Perfect day on the Pacific

El Mar-Gabriel Alegria, Nuveo Mundo

Listen to Gabriel Alegria's El Mar and you're there. On a surfboard in the Pacific Ccean, staring out into the endless horizon. Listen to this song and the waves wash around you. Behind you 500ft up a cliff the 9million people of Lima worry about life, while you watch cormorants dip their small shiny black heads into the water and pop right back up all the while slowly sinking as their feathers soak up the salty water. A pelican smacks the water with reckless abandon, resurfacing with a fish wriggling in its giant gullet. Flocks of seagulls fly, lazily, overhead. The trumpet of Gabriel Alegria and the tenor sax of Laurandrea Leguia start this perfect day. Waves crawl up on the beach. The ground, covered in smooth round stones, lightly vibrates as pebbles rub against each other on the waters' retreat. Hugo Alcazar's cymbol lightly rings. Freddy "Huevito"Lobaton climbs up the cajon, and you sit on your board, wading through the bass and the guitar, Joseha Oetz and "Jocho" Velazquez. The red sun slowly sets on the Pacific, El Mar.

Escucha Jazz

Ave. La Paz, Miraflores

Every day I walk down my street lined with jewelry and antique stores and I see Escucha Jazz , a commandment, spray painted in black letters across a faded yellow piece of cement seperating a silver shop, which both buys and sells silver, from a narrow five story apartment building, and I can't help but smile. Escucha Jazz, Listen to Jazz.

Footprints & Vivencias- Ernesto Hermoza & Manuel Carranza, Vivencias 2003

While Gabriel Alegria was on tour I was focusing only on his music, but now that the tour is over I would like to introduce you to some other Saponegro Artists. Ernesto Hermoza is an incredible flamenco guitarist who plays afro-peruvian jazz. He recorded Vivencias with Flautist and long-time friend Manuel Carranza. Footprints and Vivencias are incredible examples of Ernestos use of both Spanish and Afro-peruvian styles in jazz. In His adaptation of Wayne Shorter's Footprints, Ernesto plays bulerias, a Spanish style incorporated in both his guitar playing and the use of clapping throughout the song. The best example of this style starts at 00:43 where Ernesto has an incredible solo that lasts until 2:15. The cajon, which was became common in Spanish music after Paco de Lucia's visit to Peru in 1985, adds a taste of Afro-Peruvianess to the song. (I mention the cajon all the time on this blog but I have never fully explained it. The cajon is a hollow wooden box with a hole in it. It was developed in coastal peru by the Slaves working in the Spanish Colony. The slaves would sit on top of the crates they filled with the fruit and cotton they picked, and drum. This music was not only a way of survival and story telling. It was also a clear sign of protest. The Spanish banned music in heavily African and Indigenous populated areas, but still the cajon is part of peru today.) Vivencias, the albums title track, features Ernesto and Manuel playing both the Spanish bulerias style and the Peruvian style marinera limena, while Marco Oliveros plays the Udu.

For John Coltrane-Gabriel Alegria, Un Rezo
Piano De Patio-Gabriel Alegria, Nuevo Mundo


The Gabriel Alegria Sextet finished up their US tour over the weekend with a final performance at the REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/Calarts Theater) in LA, setting a redcat record for records sold in the process. This tour was a huge success, recieving terriffic feedback at every stop.

"Peruvian trumpeter Gabriel Alegría’s fine Nuevo Mundo mixes straight-ahead jazz and subtle Afro-Peruvian polyrhythms (think classic Miles and Susanna Baca’s criollo sounds). .. a fascinating glimpse into how jazz is fusing with regional music around the world."
-Brick Whal, LA Weekly

"Smoldering jazz is kicked up with the intoxicating polyrhythms of coastal Peru as trumpeter and composer Gabriel Alegría continues to chart a fresh new idiom. Combining his own distinctive approach to jazz trumpet with the rich heritage of Afro-Peruvian music, Alegría is joined by saxophonist Laurandrea Leguía, guitarist Jocho Velazquez, bassist Joscha Oetz, drummer Hugo Alcázar and percussionist Freddy “Huevito” Lobatón—who plays traditional Afro-Peruvian instruments such as cajón (box drum) and quijada (jawbone) and adds spectacular passages of zapateo criollo tap dancing. This performance, the group's only West Coast appearance in 2007, features music from Alegría's latest recording, Nuevo Mundo."
-Redcat Theater

"Alegria combines his personal approach to American jazz with a passionate interest and careful study of the music of black coastal Peru. He has contributed a unique concept by incorporating and exploring the common African roots found in both styles."
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-Keith I. Marszalek NOLA.com

"So this is what jazz fusion from Peru sounds like... ...and I'm very impressed. Tonight I saw Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet perform at the REDCAT theater in LA. I don't know diddly nor squat about jazz, and everything I know about Peru I learned from nature documentaries on public television and a few local new age Andean and/or Incan musical groups that perform in Montrose and Burbank at the arts festivals, so this was a very welcome eye- and ear-opener. :-) http://www.gabrielalegria.com/ has all sorts of niftiness, including information about two summer tours in July and August where, rather than the musicians touring the US to come to you, you go to Peru to tour with the musicians, seeing all sorts of local stuff and incredible sights, good food and wonderful music, putting the band's own music in broader and more in-depth context. It looks like fabulous fun and if I had a spare ten days off work and a couple thousand dollars, it sounds like it would be an amazing time. I bought two CDs at the show, but you can preview/listen (and download/buy for $1) songs here. The entire sextet looked like they were having a great time, and I particularly enjoyed the saxophist... *consults program* ...Laurandrea Leguia and the astonishing percussionist Freddy "Huevito" Lobaton. The whole group was just delightful."

Saponegro Records is in the process of completing a new album from it's newest artist Claudio Arbañil. Originally from Argentina, Claudio has traveled all over the world playing his guitar. His music style incorporates Argentinian as well as Peruvian styles with jazz. In the next few days Saponegro will be posting Todos Estos Años (all these years), an album made in 2001, on the website and Claudio is currently recording an album in the Saponegro studios that should be done within the month. I have sat in on some of the recording and the album should be great.

I am posting two videos today. One, is behind the scenes footage of the Gabriel Alegria Tour that Gabriel sent to me from Hampton, Virginia. The second, also from the tour, is one of Huevito's cajita solos. The cajita is a great, unique sounding instrument, and Huevito is a master.