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The Grammy-nominated David Sánchez Group will open Lafayette’s Jazz Masters series 8 p.m. today at the Williams Center for the Arts.
Tickets cost $4 with Lafayette ID and $18 for the public. A subscription to Jazz Masters, which costs $59, also includes concerts by Belgian harmonica master Toots Thielemans with veteran pianist Kenny Werner Wednesday, Nov. 12; internationally acclaimed jazz musician Mulgrew Miller and the Wingspan quintet Saturday, Feb. 14; and the star-studded Classical Jazz Quartet Wednesday, April 14.
All performances start at 8 p.m. The subscription represents a $14 savings compared to the total cost of the individual concerts. For tickets, call the box office at 610-330-5009 from noon-2 p.m., 4-5 p.m., and one hour before performances.
“To hear a David Sánchez saxophone solo is to hear genius at work,” states Newsday.
After riveting Williams Center appearances with Ray Drummond (in 1999) and Charlie Haden (last February), Sánchez returns as leader of an ensemble defined by the rhythmic power and melodic richness of his Puerto Rican roots. His band, which includes fellow saxophonist Miguel Zevon, pianist Edsel Gomez, and the amazing percussionist Domingo Sanchez, bristles with Latin energy, soulful dance rhythms, and an irresistible kinetic power.
Sánchez earned a Grammy nomination last year for the album Melaza.
“Where Melaza was about energy, different forms, and folkloric rhythms from Puerto Rico, Travesía is a little more mixed,” he says. “It has the same kind of drive, but in many ways, has more subtleties. Different types of colors. The music has a world music feel, but with the blues influence central to jazz “and open forms similar to Ornette Coleman with a little Mingus influence, too.”
Sánchez began playing percussion and drums at age eight, then switched to tenor saxophone at 12. While a student at the prestigious La Escuela Libre de Música in San Juan, he also took up soprano and alto saxophones as well as flute and clarinet. The bomba and plena rhythms of Puerto Rico, along with Cuban and Brazilian traditions, were among the biggest influences on Sánchez’s early taste in music. Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, and John Coltrane had the greatest impact on his playing.
In 1986, Sánchez enrolled at the Universidad de Puerto Rico in Rio Píedras, but the pull of New York was irresistible. By 1988, he had won a music scholarship at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and he quickly became a member of the New York jazz scene, playing with musicians such as pianist Eddie Palmieri and saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera.
Dizzy Gillespie invited Sánchez to join his United Nations Orchestra in 1991. The Departure, his 1995 debut for Columbia, gained critical kudos, as did the disc’s successors, Sketches of Dreams and Street Scenes. Meanwhile, Sánchez had begun touring with jazz greats such as Kenny Baron, Roy Haynes, and legendary drummer Elvin Jones, recording with Baron and Haynes.
His next project, the Obsesion album produced by Branford Marsalis, garnered Sánchez his first Grammy nomination. He followed up with the Grammy-nominated (and Latin Grammy–nominated) Melaza. More recently, he appeared on high-profile recordings with Haden (Nocturne) and trombonist Steve Turre (TNT [Trombone-N-Tenor]).
In addition to the Jazz Masters series, the Williams Center will host the 17th annual Easton Jazz Festival in conjunction with the Boys and Girls Club of Easton, which will receive all proceeds. The lineup for Saturday, Nov. 15 features Brazilian trumpet great Claudio Roditi and the Philadelphia team of Randy Brecker and Marc Copland. The prior night, a major blues attraction to be announced soon will carry forward the momentum begun last year by Shemekia Copeland in the inaugural Easton Blues Festival.
The nationally recognized Performance Series attracts more than 10,000 people each season. It has been cited for performing excellence by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, Chamber Music America, Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund, Pennsylvania Arts and Humanities Councils, and Association of Performing Arts Presenters.
Named Lafayette’s Administrator of the Year for 2002-03, Williams Center for the Arts Director Ellis Finger received the 2002 William Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters at its 45th annual conference. The national award recognizes sustained achievement in programming, and honors an individual or organization for quality, innovation, and vision of program design, audience building, and community involvement efforts. Finger’s selection was by unanimous vote of the association’s awards committee. He also hosted this year’s Chamber Music America conference.
The 2003-04 Performance Series at Lafayette is supported in part by gifts from Friends of the Williams Center for the Arts; by the F.M. Kirby Foundation; by provisions of the Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence Program, the James Bradley Fund, and the Ed Brunswick Jazz Fund; and by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, and New England Foundation for the Arts.