected and arrived in New York.
“It’s a simple song and it’s from my heart,” Sandoval says. “Every day, I play one of his records and I have one of his bent-angle trumpets. I’d give anything to play with him one more time.”
The song is a loving recollection of a musician and gentle man, and in Sandoval’s accented English, a moving tribute.
“You saved my life, Diz. You set me free.”
More Gillespie tributes are on Sunday, when Sandoval joins members of the CCO for an afternoon of Afro-Cuban music, including two Gillespie classics, “Groovin’ High” and “A Night in Tunisia.”
Amid the gigs, composing and teaching, Sandoval’s priority is a higher profile for jazz and Gillespie’s music.
“Jazz is such a legacy and cultural contribution to the world and it’s more appreciated outside of the U.S. If we don’t respect and promote it here, we’re committing a crime.”
Arturo Sandoval will be performing as part of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra’s Summermusik series on Aug. 19 and 20. Info: ccocincinnati.org.
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This article appears in Jul 12-25, 2023.
