For Immediate Release: Press Contacts: October 29, 2015 Eileen Chambers, 312-294-3092 Rachelle Roe, 312-294-3090 Photos Available By Request [email protected]
GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING PIANIST CHUCHO VALDÉS RETURNS TO SYMPHONY CENTER WITH A CELEBRATION OF THE LEGENDARY CUBAN BAND IRAKERE
November 6, at 8:00 p.m.
CHICAGO—The 2015/16 Symphony Center Presents (SCP) Jazz series continues on Friday, November 6, at 8:00 p.m. with Irakere 40, a celebration of legendary Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés and his iconic group, Irakere, which marks 40 years of groundbreaking Latin jazz this year.
Irakere, assembled by Valdés in 1973, has taken many forms over its near half-century of touring and performing, but Valdés has remained one of its constants. For this one-of-a kind retrospective concert, Valdés leads a 10-piece band in Irakere’s classic hits such as “Misa Negra” “Estela Va A Estallar” (“Stella By Starlight”), ”Juana 1600,” and “Bacalao Con Pan,” as well as more recent compositions, originally performed with the Afro-Cuban Messengers, in new arrangements by Valdés, such as “Yansa,” “Abdel” and “Lorena’s Tango.
In conjunction with the current U.S. tour of Irakere 40, the Jazz Village/harmonia mundi label will release a new recording, Chucho Valdés: Tribute to Irakere (Live in Marciac), on November 13, 2015, featuring Chucho’s current group, the Afro-Cuban Messengers.
“When I decided to do a tribute to that marvelous band (Irakere), I also decided I didn’t want to do it with the charter members, but with players from a generation of musicians that grew up and learned from Irakere. I thought it would be more meaningful. It’s a tribute from one generation to another,” notes Valdés.
Irakere is a Cuban-style big band renowned for achieving a bold fusion of Afro-Cuban ritual music and popular Afro-Cuban music styles along with jazz and rock music to create a groundbreaking sound. After attracting international recognition in 1976-78, their debut album
won a Grammy as Best Latin Recording in 1979. The album was comprised of selections from their legendary performances at Carnegie Hall and the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Pianist Chucho Valdés is not only the father of Irakere, but also an accomplished Grammy Award-winning solo artist. He is a bandleader, composer and arranger, as well as being a highly sought-after pianist and a cultural ambassador for music and the arts.
Tickets for all Symphony Center Presents Jazz series concerts can be purchased by phone at 800-223-7114 or 312-294-3000; online at cso.org, or at the Symphony Center box office: 220 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60604. For group rates, please call 312-294-3040.
Artists, programs and prices are subject to change.
The Symphony Center Presents (SCP) Jazz series is sponsored by Exelon.
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Symphony Center Presents Friday, November 6, 2015, 8:00 p.m. Jazz CHUCHO VALDÉS and THE AFRO-CUBAN MESSENGERS
Chucho Valdés, Piano Ariel Bringuez, Tenor Saxophone Rafael Águila, Alto Saxophone Carlos Dimet, Trumpet Manuel Machado, Trumpet Reinaldo Melián, Trumpet Gastón Joya, Bass and Vocals Rodney Barreto, Drums and Vocals Dreiser Durruthy Bombalé, Batás and Vocals Yaroldy Abreu Robles, Percussion and Vocals
Tickets: $28-$89
Chucho Valdés October 9, 1941, Dionisio Jesús "Chucho" Valdés Rodríguez was born in Quivicán, Havana province, Cuba, and became an addition to an already established musical family. His Cuban roots and inspiring mentors sculpted the hands that would eventually hold nearly a half a dozen Grammy Awards, three being Latin Grammy Awards; Chucho is without a doubt the most decorated and significant figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz. His father, the pianist, composer and bandleader, Ramón “Bebo” Valdés, and his mother, Pilar Rodríguez, who sang and played the piano were efficacious in establishing Chucho’s early form. At just three years of age, the Cuban prodigy played the piano with both hands, in any key, to melodies he heard on the radio. At the age of five, Chucho began studying theory and solfege with maestro Oscar Muñoz Boufartique. He quickly advanced his studies at the Conservatorio Municipal de Música de la Habana, graduating at only 14. Valdés also took private lessons from Zenaida Romeu, Rosario Franco, Federico Smith and Leo Brouwer.
