Trombonist and percussionist Arturo Vazquez Jr. is joining us today to talk about his career and his current band, Projecto 7. This salsa and jazz band features an interesting mix of Latin genres and is often invited to popular local venues in Illinois, where Arturo and his bandmates live, including Two Brothers Roundhouse, Joe’s on Weed, and MCM Pub.

Here is a summary of how much we talk about his early years, the foundation of the band, and his current professional activities.

Arturo’s beginnings in music while he was still a child 

As usual, before delving into other issues, we wanted to know a little about Arturo’s beginnings in music to establish a chronology, and he told us that he expressed interest in this world when he was just a 10-year-old boy. His grandfather was a musician, and he and his colleagues often organized parties in the municipality of Patillas, Puerto Rico, where the family lived, and jíbara music was always present in everyday life.

The first instruments he learned to play were the timbales and the bongo, but after his grandfather passed away, he was given the accordion his grandfather had played, although unfortunately it did not really catch his attention. That was why he remained focused on percussion. Furthermore, knowing how important it is to get a proper academic education, he studied at the Free School of Music in Puerto Rico for a time, but due to the financial difficulties that his parents were experiencing at the time, they decided to move with their son to New York.

In the mentioned city, he continued his percussion studies at the School of Liberal Arts, being Willie Colón and Tito Puente his greatest inspirations to become a professional musician.

Years later, specifically in the 1970s, his parents found work in Chicago and moved there. That was where Arturo studied high school and met many aspiring percussionists, so the competition was brutal. Therefore, the orchestra’s conductor offered him the trombone spot and gave him a large bass trombone. 

After he graduated, he began studying at the University of Illinois in Chicago, where he learned to read music and improvise with Professor J.J. Johnson during symphony orchestra concerts. Once he had gained a more or less acceptable experience in trombone practice, he remembered why or who inspired him to play in the first place, so he began playing in way Willie Colón would. That was not very common in his time, since most trombonists were classical musicians, but he did not care at all, so he started to entirely focus on salsa.

At the same time, he also specialized as a bomba and plena percussionist, so he trained at the Segundo Ruíz Belvis Cultural Center with maestro Rafael Cepeda, better known as “The Patriarch of Bomba and Plena” in Puerto Rico, who traveled to Chicago to teach percussion alongside AfriCaribe, a nonprofit cultural organization led by bandleader and singer Evaristo “Tito” Rodriguez. That was how Arturo also learned to play the pandereta and the barril, but with a focus on bomba and plena.

Professional opportunities before Projecto 7

Before creating his own group, Arturo gained considerable musical proficiency. In the area where he lived in Chicago, there were many gangs recruiting young people to sell drugs, resulting in the emergence of numerous initiatives that sought to keep kids off the streets such as El Congreso Puertorriqueño, whose main goal was to introduce them to Latin music. It was then that the artist met a record label called Caribe, thanks to which he made his first recording as a trombonist with the Orquesta La Unión. This was essentially one of several orchestras that served as a warm up for major groups and artists such as Hector Lavoe, Willie Colón, Ismael Miranda, Ray Barretto, and many others.

Before becoming a soloist, he put aside his career as a musician for more than 10 years because it was not enough to support his family, which already included two daughters. During those years, he studied psychology at the University of Chicago, studied therapy and rehabilitation at the University of Puerto Rico, and taught psychology and therapy at the Elgin Community College.

He worked in Puerto Rico from 1981 to 1988, when he moved to Miami to test the atmosphere in the city, but competition among Latino, especially Cubans, made it impossible for him to make a name for himself there, so he went to try his luck in Elgin, located about 31 miles from Chicago, where he eventually worked as a professional therapist and psychology professor. 

Projecto 7 Salsa & Latin Jazz Band

His group, Projecto 7, started at a parranda in which Arturo and Los Hnos Rodriguez in Elgin. The artists invited him to join them and propose new things for the project. When the brothers’ orchestra disbanded, Arturo received a call from a former member of Orquesta La Selecta, Joe González, who moved to Elgin to care for his sick father. González proposed Arturo and other musicians to form a new group called Projecto 7, since there would be seven artists in the group.

Since then, they have made efforts to keep the same lineup of musicians, including musical director, pianist, and bassist Juan Rivera; trombonist Tony Morales; singer Ricky Rodríguez; and bongo player Luis Angel Palermo.

Read also: Steel pan percussionist Brad Shores shows us the best of Caribbean music in Florida