A move into life as a mature musician requires a mental shift in a lot of ways, forcing a musicians to look a little bit deeper at the world around them. They need to look beyond the day to day gigs and think about the things that really inspire their musical world. Ambition needs to drive them to pursue these inspirational elements and bring them into their musical world. The ability to mix and match elements intelligently and present an original combination takes courage and confidence. The result defines the musician's identity as a band leader, and they take the step out into the world with a solid product. The adventure has only begun at that point though, as the artist takes their ideas into the world and finds a place to present them. As the musician's career develops, an artistic identity grows around them and before they know it, they arrive as a fully developed artist.
Percussionist Annette Aguilar blossomed into a mature musician during her time in New York, the result of years of hard work. She grew up surrounded by the sights and sounds of the sixties and seventies in San Francisco, inspired by Carlos Santana and the city's active Latin music scene. Encouraged by role models such as Cal Tjader and Pete Escovedo and inspired by her musical peers such as John Santos, Karl Perazzo, and John Calloway, Aguilar jumped into drums and percussion in a big way. While she built an active career playing Latin music, she fell in love with orchestral music after a trip to the San Francisco Symphony. Inspired to dig deeper, Aguilar attended San Francisco State University, becoming fully versed in orchestral percussion. Still driven to grow, Aguilar moved to New York and pursued her Master's Degree at The Manhattan School Of Music, once again focusing upon classical music. Her heart remained in Afro-Cuban music though, so she connected with some important mentors—percussionists Louie Bauzo and Jerry Gonzalez. Her growth pushed her straight forward into the role of band leader, and in the early nineties, she put together her group, Stringbeans. Following a very different path than most Latin Jazz groups, Stringbeans employed strings, harp, wind players, and a full rhythm section. In 1999, the group released their first recording, Special Friends, which they followed in 2008 with No Cheap Dates. In between, Aguilar and Stringbeans traveled around the world as Latin Jazz Ambassadors, a program through Lincoln Center and the State Department. Aguilar returned in 2010 with another Stringbeans release, The Day Waits For Nobody, this time drawing heavily upon the talents of vocalist Sofia Rei Koutsovitis. These recordings find Aguilar at a strong artistic point in her life, displaying a solid concept and mature musical performances.
Aguilar's experiences across San Francisco and New York have made her a strong musical presence with a defined identity. In Part 1 of our interview with Aguilar, we looked at her youth in San Francisco, the influence of the city's culture during the sixties and seventies, and the inspired young musicians around her. In Part 2 of our interview, we discussed Aguilar's love for orchestral music, her move to New York, as well as her connection with Louie Bauzo and Jerry Gonzalez. Today we conclude our interview with thoughts about the origin of Stringbeans, the group's Latin Jazz Ambassador tours, the new album, and more.
LATIN JAZZ CORNER: Did you put Stringbeans together soon after you moved to New York, or was that later on?
ANNETTE AGUILAR: I put Stringbeans together in 1992. I was doing a lot of orchestral stuff and then I started doing the Broadway shows. I was playing with Casselberry-Du Pree; I was touring with them a lot. I was just hungry to play some Brazilian music and some Afro-Cuban stuff.
I play a lot of marimba, I love strings, I love the violin, I love villa-Lobos, and I love the guitar—that whole sound. I think that a lot of people, even in the Latin and Afro-Cuban world, don't know the beauty of the guitar, just what it is.
LJC: It seems like you really pulled together a lot of those different worlds authentically in Stringbeans. It's a very different sound, what inspired you to go in that direction?
AA: A lot of different things inspired me. I was working with my harpist, and I loved the violins. I liked the different sounds that people were getting, like the sound that Jerry was getting playing through the changes. I would listen to a lot of harp music, like Dorothy Ashby. I gravitate more to the concert harp because a concert harp has tight strings. It's a different sound that the Colombian harp.Then I would listen to Baden Powell and how he could make that guitar so full of body. Dorothy Ashby, the harpist, would make that harp sound like a big, fat classical, acoustic, Brazilian guitar.
