From Cuba to San Miguel: Francisco Mela to headline the Jazz and Blues Festival
By Glenda Robinson

Jazz Festival The Francisco Mela Trio Thurs, Nov 22, 7pm Teatro Ángela Peralta Hernández Macías 62 250, 150, 80 pesos www.franciscomela.com

For most of the twentieth century, Cuban musicians relocating to the US have played a key role in revitalizing North American jazz and even popular culture. From Desi Arnaz to Paquito D’Rivera, they have injected novel polyrhythms and a propulsive passion into the musical zeitgeist. 

The latest of these influential transplants, Francisco Mela, will take the stage of Teatro Ángela Peralta during the upcoming XIII International Festival de Jazz y Blues in San Miguel, November 21 to 25. 

Mela, as he likes to be called, has been tearing up the turf in New York of late, playing with a who’s who of jazz heavyweights like Joe Lovano, Kenny Barron, John Scofield, John Patitucci and Chucho Valdez. Fortunately for us in San Miguel, he is also very good friends with fellow Cuban Gabriel Hernandez, the virtuosic keyboardist who lives here part-time and who, if you’re lucky, you can catch at Tio Lucas from time to time. 

Mela was born in 1968 in Bayamo, Cuba, a historic town nestled in the Sierra Maestra mountain range. His father, artistic director of Bayamo’s cultural programs, tried to get him interested in the guitar, but Mela wanted to paint, and spent three years in the local Escuela de Artes Plastica. When he was 15, he took off one day to Havana, not realizing that he was missing his final exams. Mela was expelled…and the rest, as they say, is historia. He switched to studying classical and Afro-Cuban percussion in the town’s music academy, and in short order he was an instructor at Bayamo’s Rafael Cabrera Conservatory of Music. 

Mela’s path to the US took him from Bayamo to Havana and then to Cancún on a gig with Gabriel. There, a chance encounter with legendary pianist Danilo Perez changed his life. “Danilo encouraged me to move to Boston. He said, if you come to Boston, you’ll play with people who are even better than me.”

He made the leap in 1997, and was soon gigging with professors from the Berklee College of Music. One day he got the call to teach at the prestigious institution. Today he balances a hectic performance schedule with his class in Afro-Cuban and Brazilian percussion, and private lessons with two dozen students. 

“I have so much knowledge to share from Cuba,” he says. “A lot of my students play rock and funk and hip-hop, and I try to combine what they want with what I have. Some of them say they want to go to Cuba to study…and now they don’t have to go because I’m here, and I can give it to them. It’s an honor to share my country with my students.”

Mela’s music has been characterized as “very current, very New York.” “I am from Cuba, yes,” he said recently. “But my music is not salsa.”

Canadian woodwind player Jane Burnett, who recently asked Mela to anchor the rhythm section on her Grammy-nominated Cuban Odyssey, says of his music, “It is full of life, soul and adventure. He has combined all of the ingredients that I love so much—his native Cuba, his philosophies and his unique vision. His music is powered by warmth, spirit and great playing.” 

Mela’s new album is called Melao, the Spanish word for sugar cane syrup that is also used to describe a propitious mixture of ingredients. A hybrid of all of Mela’s influences to date—Cuba, Africa and New York—it was hailed as the “best debut album of the year” by the magazine All About Jazz. Guest player Joe Lovano says of the recording sessions that produced the album, “The free-flowing atmosphere made us all explore his music with a creative, intimate approach. I’m glad we all live together in the same world of music.” 

We will soon be glad that we are part of that world, too. The Francisco Mela Trio, which includes his “brother” keyboardist Gabriel Hernandez, plays November 22 at 7pm. The Fine Wine Trio with Gene Perla will open the show. Tickets are on sale now at the Peralta box office. 

For more information about this year’s Jazz and Blues Festival, go to www.sanmigueljazz.com. The Festival is still looking for financial support. To learn more about the benefits of sponsorship, please contact director Antonio Lozoya at sanmigueljazz@yahoo.com  or Doug Robinson at jazzooo@aol.com. 

Come one, come all to free jazz classes

Jazz classes

“Jazz Vocals” by Daline Jones
Thurs, Nov 22, noon 

“Elements of Jazz Improvisation” by the five maestros
Fri, Nov 23, noon

“Gypsy Jazz and Django Reinhardt” by the Hot Club of San Francisco 
Sat, Nov 24, noon

Auditorio Miguel Malo
Bellas Artes
Hernández Macías 75
Free 

Everyone is welcome to attend three free master classes given during our fair pueblo’s upcoming Jazz and Blues Festival. And we do mean everyone: professional musicians, amateur players, passionate listeners and people who are simply curious about how great performers make their art. Interested school children are especially welcome. 

