September 2000

From the Inside Out
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By Chris M. Slawecki

Contemporary jazz musicians, even the best, are rarely described with the term “jazz pioneer.” Perhaps it’s a simple sense of overload from the proliferation of music available on CD and the internet, or a byproduct of constantly, for convenience’s sake, discussing music in terms of “smooth jazz” or “soul jazz” or “Caribbean jazz” or whatever. But fifty years after bebop, thirty years after fusion, it’s hard to discern the sense of “new horizons” left in just about any form of contemporary jazz. How many more “jazz”es can there be?

So if you don’t hear “jazz pioneer” much any more, it’s most likely because it’s hard to locate that sense of new horizons. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any jazz pioneers left. One such pioneer will be the subject of an original HBO feature biographical film this Fall – Arturo Sandoval.

From Cuba to Miami – The Long Way
Arturo Sandoval was born in Artemisa, Cuba, in November 1946. He studied classical music as a youth and learned to play trumpet. A prodigy, he studied as a teenager at the Cuban National School of the Arts. Sandoval grew in dexterity and stature, and helped found the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna. Sandoval remained onboard as the Orquesta evolved into the Latin jazz ensemble Irakere, under the direction of pianist Chucho Valdes, around 1973.

Sandoval was developing a reputation as a trumpet player who could play anything: loud or quiet, fast or slow, hard or soft, blue or bright. So perhaps it was only natural that when he met Dizzy Gillespie in the late ‘70s, the two became fast friends. Sandoval toured Europe and Cuba with Gillespie, and eventually assumed a featured role in Gillespie’s United Nations Orchestra; their collaboration is documented with fire on Live At The Royal Festival Hall.

Sandoval left Irakere and began leading his own bands in the early 1980s. He recorded and performed in Cuba, at international jazz festivals, and with such groups of worldwide acclaim as the Leningrad Symphony and the BBC Orchestra. Through these years of recording and performing, dominating the Cuban music scene by consecutively winning Cuba’s Best Instrumentalist of the Year from 1982 through 1990, Sandoval considered his escape from Castro dominated Cuba.

In 1990, with his wife and child already safely out of Cuba, Sandoval played his most important solo – in the midst of a European concert tour, he defected and requested political asylum from Cuba at the U.S. Embassy in Rome. Last year, with President Clinton among his sponsors, Arturo Sandoval finally became a U.S. citizen. Settling into the Cuban Diaspora surrounding Miami, Sandoval returned to living among the people his heart never left behind – but with the freedom, this time, to truly enjoy it.

Sandoval titled his first album after defecting Flight To Freedom. The title of his new album, his first as an American citizen? Americana. Its selection of classic American pop from the past three decades is also his statement about how good it feels to have finally, officially left Cuba behind. “A few months of the year, when reception was good, we could hear radio stations from Miami and we could listen to a lot of American music. But always secretly,” he explains. “Now I can listen to everything, and record whatever I like. That’s what freedom is all about.”

Q: What can you tell us about the movie coming out about your life?
AS: It’s an HBO production featuring Charles Dutton and Andy Garcia, Mia Maestro. I’m extremely happy and very pleased and excited about it, it’s a very beautiful production. The movie covers everything, all different aspects of my life, including all the difficulties and frustration. And a love story as well with my beautiful wife, we are married for 36 years. A lot of things in that movie – it’s two hours plus.

Q: Had you known Andy Garcia previously?
AS: I had met him before, that is correct. I met him here in Miami. He plays music – he’s kind of a frustrated musician who made his living doing acting. He’s a music lover – he produced some records, he plays percussion, a little bit of piano…he really loves music.

Q: What was your take on the whole Elian Gonzales situation?
AS: You know what? I believe that, in life, the most important thing is common sense. And I believe that whoever doesn’t know all the details involved in a situation shouldn’t make an opinion. Media members, all kinds of media, should be very careful because they can make a big influence on the mentality of the people. And when you don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s better to be careful when you say it. We’re concerned about that.