In 1960, at the age of 19, Chucho’s support system lost a profound figure, his father, “Bebo” Valdés. After leaving to work in Mexico, Bebo later moved to Europe, where he would eventually settle, never returning to Cuba. As fate would have it, Chucho’s celebrated band, Irakere, reunited him with his father after 18 years. On a stage none other than Carnegie Hall, Irakere was debuting in the United States.( In 2000, the two greats fully restored their relationship—playing a duet on Calle 54, a film about Latin jazz by Oscar winning Spanish director Fernando Trueba. The father-son musical apex occurred in 2007 with Juntos Para Siempre, a duet recording that won both a Grammy and a Latin Grammy. Just five years later, Chucho’s father, Bebo Valdés, 94, died on March 22, 2013.)
In the early ‘60s, just after Bebo’s move to Mexico, Chucho wasted no time making a name for himself: working as a pianist at the Teatro Martí (1961), the Salón Internacional del Hotel Habana Riviera (1963), and the orchestra of the Teatro Musical de la Habana (1964-67). In 1967, after a suggestion of his old teacher, the great guitarist, composer and director Leo Brouwer, Chucho organized his own combo. Still, that same year he joined the important Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna—then directed by maestros Armando Romeu and Rafael Somavilla. While a member of the orchestra, Chucho revisited the idea of a small group and, in 1970, he appeared at the Jazz Jamboree in Poland leading his own quintet. In 1972, after recording Jazz Batá, an album featuring an unusual jazz trio comprising bassist Carlos del Puerto and singer and percussionist Oscar Valdés on batá (the traditional hourglass shaped drums used in the ritual music of the Orishas), Chucho decided to enlarge the group adding brass and trap drums. That´s the genesis, in 1973, of Irakere, a small, Cuban-style big band that played an explosive mix of jazz, rock, classical music and traditional Cuban music, including Afro-Cuban religious music and instruments.
In 1998, while not completely leaving Irakere behind, Chucho started a parallel career as a solo player and quartet leader, looking for greater opportunities to explore and showcase his playing. “Twenty five years with the same band is a long time,” said Chucho at the time. “I’ve been wanting to play solo and with a quartet for some time now. My work as a pianist and soloist gets diluted in Irakere. My job in the group is to be the composer, arranger and musical director and that’s a completely different role.” Chucho stayed with Irakere until 2005. In 2012, Chucho reorganized his Afro-Cuban Messengers which currently feature Yaroldy Abreu, percussion, Dreiser Durruthy Bombalé , batá drums and voice; Reinaldo Melián, trumpet, Gastón Joya, bass and Rodney Barreto, drums. His most recent production, Border-Free, is yet another expression of the continuing musical search and evolution of Chucho Valdés as a pianist, composer, arranger and director.
The El Periódico newspaper from Barcelona, Spain, recently noted, “After his presentation at the Voll-Damm Festival Internacional de Jazz of Barcelona, in his first concert as resident [artist], the giant of Cuban piano claimed his place not only as interpreter but as the creator of a sound that is now the lingua franca in Latin jazz but 40 years ago … must’ve sounded like a revolution.” In this appearance, Valdés offered a glimpse of his great Project for 2015: revisiting and reinterpreting the music of his legendary group, Irakere, the very project bringing Chucho to the (SPC) Jazz Series, Friday, November 6 at 8:00 p.m. The performance will occur in the middle of Irakere’s fall 2015 tour, consisting of 19 performances that span from California to North Carolina, and it is perhaps one of the waning opportunities to witness the unforgettable, prodigious group in its entirety under the genius of Chucho Valdés.
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