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Jazz Articles about Arturo O'Farrill
Arturo O’Farrill: The Arts Belong to the People
by Steven Roby
The first thing you notice about Arturo O'Farrill is how completely he turns purpose into sound. Whether he's speaking about water, memory, or the way a room breathes during a concert, the GRAMMY-winning pianist and composer treats music as a living system--one that welcomes humor, fury, and community in equal measure. That sensibility powers his new project, Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley (Zoho), and it animates his return to SFJAZZ Center, where he'll lead a charged, pan-American ensemble built for openness ...
Continue ReadingArturo O'Farrill: It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Sting!
by Leo Sidran
Arturo O'Farrill was, by his own admission, a “long-haired, stoned-out freaky kid" of 19, playing piano in a small bar in upstate New York when he caught the ear of pianist and composer Carla Bley. She took a chance on him and invited him to join her band--a pivotal moment for the young musician who, at the time, was actively distancing himself from the legacy of his father, the Cuban-born composer and arranger Chico O'Farrill, a central figure in Afro-Cuban ...
Continue ReadingArturo O'Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley
by Angelo Leonardi
Scoperto da Carla Bley nel 1979, quand'era ancora studente diciannovenne, e rimasto nei suoi gruppi per tre anni, Arturo O'Farrill ne celebra la memoria con quest'album ambizioso, che raccoglie due sue suites ed una ("Blue Palestine") che lui stesso commissionò alla grande autrice e bandleader nel 2019, quattro anni prima della sua morte. “Mundoagua" la composizione che apre il disco è stata scritta per commemorare l'Anno dell'acqua ed ha avuto la sua anteprima al Miller Theater di New ...
Continue ReadingArturo O'Farrill: Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley
by Jack Bowers
Mundoagua, the latest album by composer and pianist Arturo O'Farrill's Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, is subdivided into three suites, the second of which is the four-movement “Blue Palestine," written and arranged by another celebrated composer and pianist, Carla Bley, a leading light in the avant-garde free jazz movement of the mid-twentieth century, who died of cancer in October 2023. The opening suite, “Mundoagua," commissioned by the Columbia University School of the Arts in 2018 to commemorate the ...
Continue ReadingArturo O'Farrill, Allison Miller, Willie Morris and T.K. Blue
by Hobart Taylor
Arturo O'Farrill celebrates the music of Carla Bley plus new music from Allison Miller, Willie Morris and T.K. Blue.Playlist Jenny Hill “Deluxe Secret Sauce" from Floating (Self Prouced) 0:00 Arturo O'Farrill Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra" Blue Palestine Part 1" from Mundoagua Celebrating Carla Bley (Zoho) 3:06 Allison Miller “Fierce" from Big and Lovely (Royal Potato Family) 11:40 Host Speaks 19:12 Willie Morris" Comfort Zone" from Unbound Inner (Posi-Tone) 20:32 Pritesh Walia" Low Talks" from Hope Town (PSA) 29:28 ...
Continue ReadingClaudia Acuna: Duo
by Angelo Leonardi
Alcuni classici della canzone popolare latina costituiscono il nucleo del sesto disco da leader di Claudia Acuña. In questa celebrazione la cantante cilena ha coinvolto sette protagonisti del jazz contemporaneo in altrettante esecuzioni in duo caratterizzate da palpitante relazione con la loro identità tradizionale. I due brani conclusivi sono cantati in inglese e la vedono piena protagonista: “Cristal Silence" di Chick Corea è cantato a cappella; “YO" è una sua composizione originale eseguita con un sottofondo percussivo. ...
Continue Reading3x3: Jazz Trios Playful and Pensive
by John Chacona
Can we finally retire the assertion that we are living in a Golden Age of the jazz piano trio? It seems like every month brings trio dates of such imagination and accomplishment as to render superlatives beside the point. These three recordings released in an eight-week period in Spring 2023 are a reminder that one of the most venerable formations in jazz continues to be a laboratory for innovation. Drawing from a kaleidoscope of tone and mood from playful to ...
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