I’m going to tell you what I really feel about that, a very personal opinion. The people who want to send this kid back, there’s a question mark there. I would like to know if these same people would like to see me and my mother and my son and my friends also go back? That’s a question. Because if somebody wants to send my kid or my granddaughter back to Cuba…oh, they’d better bring a gun, because they’ll have to kill me first.

Q: If you had a private audience with Castro, what would be the first thing out of your mouth?
AS: I would like to kill him. I think that’s the best thing that I could do in my life. Kill him. To talk to him is impossible. He’s kind of this tough guy, and what you’re going to hear is a monologue from him. You’re going to listen to him talking to you. But it’s not going to be a conversation.

Q: What would be the one piece of advice you could give to a young trumpet player in Cuba?
AS: Not just in Cuba, but all over the world, whoever intends to become a musician and make a decent living doing this. There’s only one thing: You must be in love with the music. You must respect what you’re doing and you must respect the music very much. Because there’s going to be a lot of difficulties in your way. The only thing that keeps you going is if you are in love with the music – your enthusiasm, your desire to keep going, to keep practicing. It doesn’t matter what happens. It doesn’t matter what’s going on around you, you’re going to keep trying.

Q: Is it easy to point to the one thing you love the most about living in the U.S.?
AS: The freedom. While I’m talking to you, I don’t have any fear. I say whatever I feel. I open my heart and I open my mouth and I say whatever I want. I am not concerned at all about what anybody might say about what I think. Is what I’m saying right or wrong, that’s my opinion. You like it or not, that’s your problem. In Cuba, I didn’t have that opportunity. I have to say all the time what the government asked me to say, or think. Which is horrible. The most beautiful thing in life is freedom. No freedom, no life.

Q: Do you now see yourself as an ambassador of Jazz or as some sort of international celebrity?
AS: Oh….no, not really. I prefer to do exactly what I’m doing now – composing my things, doing my recording, playing my music, getting along with people all over. I’m playing a lot of places, I have a lot of fun. Like the night before, I played with the Boston Pops.

I work all the time. I put all my passion, all my love, in anything I ever did. If I couldn’t touch every heart of every person who heard my music, I am so sorry. Because my intention was to create a new friend in every person who listens to the music I record or music I perform live. That’s my intention – my intention is to share my emotion, share my feelings with people. The only thing I can tell you is, all of my feelings are sincere. They came from my heart. And I love music. I love my career, and I appreciate every person who pays attention or listens to my music in any form.

The Sound of Americana
Sandoval has claimed three Grammy Awards: Best Latin Album (Irakere II , 1979), and Best Latin Jazz Album for 1995 (Danzon) and for 1998 (Hot House). He’s also received eight other Grammy nominations, four of which arrived on one dizzying day before the 1993 awards, for I Remember Clifford (Best Jazz Album), “Cherokee” (Best Jazz Instrumental Arrangement), Mambo Kings (Best Instrumental Composition for Motion Picture) and GRP All Star Big Band (Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance). The aforementioned Royal Festival Hall with the Gillespie United Nations Orchestra also claimed the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance Grammy in 1991.

Americana presents Sandoval’s exquisite jazz takes on such chart-topping American pop classics as “Just The Way You Are” (Billy Joel), “We’ve Only Just Begun” (The Carpenters), and “Isn’t She Lovely” (Stevie Wonder). It also spotlights Sandoval’s enormous dexterity: His taut-as-a-tightrope blasts fan the Latin flames of Lionel Richie’s festive “All Night Long.” His rearrangement of Sting’s “Englishman in New York” becomes a carefree and swinging stroll in a springtime park. And his hushed, tender emoting in Janet Jackson’s ballad “Come Back To Me” transforms this sweet pop tart into something more majestic – the muted magic of Miles Davis.

Q: How do you describe your own playing to other people?
AS: I am a music lover. And I don’t really agree when people try to put a sticker on my forehead saying he’s a Jazz trumpeter or a Latino trumpeter or a Latin Jazz trumpet player or something like that. I don’t consider myself a Latin Jazz trumpet player! I consider myself a music lover. This is what I am. I love music, period. I love to play the piano, I love play percussion, I love to sing, I love to dance.

I love to write music, probably more than anything else. I love to produce things, I like to write for different things. Right now I’m in the middle of writing for two different movies and for a TV special. I just finished a musical with a book written by Debbie Allen, it was commissioned by The Kennedy Center. Now it will appear the whole month of August in Atlanta, the production. I do many things. Everything related to music, I love it.

Q: How would you explain to someone the playing of Miles Davis?
AS: Miles Davis was a very intelligent musician. He started playing bebop, that was his beginning although he really started in the ‘40s. He realized that there was a bunch of people around him who could play that music a lot better than him. So he decided to explore and started to play something different, a different approach, of playing a different way. That was a very intelligent move. It was a unique kind of playing. He was always surrounded by the greatest musicians as well, which was very intelligent too. He influenced so many, many people. I think he’s one of a kind.

Q: Did he influence you and if so how?
AS: Oh, he influenced every trumpet player. I think, whoever plays trumpet, you must have in the back of your mind Miles Davis and others like Harry James and Bunny Berrigan and Bix Biederbecke and Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown. All those people influenced every trumpet player.

Q: How would you explain to someone the playing of Dizzy Gillespie?
AS: He was something else. Dizzy was a genius. He created a new style of music. People give more amount of credit to Charlie Parker, but that’s not fair. Dizzy was the one who invented the shit. Of course Charlie Parker made a great contribution, because he was a great musician. But Dizzy was the genius. I tell you, he created a new style of music and he was a hell of a trumpet player. He had a unique kind of playing, and, you know, was an incomparable human being.

Q: Do you recall where you were and what you were doing when you heard about Dizzy Gillespie’s passing?
AS: I was on tour, and unfortunately I was unable to attend the funeral. But God knows in the way He does things, because I really am happy in the end I didn’t see him after he passed. The memory I have of him is of him laughing, having fun and enjoying life, enjoying music and the company of being around musicians and talking about music – enjoying every second. That’s the image that I have of him in my mind.

Q: Have you heard or read of anyone describing Americana as “smooth Jazz”?
AS: I don’t like that terminology. If they like it, whatever they call it is okay with me.

Q: Does your playing in the Janet Jackson song “Come Back To Me” intentionally suggest the way Miles handled a song by her brother Michael, “Human Nature”?
AS: Of course. Music is full of influences. And when you put that mute on, you’d better remind people of Miles…I used to play “Human Nature” in my own band.

Q: Who haven’t you played with yet that you hope you might get a chance to play with?
AS: I don’t like to mention any names because that’s not fair. Because I respect and admire all the good ones. I would love to play with every one of them. Whoever wants to play with me, I’m ready.

Q: You wrote that you worked out a hundred songs before arriving at the final track list for Americana…
AS: At least!

Q: …does that mean that we might see a second volume?
AS: Maybe. But I really enjoy that every one of my records is a different story. I don’t want to repeat myself. The next one now is going to be the soundtrack to the movie. Later on, who knows what I’m going to do? I don’t know yet.

Q: What one song did you leave off of Americana that maybe you wished you had found the room for?
AS: You know, I think all of them are beautiful songs. But when we started to do research for some of Stevie Wonder’s music…oh, man! I found like I don’t know how many. I could do two records – at least – of all Stevie Wonder songs. Beautiful melodies, you know. It was difficult for me to pick what song I was going to record, because there was so many beautiful melodies.

Q: Do you have a favorite set of lyrics?
AS: You know which one I’ve really tried to study as much as I can? “The Windmills of Your Mind,” that’s a hell of a lyric, man. Those people I respect and admire, we are good friends. I know them very well, Marilyn and Alan Bergman. They are such a talented couple; those people really are priceless. They are so talented, and they have such a special ability to make beautiful lyrics.

I would like to do so many things, my friend. I wish I had a hundred years more to be able to do as many things as I would like. A lifetime is not enough to do everything you want.