Arturo O’Farrill – A veteran figure of the Afro-Cuban jazz movement: Video

22.06. – Happy Birthday !!! A veteran figure of the Afro-Cuban jazz movement, Arturo O’Farrill was born in Cuba and grew up in New York City. The son of big-band leader Chico O’Farrill, Arturo was educated at the Manhattan School of Music and the Brooklyn College Conservatory.

From 1979-1983, he played piano with the Carla Bley Big Band. O’Farrill then went on to develop his skills as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists, including Wynton Marsalis, Dizzy Gillespie, Steve Turre, Papo Vazquez, the Fort Apache Band, Lester Bowie, and Harry Belafonte.

Blood Lines In 1995, O’Farrill agreed to direct Chico O’Farrill’s Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra in residence at New York City’s Birdland nightclub; the band also performed throughout the world. As a bandleader in his own right, O’Farrill recorded material for Milestone Records, 32 Jazz, and M & I. Those recordings (Blood Lines, A Night in Tunisia, and Cumana) provided listeners with an overview of the musical environment in which O’Farrill was raised. He also made appearances on numerous records, including Habanera with Alberto Shiroma and the soundtrack to the critically acclaimed movie Calle 54.

Arturo was a special guest soloist at three landmark Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts — Afro-Cuban Jazz: Chico O’Farrill’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, November 1995, Con Alma: The Latin Tinge in Big Band Jazz, September 1998, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Gala: The Spirit of Tito Puente, November 2001. In March 2002, he was also the featured artist in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz in the Schools Tour, when he led a Latin jazz quintet for 24 educational performances that reached over 5,000 people throughout the N.Y.C. metropolitan schools. He again participated in this educational tour in 2002 and continued to direct the orchestra that preserved much of his father’s music.

In These Shoes The year 2008 saw him partnering with vocalist Claudia Acuña for In These Shoes, a stylish offering of jazz and Latin music. Two years later he released The Auction Project, featuring David Bixler, an acoustic post-bop date with a Celtic influence. In February 2011, he followed with 40 Acres and a Burro, an outing for his Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. A solo piano date titled The Noguchi Sessions appeared later in 2011; for that album, O’Farrill was recorded alone after-hours at the Noguchi Museum on Long Island.
Youngblood As a producer, he helmed the sessions for Adam Kromelow’s Youngblood album and participated in a quartet known as the Puppeteers with Jaime Affoumado, Bill Ware, and Alex Blake. Their self-titled offering was released in March of 2014. O’Farrill followed it in May with the release of his next Afro-Latin Orchestra date, The Offense of the Drum. The album won a 2015 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album.

Cuba: The Conversation Continues In December of 2014, O’Farrill and his band were in Cuba performing, and planning to record. The next evening, Barack Obama announced the restoration of full diplomatic relations with the nation after more than 50 years of silence. The album O’Farrill had planned was in synchronicity with the announcement: it extended the musical and cultural conversation begun by Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo from the 1940s. It featured four premier Cuban and six American composers/arrangers. The big band was expanded to accommodate 24 players. Its recording sessions included 21 producers and a number of videographers from both countries. The double-length document, entitled Cuba: The Conversation Continues, was released by Motema in the summer of 2015. Two years later, O’Farrill paired with Chucho Valdés for Familia: Tribute to Bebo & Chico, an homage to their legendary fathers and shared musical legacies.

2015 Grammy Nominee & 2014 Latin Grammy Award Winner Arturo O’Farrill, an Winner of the Latin Jazz USA Outstanding Achievement Award for 2003, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City.

In 2002, Mr. O’Farrill and Wynton Marsalis created the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra for Jazz at Lincoln Center due in part to a large and very demanding body of substantial music in the genre of Latin and Afro Cuban Jazz that deserves to be much more widely appreciated and experienced by the general jazz audience. His debut album with the Orchestra “Una Noche Inolvidable” earned a GRAMMY award nomination in 2006. Educated at the Manhattan School of Music, Brooklyn College Conservatory, and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, Mr. O’Farrill played piano with the Carla Bley Big Band from 1979 through 1983. He then went on to develop as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Steve Turre, Freddy Cole, The Fort Apache Band, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Belafonte.

In 1995 Mr. O’Farrill agreed to direct the band that preserved much of his father’s music, Chico O’Farrill’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, which has been in residence at Birdland, New York City’s famed nightclub, for the past nine years, as well as performing throughout the world as a solo artist and with his smaller groups. Besides recording five albums as a leader for Milestone Records, 32 Jazz, Zoho and M & I (Bloodlines, A Night in Tunisia, Cumana Bop, Live in Brooklyn and The Jim Seeley/Arturo O’Farrill Quintet), Mr. O’Farrill has appeared on numerous recordsincluding the Grammy-nominated Heart of a Legend, Carambola, and the soundtrack tothe critically acclaimed movie Calle 54. Mr. O’Farrill was a special guest soloist at threelandmark Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts— Afro-Cuban Jazz: Chico O’Farrill’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, November 1995; Con Alma: The Latin Tinge in Big BandJazz, September 1998; and the 2001 Jazz at Lincoln Center Gala: The Spirit of TitoPuente, November 2001. In the Spring and Fall of 2002, he was also the featured artistin Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz in the Schools Tour, when he led a Latin jazz quintetfor more than 50 educational performances that reached over 10,000 students in NYC metropolitan area schools. As an educator, he has taught master classes, seminars and workshops throughout the world for students and teachers of all levels. Recently, Mr. O’Farrill received the Distinguished Alumnus Medal from Brooklyn College and served as the Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist in Residence at Lafayette College.

In the summer of 2007, Mr. O’Farrill served as Visiting Artist at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. He has recently been appointed Assistant Professor of Jazz at The University of Massachussetts in Amherst. Throughout the past few years, Mr. O’Farrill has toured throughout the U.S. Europe and Asia. In the Spring of 2006, he led the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra on a tour of Mexico. In 2007, the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra left Jazz at Lincoln Center to pursue its own educational and performance opportunities. To that end, the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance was created as a not for profit organization dedicated to the preservation , furthering, and education of Afro Latin jazz. A recognized composer Mr. O’Farrill has received commissions from Meet the Composer, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Philadelphia Music Project, and The Big Apple Circus. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, classical pianist Alison Deane and their sons, Zachary and Adam.