ALast-minute change for Nathalie Braux jazz concert
Concert
Nathalie Braux
Jazz Studio
Doug Robinson, piano
Beto González, bass
Bob Kaplan, drums
Fri–Sat, Sept 21–22, 9pm
El Viejo Topo Café-Teatro
Stirling Dickinson 28
150 pesos 154-8701
Bob Kaplan will play drums for the two concerts that Nathalie Braux will give September 21–22. With Doug Robinson on piano and Beto González on bass, the show promises to be a treat for all jazz lovers.
Nathalie Braux has come to San Miguel twice, as the clarinetist and arranger with Jaramar’s band, and as the leader of Sherele, the Klezmer band from Guadalajara. She is coming now to present her original vocation as an impressive and skilled jazz composer and player.
Froth on the wave: a musician’s life in San Miguel
By Laura Frances Zelenka
Concert
Jack and Frances, Hermalene and Ed
Thurs, Sept 27, 7pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Reloj 50A
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We’ve been in San Miguel for over three years; Jack and I came here from California in the summer of 2004. |
With some uncertainty after 9/11, we told our friends, Hermalene Wick (also a guitarist) and Ed Curran (a New York saxophonist), that we were thinking of moving to Mexico. They told us not to decide where until we checked out San Miguel. We caravaned down with them, and the rest, as they say, is history.
| As professional musicians (we perform as the duo “Jack and Frances”), we find that living in San Miguel nurtures our music. We’ve collaborated with a variety of musicians: | |
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from playing in Patrick Smith’s rock and roll band at his restaurant (Finnegan’s), to being part of the quartet “Sonatas del Alba,” to performing with classical violinist Rhonni Hallman this past summer and now to playing with Chicago saxophonist Claude Lawrence—all of these experiences have informed our music in some way.
The community of musicians in San Miguel, like the community of little marine animals in a tide pool, is always changing. New musicians flow into town all the time, and other musicians drift away, gone to other cities in Mexico or back up to the States. Seems like we’re always saying hello or goodbye to somebody. Other people come here with their furniture and belongings to make their mark on a town they hope to make their own, but it is different for musicians. Jack is fond of saying that as musicians we’re just the froth on the top of a wave. Claude says that his criteria for living in a place is being able to leave it with no more than six hours to pack. More stuff than that, he doesn’t want.
Although we met Claude three years ago, our current association began this past summer when Jack made his acting debut in the play “Jazz: Portraits of the Music,” which Claude co-authored with Elena Shoemaker. The series of vignettes about the lives of the jazz greats was punctuated with Claude’s musical interludes on solo sax. He played the music of the jazz composers, as well as his own compositions.
We now play together at La Princesa (Recreo 3) on Friday nights for the local tango community’s weekly milonga, and on Saturday nights, it’s Brazilian jazz. The owners of La Princesa, mother and son team Maru and Raul, are always working to enhance the restaurant‘s appeal. There is a new menu and a new look, and we are part of that.
Jack and I find that we too must continually reinvent ourselves. Our repertory now includes classical pieces, boleros, tangos, Brazilian jazz, some Beatles’ songs and a collection of frequently requested tunes we call “tourist favorites.” These have been gathered, one by one, from the vast field of possible things we could play. Like children on an Easter egg hunt, we watch for those colorful little prizes to collect in our basket. We prefer it this way to just playing what everybody else is playing: we joke that there is a “San Miguel book” of tunes that circulates among all the established musicians here. We also have a growing collection of original tunes.
Another place in Mexico that is legendary among guitarists is the little village of Paracho in Michoacan. We just had to go there, and two years ago, we did. Since then we’ve been back seven or eight times, and by now, some people in town recognize us. We know a handful of superior luthiers that we’ve recommended to people. Twice now I’ve gone there not expecting to buy a guitar and have come back with real gems. One I have since sold to a student. The other, a copy of a guitar made by a French builder named Le Cote in the 1830s, is a delightful little thing on which I enjoy playing classical studies.
We posted pictures and information about our travels to Paracho on our website, and we got so many inquiries that we now offer to take people there. We currently have a three-day bus trip scheduled for September 30 through October 2. Paracho is a friendly place, but for non-Spanish speakers, it can be overwhelming because of the sheer number of guitar builders to visit, most of whom do not speak English.