“Jazz Vocals” by Daline Jones, one of San Francisco’s most popular singers. Jones was the first lead female vocalist in the legendary Starlight Room of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. A few yeas ago, this daughter of the late Beat poet Ted Jones swapped stardom for sunshine, and is now based in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Fluid in jazz, bossa nova and R&B (she sang backup for The Commodores), Jones will talk about—and demonstrate—jazz vocal techniques. (In English, translated into Spanish.)

“Elements of Jazz Improvisation” by the five maestros: Francisco Telléz (piano), Sósimo Hernadez Flores (bass), Pablo Hidalgo Wong (flute), Hugo Daniel Leyva Barajas (guitar), and Eduardo Piastro (guitar). All five are faculty members at the Jazz Academy of the Escuela Superior de Music in Mexico City. They also happen to be the people most responsible for nurturing the development of jazz in Mexico over the last 30 years. They will talk about that core characteristic of jazz—improvisation—how, when and why it happens (and doesn’t happen). (In Spanish, translated into English.)

“Gypsy Jazz and Django Reinhardt” by the Hot Club of San Francisco. Hot Club leader-guitarist Paul “Pazzo” Mehling is known for his work as a jazz educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. He will demonstrate the techniques of Gypsy swing guitar and explain the harmonics that define the genre. He will also take you back to the smoky cabarets of Paris in the thirties and introduce you to Django Reinhardt, the illiterate nomad genius who changed the history of jazz forever. (In English, translated into Spanish.) 


The XIII Festival International de Jazz y Blues runs from Wednesday, November 21 to Sunday, November 25. Tickets are on sale now at the Teatro Ángela Peralta box office. For more information about performers and concert times, go to www.sanmigueljazz.com.  

Clarinetist Natalie Braux at Teatro Santa Ana

Concert Project Jazztudio Thurs, Nov15, 5pm  Teatro Santa Ana Biblioteca Pública Insurgents 25

International clarinet player Natalie Braux returns to San Miguel for an encore performance. Her last performance she entranced the audience with her Klesmer stylings and next on November 15, she will present “Project Jazztudio,” a performance that will include modal jazz, Latin rhythms and blues elements.

Braux was born in California, but moved to France when she was a child where her music education began. She studied classical piano for 10 years and in 1983 switched to jazz studies for clarinet and saxophone. She studied improvisation techniques with several teachers including Alan Silva and Aldridge Hansberry.

Braux now lives in Guadalajara and has toured extensively throughout Europe, the US and Mexico with her Klesmer group “Sherele.” While playing at Viejo Topo’s Summerfest, she met “Quinta Esencia,” a group from San Miguel that plays gypsy and Klesmer music. From there the friendship and collaboration was born. The musicians, as talented as they are diverse, will play jazz at the Santa Ana concert with Bobby Kaplan on drums, Gilberto Gonzalez on double bass and with a local keyboardist. This concert will promote Analogies, her latest CD featuring nine wonderfully composed and recorded original tracks.

Afterward, the group will play the Zacatecas Jazz Festival and a concert in Guadalajara. These musicians have formed a special connection that can be heard through their collaboration and that highlights each musician’s individual prowess. This will be a chance to see world-class musicians in a small, intimate setting.

Outstanding chamber music at Pro Música
By Bob Kelly

Concert
José White String Quartet
Sat–Sun, Nov 17–18, 5pm
St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6
150/50 pesos

Members of the José White String Quartet

The José White String Quartet, considered Mexico’s outstanding chamber music group, will play concerts November 17–18 in the San Miguel Pro Música series. The quartet first appeared here at the chamber music festival in 1998 and has returned to play at subsequent festivals and Pro Música concerts.

The quartet presented four concerts in Spain last year and made its second US tour in January and February. They will tour the US again in early 2008. After their US debut in 2004, a reviewer in Cleveland said “their rhythmic intensity was exhilarating, their emotional involvement electrifying. They stretched phrases to the breaking point and relished the glowing colors of the composer’s impressionist palette.” They also recorded their second CD last December.

Based in Aguascalientes,, the members are principal players with the Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra. Three of the members were born in Havana, thus the group named itself after Cuba’s noted violinist of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Jose White, who enjoyed an international concert career while based in Europe and who has inspired string players in Latin America for several generations.

The November 17 concert will include pieces by Ludwig von Beethoven and Johannes Brahms. The November 18 concert will include pieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jose White and Felix Mendelssohn.

The concerts start at 5pm at St. Paul’s church, Calle Cardo 6. Tickets at 150 and 50 pesos are available at La Tienda in the Biblioteca, Insurgentes 25; Casa de Papel, Mesones 57; La Conexion, Aldama 3, and St. Paul’s office weekdays 11am to 2pm; and at the door one hour before concert time. For details see www.promusicasma.com.

Bob Kelly was a reporter on his hometown newspaper and the editor of a weekly, both in Parkersburg, W. Va. His last newspaper job was with the Chicago Sun-Times.