By John Rieger
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Arturo Sandoval |
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Arturo Sandoval and Andy Garcia on the set of HBO's movie of Sandoval's story, For Love or Country. Garcia portrayed Sandoval in film. |
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The name of virtuoso trumpet player Arturo Sandoval is virtually synonymous with Afro-Cuban Jazz, and the two are, in fact, almost exact contemporaries. A friend and protégé of the great Dizzy Gillespie, Sandoval was born in Cuba in 1949, just two years after Gillespie began his pathfinding experiments blending Latin rhythms with American Bebop.
In the early 70's, Sandoval was a founding member of the group Irakere, whose explosive mixture of jazz, rock and traditional Cuban music earned him the first of four Grammys and twelve nominations. From 1982 to 1990 he was voted Cuba's Best Instrumentalist. He has also maintained a parallel career performing as a guest artist with some of the world's great symphony orchestras.
In 1990, seeking greater artistic freedom, Sandoval and his family defected to the United States. Last year he had the unusual honor of creating and performing the score to the HBO movie For Love or Country, the story of his own life. This Tom Sawyer-esque moment was the occasion for this interview with John Rieger, Executive Editor for Behind the Beat, the creator of ASCAP's Audio Portraits on ASCAP.com.
Rieger: Well first, I can't help observing that it's not very many artists who are invited to create the music for a movie about their own life story.
Sandoval: (laughing) It's kind of unique, you know, to be able to be alive and active. Most of the time when they do those things people have passed away, or they are ready to die.
When you saw your story on HBO, did it remind you of you? Did they do a good job?
Beautiful. Otherwise I didn't approve it. This is the instruction I got from HBO: "If you see something, or you hear something, or you read something that you don't agree with, let us know right away."
Does that mean you didn't let them put in any of the bad stuff?
(laughing) No, no! They put in what they want. I didn't say anything, because they are professionals. They know what they have to do.
When did you start to play the trumpet?
I started in music playing different instruments. I was nine or ten years old when I started in a small brass band in my home village. I started with percussion, and then they gave me several things to try, and then little by little I started to look to the trumpet with the corner of the eye. You know, saying, "Wow, I think that's the one, I like it." That was after one or two years of trying different instruments when I really realized the trumpet was the one.
How old would you say you were when you realized you were a trumpet player?
I was eleven.
And when did you look at yourself and say, "I'm ready to be a professional?"
At eleven! (laughing) I had no choice!
Then you were a young man with plenty of confidence?
Oh, yes. Actually, at eleven, when I started to meet people, the trumpet teacher there in my village -- not really a teacher but an old trumpet player -- and a lot of other people who gave me advice and lessons discouraged me very, very much. They said, "No, I don't see any kind of abilities, any kind of talent at all. I think you should do something else," and that probably gave me the inspiration and the strength to really practice like crazy for so many years.
They made you mad?
Yeah. And I cried. I remember I cried a lot. But at the same time I was crying, I was practicing. There's a very interesting story associated with the song "The Man I Love" that appears on the soundtrack album.
That arrangement of "The Man I Love" was done in the early 60's by Armando Romeu. Armando Romeu was my orchestrater and harmony teacher in Cuba. Besides he was the conductor of the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, the very first big band I played with in the early 60's. He was also the conductor of the Orchestra in the famous Tropicana cabaret in Cuba in the 30's, 40's and 50's and he's a great, great, great arranger, a very enthusiastic musician. He's still alive. He's 92 years old.
Now when you asked him if you could use the arrangement, what happened?
The problem was how to go there and pick up the arrangement and send it here, because he's almost blind, he's very old, and he couldn't find it by himself.
So he had this brilliant arrangement stored somewhere, and he couldn't see well enough to find it and send it to you?
That's right. And then my wife's cousin went to his house, with his permission and his orientation. He told her where she should look to find the arrangement, in the many many boxes full of music he's got at his house, and she found it! Of course he's very, very happy to know his arrangement is the one to open the movie, and one of the first cuts off the record. Warner Brothers is going to publish the arrangement. And he's extremely happy about the whole thing.
A lot of musicians have the opportunity to do tributes to other musicians, but in your movie you get to portray Dizzy Gillespie's actual playing. You actually get to play his parts in the film. What was that like?
(chuckling) To play the Dizzy part, in "Night in Tunisia" especially, was very difficult and very easy at the same time. I felt very familiar with his style, number one, but because of the amount of respect I feel for him I never ever try to imitate him at all, you know, because I believe, as much as you like your hero, you shouldn't imitate your hero. I listened to him, I tried to catch as much as I could, all my life, of his playing and his musicianship, but I never tried to imitate him. But in this case I really had to, because physically we don't have him anymore, and I wanted to really get his sound and his way of playing in the movie, of course.
What is the essence of that sound? What do you try to do when you try and imitate Dizzy?
I strongly believe he's the most musical trumpet player who ever lived. Nobody who played the trumpet ever had so much music in his head, so much creativity and such a strong concept of harmony and changes and melody as Dizzy Gillespie has.
Dizzy had a lot of humor in his music, because he had a lot of humor in his character, in his mentality, you know. He was full of joy in his brain, and he reflects that in his music. I remember a few things he taught me; for example, he taught me to play the jews harp, and how to scat. All the things I learned listening to him I was trying to put in my little version of him.
Now, the jews harp, I never heard Dizzy Gillespie play the jews harp.
Oh yeah! He played it a lot. He gave me one of his, and he taught me how to play it.
And you say he taught you how to scat-sing. I've never understood, where do all those syllables come from?
(laughing) That's a good question! You know what? Don't even think that you're gonna understand anything. You never will. It's about saying whatever you want. When you scat, it's no rules. You understand what I mean? It's a bunch of onomatopoeic sounds, but not necessarily any kind of rule. The only thing I do is, you know, just do sounds with my mouth (laughing).
Let's talk about your song "Iya."
"Iya" is something I wrote for Irakere in the early 70's. We recorded it in '78 in Carnegie Hall in New York. That record won a Grammy. That was our first visit in America. "Iya" has a lot of Bebop lines. The concept is Bebop with Afro-Cuban Batas and a kind of very African, Afro-Cuban traditional percussion. It also has a little bit of the influence in the 70's of electronics-a couple of synthesizers, electric guitar-but it's mainly Bebop -- Bebop with Cuban rhythm.
Those two musics really combine very easily. Effortlessly. You don't have to suffer to put it together, you know, any kind of Bebop tune with a Cuban rhythm. Any Bebop tune, you put a Latino rhythm in the back, it sounds good.
Do you feel that your career is still going strong?
Man, I'm 51 years old, but I feel strong like a bull, you know. That's the only thing I ask from God: Health -- to keep doing exactly what I'm doing.
And has it changed your career coming to America? Do you miss Cuba?
I got all my family here, and I am a citizen of the world. Anywhere I go in the world where people embrace my music, my family and myself, that's my place. And I feel great here in America. I get a lot of admiration and respect for what I do, and that's as much as I need. I miss Cuba in a certain way, but I'm happy here in Miami, believe me. I am very happy. And I would someday love to go back and visit Cuba, but I'm gonna die here in Miami.
John Rieger is Executive Editor of BEHINDtheBEAT, the Audio Feature Service for New Music Releases, www.behindthebeat.net.
Listen to the ASCAP Audio Portrait of Arturo Sandoval