It's just that sound, trying to get that right recipe. It's hard these days for musicians; you have to work hard to keep a working band together. And you have to come up with different menus to survive, because I find that, in the level of my group—I'm not Pat Metheny. Pat Metheny doesn't have to go play the duos at some restaurant.
LJC: How did the Latin Jazz Ambassador tours come together?
AA: I was playing in the big band at Lehman College for Stanley Cowell. He liked my first album, Special Friends, and he knew Billy Taylor. He told me to send it to Billy Taylor, so I did. Then Stanley told me to apply for the Women In Jazz at the Kennedy Center. I kept applying and then in 2001, I finally got in with my band. We were a hit; we were one of the best out of that weekend, at the Kennedy Center that year.
The fall was coming, it was like September and I was trying to arrange a rehearsal to finish this record. We had already done the first album and I was trying to finish No Cheap Dates. I'm calling all my people, and I'm going, “Where's everybody at? Why is everybody not available this weekend?" And then my good friend Harvey S calls me, and he says, “Annette, don't you know? Everybody's at the audition. There's a new thing called the Latin Jazz Ambassadors for the Kennedy Center." “Why didn't anyone tell me?" I immediately e-mailed Derek Gordon, who was part of education at Kennedy Center. I said, “Derek, what is gong on here? Latin Jazz Ambassador? You mean the State Department is finally putting a Latin Jazz band together to go abroad?" The next day, Kevin Struthers called me and said, “You're invited to the audition."
This was 2002. I put the quartet together and I put together a program with some traditional stuff and some Brazilian stuff. I showed up at the time they wanted, and I presented it. Ray Barretto was there, and he loved it. They didn't tell us right away, but we had a really good response. There were about fifty quartets that auditioned from New York.
We got in, and we went on a South Africa trip in May of 2003. It was quite a trip. We went to Rwanda, Swaziland, I met a lot of people, and it was great.
Then it came back around again. I remember that winter of 2004—everybody was calling me. I wasn't planning on doing it again, but everybody started calling me. Then my antennas went up, and I said, “You know what? I'm going to audition for this thing again." We auditioned with a different quartet. This time I had doublers—I had Rob Thomas who doubled on violin and bass and Barry Olsen, who I work with a lot, great piano and trombone player. Again, it was Kennedy Center and State Department, and Ray was there. I presented this different program, and at the end of it, he came up to me, and he said, “I just want to give you a hug, and I just really, really want to thank you for presenting the music correctly."
After that audition I went to go play at a place over here by City College. Savion Glover was dancing, Ray Barretto was playing, and I did something with Miguel Algarin from Nuyorican Poet's Cafe. I saw Barretto; he was there, and he was talking to me. He said, “You know, you did a great job, thank you very much . . ."
Just before the tour in December of 2005. I went to my local diner with a friend. We sat down and then here comes Ray in the diner. Ray would go out; you'd see him at the Nuyorican. He'd come down from Riverdale, go all the way down to the Nuyorican, see Ray Vega, support everybody, and hang out. You'd see him over here and then you'd see him over there. I saw him in the diner. He says, “So, are you getting ready for the tour?" He came up to me, introduced me to his wife, and we started talking. He said some nice things about me, and I was in awe—this was my mentor! I know he was incidental as to why I went on the tours. I was just so glad to see him.
We left in January—we played for the president of Madagascar, we went to Ethiopia and Zanzibar; we were all over the place playing. It was really quite an incredible thing, pretty unbelievable. Then I started getting the e-mails that Ray was in the hospital. I was thinking, “No, he's going to make it." We all prayed for him, I dedicated a couple of concerts to him.
We had just gotten home. We got home on Valentine's Day, and not too long after that, Ray died. That was heavy, I was so upset.
LJC: I wanted to ask you about the new album, The Day Waits For Nobody—you've got a large cast of musicians on there. Are these musicians all part of Stringbeans or is it a rotating group?