Teaching also is one of the tools of the trade for professional musicians, and we find that San Miguel is a great place for this. Our website offers week-long guitar intensives, which combine instruction with cultural activities. San Miguel has been good to us and we’re happy to entice folks down here to enjoy the local restaurants and live music scene. So far we’ve had a couple of dozen students who came down here to study with us and have really enjoyed San Miguel.
So things have come full circle. Our friends Hermalene and Ed are in town for a couple more weeks, and we’re going to put on a concert with them on September 27. A couple of days later, they too will leave San Miguel, headed north for awhile. Jack and I have rented a little house in Colonia San Rafael, a “fixer upper,” simple, beautiful and affordable on a musician’s budget. Maybe we really are just froth on a wave. But it’s also true that we bought our first bag of cement the other day—that seems pretty concrete....
Laura Frances Zelenka can be reached by email at frances@guitar-vacation-retreats.com
or by phone at 152-4375. For information on the San Miguel tango community events, go to
www.tangosanmiguel.com.
Jack and Frances’ website is www.guitar-vacation-retreats.com.
Concert
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Interpolación, with Jack and Frances Thurs, Sept 27, 7pm Teatro Santa Ana Reloj 50A 100 pesos |
On September 27, the duo known as “Interpolación” will share a program with local guitarists Jack and Frances.
Saxophonist Ed Curran and his wife, guitarist Hermalene Wick, began playing as a duo three years ago. Based in Baja, California, the duo has performed in northern Baja and around the US. Fellow saxophonist Bindu Gross coined the name “Interpolación,” as it fit the way they have integrated their respective classical and jazz backgrounds.
Curran studied saxophone with premier jazz saxophonist Joe Napoleon, and in the early sixties he was part of the avant-garde music scene in New York City. He performed on numerous radio and TV shows with Bill Dixon, Bob Pozar and Dave Horowitz, as well as with his own band. He eventually became the director of jazz at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery. In 1967, he recorded an album Elysa for the prestigious jazz label Savoy, as well as writing and performing the music for an art film.
After a 40-year hiatus from music, his wife Hermalene encouraged him to return to music. He now performs a more “cool jazz” style, but at times you can still hear his avant-garde roots.
Jack and Frances have been living in San Miguel and performing as a duo in town and throughout western Mexico for three years.
The four musicians will split the program, as well as share a couple of tunes together. They will include bossa nova favorites, boleros, classical and jazz standards, as well as some originals. Tickets are 100 pesos at the theater box office.
Musical treasure to play at Bellas Artes
| Concert Edison Quintana Wed, Sept 26, 9pm Bellas Artes Hernández Macías 75 |
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Recognized by experts as the most versatile and complete piano player of the current music panorama in Mexico, Edison Quintana offers a piano performance September 26, at Auditori Miguel Malo in Bellas Artes.
Director of Bellas Artes Ernesto de la Peña Folch says that these events are planned for the last Wednesday of each month. Through this program, people will have the opportunity to meet outstanding artists who play various instruments. He is inviting the San Miguel community to be a part of Bellas Artes’ activities.
He emphasizes that this program is a joint effort of CONACULTA (National Council for Arts and Culture) and INBA (National Institute of Fine Arts), through the National Coordination of Music and Opera.
Edison Quintana was born in Uruguay and studied with Hugo Balzo. He received a diploma from Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. He also studied in Romania with Florica Musicescu and with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Guido Agosti and George Halmos.
A resident of Mexico City for more than 20 years, Quintana has had a distinguished career throughout Latin America, Europe and the US. His repertoire is not limited to the traditional works of the European masters. He is acclaimed as a performer of twentieth-century music and for his interpretation of jazz and tango.
He has toured as a performer, a chamber music player and an orchestra soloist. The most outstanding is the integral execution of Beethoven’s piano sonatas (1996), the debut of Héctor Quintanar and the first recording of Hermilio Hernández’s concert. In addition, he performed the debuts in Mexico of Britten, Albéniz and Bolling.
Quintana has been a winner at the renowned Leeds International Competition in England, has presented the Latin American premieres of such works as Prokofiev’s Fourth Piano Concerto, works by Lamarque Pons, and the world premieres of works by Piazolla, Garrido-Lecca, and many leading Latin American composers. He has also released numerous CDs, including a 3-CD set of the complete piano works of Rodolfo Halffter.
He is a founder of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, a pianist and a composer of the Camerata Punta del Este. He also belongs to the concert group for Bellas Artes of the National Coordination of Music and Opera of INBA and is a resident pianist of UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico).