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Jazz Articles about Arturo O'Farrill
Arturo O'Farrill: Live in Brooklyn
by John Kelman
With the advent of relatively inexpensive recording equipment, it's now possible to document almost any live performance. Some artists, in fact, record virtually every show and then piece together a live album from the best performances, as saxophonist Wayne Shorter has done on his new release, the outstanding Beyond the Sound Barrier. But just because you can make a recording doesn't necessarily mean you should release it. Some performances, while unquestionably engaging for the audience at the time, ...
Continue ReadingArturo O'Farrill: Live in Brooklyn
by AAJ Staff
This Latin-flavored live date (recorded in August, 2003 at Brooklyn's Up Over Jazz Café) features the pianist son of Chico O'Farrill--now a successful forty-something small and big bandleader in his own right--in a relatively straight-ahead trio setting with bassist Andy Gonzalez and drummer Dafnis Prieto. There's no mistaking the liveness or spontaneity of invention here, and while you might expect these New Yorkers of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent to light a few bonfires along the way, they stick to ...
Continue ReadingArturo O'Farrill & the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra
by AAJ Staff
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra is led by pianist/music director Arturo O'Farrill. He is a well-spoken jovial man with a huge aura of energy about him.O'Farrill, winner of the Latin Jazz USA Outstanding Achievement Award for 2003, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. Educated at the Manhattan School of Music, Brooklyn College Conservatory, and the Aaron Copeland School of Music at Queens College, he played piano with the Carla Bley Big ...
Continue ReadingArturo O'Farrill Trio: Cumana
by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
Trio CDs recorded for the Japanese market tend to involve straight-ahead treatments of classic material; while their focus on melody makes them highly accessible, they're neither simplistic nor boring. This is a Latin version of that formula, with the piano chair occupied by the excellent Arturo O'Farrill, son of legendary Cuban composer Chico and heir to his Afro-Cuban Jazz Big Band (his impressive 1999 Milestone debut was appropriately called “Bloodlines"). O'Farrill's playing is vibrant and fluid, merging Latin rhythms and ...
Continue ReadingArturo O' Farrill Trio: A Night In Tunisia
by Glenn Astarita
Son of famed – “Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra” leader Chico O’Farrill, pianist Arturo O’ Farrill pursues the time honored piano trio format with this new release consisting of standards, titled after Dizzy Gillespie’s ubiquitous classic A Night In Tunisia. The overall production works out rather well thanks to the pianist’s impassioned jazz-based renderings in accordance with the powerful rhythm section featuring bassist George Mraz and drummer Steve Berrios. Hence, Mraz and Berrios triumphantly counterbalance O’Farrill’s acute sense of the dynamic, ...
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