Grammy-winner Arturo O’Farrill heads all star group
Juan Laporte’s Boxing Gym in Longwood has been the haunt of champion boxers for more than a dozen years. But last month, the ring was home to Grammy-award-winning jazz musicians, not prize fighters.
The gym was the setting for the first of three performances taking place around the area by Blitz, a new jazz ensemble whose name is an acronym for “Bronx Latin Jazz.” The group is touring in an effort to bring jazz to a new audience, and will play one more concert on April 24.
The concerts feature music based off of the life stories of five local Bronxites, performed by two-time Grammy award-wining pianist Arturo O’Farrill, multi-Grammy-award winning drummer Will Calhoun, Venezuelan bassist Bam Bam Rodríguez, Fulbright Award-winning saxophone player Alejandro Avilés and Cuban trumpet player Kali Rodríguez-Peña.
The first concert’s music was composed around the life of Bronx resident Andy González, a Latin Jazz bassist who was born in the Bronx and helped form the musical groups Conjunto Anabaco and Grupo Folklórico y Experimental Nuevayorkino with his brother, Jerry González. The new compositions hit the high and low notes of the stories they were based on. For example, “Sancho Sancho” told the story of how Bob Sancho, who was born in the South Bronx and was a high-ranking administrator at Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center, helped save González’s life by getting him treatment despite his lack of medical insurance.
Blitz band members selected their muses based on their long time connection with the Bronx. They then shared every possible aspect of their relationship with the Bronx with the band, which then composed original music based on those stories.
Blitz performed music inspired by Ann Calhoun, the mother of Will Calhoun (the drummer for Living Colour) and a retired Bronx teacher and social worker, on March 27 at the Longwood Laundromat. In the same concert, they also played music inspired by Dr. Hetty Fox, a Bronx-born and based poet, writer and musician.
The last event will feature a composition inspired by the life of Benny Bonilla, the renowned Latin jazz percussionist born and raised in the area.
At the gym, the band’s performance of “Sancho Sancho” featured a mix of upbeat piano, toe-tapping trumpet and stimulating saxophone. In the middle of the song came one of Calhoun’s drum and symbol solos, an unpredictable, attention-grabbing riff that, once complete, induced a standing ovation from the crowd. Unfazed, the band continued on with their musical expedition, jamming under strings of gold tinsel criss-crossing the boxing ring.
“We went on a journey together, as a community,” said O’Farrill, Blitz’s creator and pianist after the show. “The music becomes relevant to humans as opposed to just art for the elite.”
O’Farrill has been taking his music to Latin communities for more than 15 years. In 1995, he directed the Chico O’Farrill Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra, a band that preserved the music his father composed. In addition to being involved in more than 10 jazz albums, O’Farrill has taught seminars at colleges across the Northeast and has received many commissions, including one from the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
With Blitz, O’Farrill wanted to “break down the traditional boundaries, stereotypes and preconceived notions around jazz in order to promote its growth as a genre and ability to reach new audiences.” O’Farrill then called on fellow band members for help.
O’Farrill also teamed up with the Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education to help choose venues and spread the word about the performances. The concept was to perform in settings of everyday life in the Bronx, such as local businesses and public areas.
Concert-goers danced in their seats and put their arms around their comrades while the band played. One man, wearing a red sweater and black fedora, snapped his fingers in the air and tapped his foot to the beat. One group of friends laughed as they discussed their day and one man told the person he was on the phone with that we would take a video of the “new music.”
When the event came to a close, nobody was kicked out of the boxing gym, Instead, audience members waited to have CDs signed and take pictures with the band members after the show. This connection between the artists and the audience was just what O’Farrill and the gym personnel were looking for.
“It is a great experience for professional artists to come and link up [with us],” said gym director Ponce Laspina. “It’s great [that we all get to] share the same experiences, especially with kids.”
The next and last Blitz concert is scheduled for April 24 at Monsignor Raul Del Valle Square (outside the Hunts Point Station of the 6 train). All events are free and are made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.