STINGRAY DJAZZ PRESENTS: HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH

Visions of Music - World Jazz invites the viewer on a journey to the roots of music, introducing the enormous impact that traditional music from around the world has had on contemporary jazz. This program features legendary musicians such as BB King, Dino Saluzzi, Tito Puente, Carlos Santana, Zawinul Joe, Manu Dibango, Abdullah Ibrahim, as well as new generation representatives such as Nicholas Payton, Cyro Baptista, and Don Byron. This episode of the Visions of Music series focuses on flamenco, a musical style born in southern Spain, Andalusia. The first musicians who combined flamenco with jazz are Pedro Itturalde and Paco de Lucia. At the time, the combination of these two styles was rather a juxtaposition: we first heard flamenco, followed by a little jazz. This fascinating documentary is mainly narrated by Rabih Abou-Khalil, who interviews famous flamenco musicians, such as Chano Dominguez and Manuel Delgado.

'Münchner Klaviersommer' was an annual concerts series that took place from 1981 to 1998 in Munich, Germany. Although the festival's name suggests a strong focus on piano music, it featured countless famous musicians from jazz and classical music – not just pianists. The concerts were usually held in July at The Gasteig, home of the Munich Philharmonic. In 1991, Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba was one of the artists appearing here. Together with Reinaldo Melian on trumpet, Felipe Cabrera on bass and Julio Barreto on drums, Rubalcaba showcased not only his technical ability as a virtuoso pianist in challenging repertoire of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, but also his skills as a composer.

Rodolfo Mederos is a bandoneonist, a composer with an enormous oeuvre, one of the authorities on the tango – and an inspiration to new generations of musicians. Born in Buenos Aires and still living there, the city has always been his muse. And this is apparent every time Mederos plays the bandoneon, be it fronting one of his many ensembles or as a soloist, just the man and his instrument. The sounds of his bandoneon are like musical images of life, like a journey through the corners and times of his native city. Mederos is a child of the modern age, yet constantly aware of his roots. Hundreds of tourists come to Buenos Aires to explore the tango – a genre that has long spread all over the world. Rodolfo is now 65 and at the prime of his career. His struggle for the tango – the lonely campaign of a man and his bandoneon – continues. The future remains uncertain the only road open is straight ahead. The audience – today’s and tomorrow’s – is already waiting.

This broadcast shows a rare appearance at the 1996 Germeringer Jazztage by the legendary flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía and his sextet. Some may question the inclusion of a flamenco guitarist within a jazz festival. However, the similarities between flamenco and blues have been well documented: both are the outlet for a poor, disenfranchised minority, with a primitive strength, boundless capabilities for improvisation and a requirement for breathtaking virtuosity - all qualities shown by Paco de Lucía in this performance. Moreover, he has long been experimenting with jazz forms (evident even from his inclusion of bass, drums, and saxophone in his sextet), while still retaining the essence of the flamenco tradition. In his own words: “What I have tried to do is have a hand holding onto tradition and the other scratching, digging in other places trying to find new things I can bring into flamenco”.

The ‘Chucho Valdés Septet’ is brought together bij Chucho Valdés himself, for the Jazz Open festival in Stuttgart, 1999. Musicians like Michel Camilo, Claudio Roditi, Frank Rubio and Raul Pineda belong to the best Latin Jazz artists of the world today. The ensemble of Valdes and Camilo, combined with the Afro-Cuban jazz rhythms, generate an extremely energetic and eccentric show.