AA: They all work with me. There's two rhythm sections; I did two sessions. The first session was with Ruben Rodriguez, Vince Cherico, Pablo Vergara, Freddie Bryant, Rob Thomas, myself, and of course Sofia is in there. The second session is with other people that I work with. Benny Koonyvesky was on drums during that second session, Jennifer Vincent was on bass, Nicki Denner was on piano, Rob Thomas is on there, Nanny Assis, me, and of course Sofia.
There's other people on there too. Lewis Kahn plays violin and trombone on the album. Lewis is not a jazz player, but he has a specific type of sound. Then I used Eddie Venegas, who works with me a lot—on “Indestructible," he plays violin and trombone with Lewis. Ellen Uryevick-Adams plays harp on there as well. She lives in North Carolina now, but I flew her up for the recording. Victor Rendon is a guest on it. When I think of timbaleros, I think of Victor Rendon. He's a great player; he knows that style. I wanted a good male sonero—I like deep rich voices. I first saw Luisito Ayala with Eddie Palmieri in the early eighties. He was always doing The Cruise Control with Louie Bauzo. So I thought of him right away. I had a couple of my friends from Recife as well—Claudio Santana and Eduardo Guedes. They're good with the manacatu. I still work with all these people in rotation.
The band that I'm taking to San Francisco is Benny Koonyvesky, Ruben Rodriguez, Nicki Denner, Eddie Venegas, and then I'm working with another vocalist. Catarina Dos Santos is from Portugal. She sings really good Spanish and Portuguese, as well as plays great Brazilian percussion.
LJC: It is kind of a homecoming, coming back to the Bay Area. How do you think that the Bay Area Latin music scene has changed since you've been gone and what's it like for you to bring a group back to the West Coast?
AA: I'm basically coming out here in support of this new record. I know the whole scene over there has changed; it's a great scene. I haven't been home in a year, and that's a very, very long time for me. The recession has not been good. I'm very fortunate that I have the work that I do. I went back and got a Master's in education and the record really kind of milked me. I paid for these records! I'm doing for the support of the music and what I'm doing, and for my family and friends. It's all a combination of business, music, and what I'm doing. If you're in this business, you've got to make business. I want to be able to tour more with the group. I'd like to be able to have something—this tour is to show that I'm willing to do certain things.
Percussionist Annette Aguilar blossomed into a mature musician during her time in New York, the result of years of hard work. She grew up surrounded by the sights and sounds of the sixties and seventies in San Francisco, inspired by Carlos Santana and the city's active Latin music scene. Encouraged by role models such as Cal Tjader and Pete Escovedo and inspired by her musical peers such as John Santos, Karl Perazzo, and John Calloway, Aguilar jumped into drums and percussion in a big way. While she built an active career playing Latin music, she fell in love with orchestral music after a trip to the San Francisco Symphony. Inspired to dig deeper, Aguilar attended San Francisco State University, becoming fully versed in orchestral percussion. Still driven to grow, Aguilar moved to New York and pursued her Master's Degree at The Manhattan School Of Music, once again focusing upon classical music. Her heart remained in Afro-Cuban music though, so she connected with some important mentors—percussionists Louie Bauzo and Jerry Gonzalez. Her growth pushed her straight forward into the role of band leader, and in the early nineties, she put together her group, Stringbeans. Following a very different path than most Latin Jazz groups, Stringbeans employed strings, harp, wind players, and a full rhythm section. In 1999, the group released their first recording, Special Friends, which they followed in 2008 with No Cheap Dates. In between, Aguilar and Stringbeans traveled around the world as Latin Jazz Ambassadors, a program through Lincoln Center and the State Department. Aguilar returned in 2010 with another Stringbeans release, The Day Waits For Nobody, this time drawing heavily upon the talents of vocalist Sofia Rei Koutsovitis. These recordings find Aguilar at a strong artistic point in her life, displaying a solid concept and mature musical performances.
Aguilar's experiences across San Francisco and New York have made her a strong musical presence with a defined identity. In Part 1 of our interview with Aguilar, we looked at her youth in San Francisco, the influence of the city's culture during the sixties and seventies, and the inspired young musicians around her. In Part 2 of our interview, we discussed Aguilar's love for orchestral music, her move to New York, as well as her connection with Louie Bauzo and Jerry Gonzalez. Today we conclude our interview with thoughts about the origin of Stringbeans, the group's Latin Jazz Ambassador tours, the new album, and more.
LATIN JAZZ CORNER: Did you put Stringbeans together soon after you moved to New York, or was that later on?
ANNETTE AGUILAR: I put Stringbeans together in 1992. I was doing a lot of orchestral stuff and then I started doing the Broadway shows. I was playing with Casselberry-Du Pree; I was touring with them a lot. I was just hungry to play some Brazilian music and some Afro-Cuban stuff.
I play a lot of marimba, I love strings, I love the violin, I love villa-Lobos, and I love the guitar—that whole sound. I think that a lot of people, even in the Latin and Afro-Cuban world, don't know the beauty of the guitar, just what it is.
LJC: It seems like you really pulled together a lot of those different worlds authentically in Stringbeans. It's a very different sound, what inspired you to go in that direction?
AA: A lot of different things inspired me. I was working with my harpist, and I loved the violins. I liked the different sounds that people were getting, like the sound that Jerry was getting playing through the changes. I would listen to a lot of harp music, like Dorothy Ashby. I gravitate more to the concert harp because a concert harp has tight strings. It's a different sound that the Colombian harp.Then I would listen to Baden Powell and how he could make that guitar so full of body. Dorothy Ashby, the harpist, would make that harp sound like a big, fat classical, acoustic, Brazilian guitar.
It's just that sound, trying to get that right recipe. It's hard these days for musicians; you have to work hard to keep a working band together. And you have to come up with different menus to survive, because I find that, in the level of my group—I'm not Pat Metheny. Pat Metheny doesn't have to go play the duos at some restaurant.
LJC: How did the Latin Jazz Ambassador tours come together?
AA: I was playing in the big band at Lehman College for Stanley Cowell. He liked my first album, Special Friends, and he knew Billy Taylor. He told me to send it to Billy Taylor, so I did. Then Stanley told me to apply for the Women In Jazz at the Kennedy Center. I kept applying and then in 2001, I finally got in with my band. We were a hit; we were one of the best out of that weekend, at the Kennedy Center that year.
The fall was coming, it was like September and I was trying to arrange a rehearsal to finish this record. We had already done the first album and I was trying to finish No Cheap Dates. I'm calling all my people, and I'm going, “Where's everybody at? Why is everybody not available this weekend?" And then my good friend Harvey S calls me, and he says, “Annette, don't you know? Everybody's at the audition. There's a new thing called the Latin Jazz Ambassadors for the Kennedy Center." “Why didn't anyone tell me?" I immediately e-mailed Derek Gordon, who was part of education at Kennedy Center. I said, “Derek, what is gong on here? Latin Jazz Ambassador? You mean the State Department is finally putting a Latin Jazz band together to go abroad?" The next day, Kevin Struthers called me and said, “You're invited to the audition."
This was 2002. I put the quartet together and I put together a program with some traditional stuff and some Brazilian stuff. I showed up at the time they wanted, and I presented it. Ray Barretto was there, and he loved it. They didn't tell us right away, but we had a really good response. There were about fifty quartets that auditioned from New York.
We got in, and we went on a South Africa trip in May of 2003. It was quite a trip. We went to Rwanda, Swaziland, I met a lot of people, and it was great.
Then it came back around again. I remember that winter of 2004—everybody was calling me. I wasn't planning on doing it again, but everybody started calling me. Then my antennas went up, and I said, “You know what? I'm going to audition for this thing again." We auditioned with a different quartet. This time I had doublers—I had Rob Thomas who doubled on violin and bass and Barry Olsen, who I work with a lot, great piano and trombone player. Again, it was Kennedy Center and State Department, and Ray was there. I presented this different program, and at the end of it, he came up to me, and he said, “I just want to give you a hug, and I just really, really want to thank you for presenting the music correctly."
After that audition I went to go play at a place over here by City College. Savion Glover was dancing, Ray Barretto was playing, and I did something with Miguel Algarin from Nuyorican Poet's Cafe. I saw Barretto; he was there, and he was talking to me. He said, “You know, you did a great job, thank you very much . . ."
Just before the tour in December of 2005. I went to my local diner with a friend. We sat down and then here comes Ray in the diner. Ray would go out; you'd see him at the Nuyorican. He'd come down from Riverdale, go all the way down to the Nuyorican, see Ray Vega, support everybody, and hang out. You'd see him over here and then you'd see him over there. I saw him in the diner. He says, “So, are you getting ready for the tour?" He came up to me, introduced me to his wife, and we started talking. He said some nice things about me, and I was in awe—this was my mentor! I know he was incidental as to why I went on the tours. I was just so glad to see him.
We left in January—we played for the president of Madagascar, we went to Ethiopia and Zanzibar; we were all over the place playing. It was really quite an incredible thing, pretty unbelievable. Then I started getting the e-mails that Ray was in the hospital. I was thinking, “No, he's going to make it." We all prayed for him, I dedicated a couple of concerts to him.
We had just gotten home. We got home on Valentine's Day, and not too long after that, Ray died. That was heavy, I was so upset.
LJC: I wanted to ask you about the new album, The Day Waits For Nobody—you've got a large cast of musicians on there. Are these musicians all part of Stringbeans or is it a rotating group?
AA: They all work with me. There's two rhythm sections; I did two sessions. The first session was with Ruben Rodriguez, Vince Cherico, Pablo Vergara, Freddie Bryant, Rob Thomas, myself, and of course Sofia is in there. The second session is with other people that I work with. Benny Koonyvesky was on drums during that second session, Jennifer Vincent was on bass, Nicki Denner was on piano, Rob Thomas is on there, Nanny Assis, me, and of course Sofia.
There's other people on there too. Lewis Kahn plays violin and trombone on the album. Lewis is not a jazz player, but he has a specific type of sound. Then I used Eddie Venegas, who works with me a lot—on “Indestructible," he plays violin and trombone with Lewis. Ellen Uryevick-Adams plays harp on there as well. She lives in North Carolina now, but I flew her up for the recording. Victor Rendon is a guest on it. When I think of timbaleros, I think of Victor Rendon. He's a great player; he knows that style. I wanted a good male sonero—I like deep rich voices. I first saw Luisito Ayala with Eddie Palmieri in the early eighties. He was always doing The Cruise Control with Louie Bauzo. So I thought of him right away. I had a couple of my friends from Recife as well—Claudio Santana and Eduardo Guedes. They're good with the manacatu. I still work with all these people in rotation.
The band that I'm taking to San Francisco is Benny Koonyvesky, Ruben Rodriguez, Nicki Denner, Eddie Venegas, and then I'm working with another vocalist. Catarina Dos Santos is from Portugal. She sings really good Spanish and Portuguese, as well as plays great Brazilian percussion.
LJC: It is kind of a homecoming, coming back to the Bay Area. How do you think that the Bay Area Latin music scene has changed since you've been gone and what's it like for you to bring a group back to the West Coast?
AA: I'm basically coming out here in support of this new record. I know the whole scene over there has changed; it's a great scene. I haven't been home in a year, and that's a very, very long time for me. The recession has not been good. I'm very fortunate that I have the work that I do. I went back and got a Master's in education and the record really kind of milked me. I paid for these records! I'm doing for the support of the music and what I'm doing, and for my family and friends. It's all a combination of business, music, and what I'm doing. If you're in this business, you've got to make business. I want to be able to tour more with the group. I'd like to be able to have something—this tour is to show that I'm willing to do certain things.
