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Melissa Aldana Will Headline The Wellington Jazz Festival

The Most Acclaimed Latin Saxophonist On The International Jazz Scene

Melissa Aldana started playing the alto saxophone at the age of 6

Melissa Aldana is a Chilean saxophonist and composer nominated for the Grammy Awards (2020) for her skills with this wind instrument, she has six studio albums, and her fame has spread to all Jazz circuits around the world.

Aldana with his quartet will headline the Wellington Jazz Festival 2022 to present to the fans the debut album with the company Blue Note Records titled 12 Stars, and you cannot miss the opportunity to experience this exceptional live performance with flowing harmonic notes seasoned with feeling in the Wellington Opera House (111 – 113 Manners Street, Wellington, New Zealand) on Sunday, October 23^rd from 7PM to 8:30PM, and the ticket price is $69.

The Wellington Jazz Festival is an entry point into the Jazz music calendar for fans and the curious. This event will offer more than 100 magical concerts in bars, restaurants, and live music venues in the capital. This year the splendid festival will take place in mid-spring in Aotearoa (New Zealand’s Maori name), featuring some of the best international Grammy Award-winning and nominated artists, as well as renowned talent from this Oceanian country and the world.

On the other hand, Melissa Aldana was the first South American woman and instrumentalist to win the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Contest (Washington -USA) in 2013. This artist born in Santiago de Chile in 1988 is a graduate of the prestigious Berklee College of Music with a full music scholarship in 2009, moreover, she also comes from a musical family where her father and paternal grandfather played this instrument.

The discography of this tenor saxophonist goes back 12 years when, at only 22 years old, she came out on the music market with her debut album Free Fall (2010). It is followed by Second Cycle in 2012, Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio (2014), and Back Home in 2016. Her fifth studio album was Visions (2019), an album that earned her first Grammy nomination for Best Solo by Improvised Jazz in recognition of her impressive tenor solo on her composition Elsewhere.

12 Stars was composed in Harlem (New York - USA) in 2020 — 12 Stars was composed in Harlem (New York – USA) in 2020

Most recently her record production is 12 Stars, an anecdotal album that she wrote during the Covid-19 pandemic and the product of the struggles she went through due to the breakup of a long relationship. “This is a very important album for me. I felt like I had a lot to say because of all the experiences I had during 2020. After the personal process that I went through, I feel more connected to myself and my imperfections… Embrace everything I hear, everything I touch, including mistakes, is more significant than perfection”. Aldana exposed in her biography

12 Stars was recorded under the Blue Note label and released on the music market on March 4^th. “I feel super privileged, but I had a feeling that this had to happen at some point. I’ve been very consistent with my band and my projects for a long time. I am very motivated for what comes next”. Aldana expressed to an international digital medium.

Melissa will end her presentations in Europe this year with a tour during November that will take her to the capital of Spain on Friday, November 11^th (Teatro Fernán Gómez) and on Saturday 12^th, she will be in Badajoz (Teatro López De Ayala). While on Monday, November 14^th, she will perform at the Zig Zag Jazz Club (Berlin-Germany), and on Wednesday, November 16^th, she will have the same but this time at the Porgy & Bess in Vienna, Austria.

The Padova Jazz Club (Padua- Italy) will be handed over to Melissa Aldana on Friday, November 18^th, and a day later she will do so at the Teatro Lauro Rossi in Macerata, Italy.

The interesting story of French percussionist Dominique Patrick Noel

How his career started

All right, so we are here with French percussionist, composer and musician Dominique Patrick Noel. How are you doing, Mr. Noel? A pleasure to have you here.

Well, thank you. First of all, I want to thank you for taking the time to interview me and to greet all those who is going to read it. Thank goodness, I am in good health and it is all good.

Dominique Patrick Noel tells us about his story and beginnings

You are a self-taught musician who started playing by age seven. Did you learn everything by yourself or did you receive some kind of training?

Since I come from a family of musicians such as my father and my two grandfathers, I can say that music has always been a part of my life. I started playing the drums by listening to a lot of jazz and fell in love with this genre. That’s how I started to develop the movements and patterns of jazz and the drums.

In school, I started playing and learned solfège, percussion, drumming, among other things. When I turned 15 years old, I started playing music at a pro level because I have always had the pleasure of learning by watching musicians, who had much more experience. Thank goodness, I had my mind fresh to grasp and remember what I had seen, which helped me a lot to continue developing in percussion, different instruments, rhythms, among other things.

When I started playing Latin music, my first instrument was the bongo. I had a mentor named Alfredo Mujica Jr.,m who knew my dad and learned by playing with him. When it was my turn, he was giving the task of helping me understand the patterns and other things. He told me that the best instrument I could choose to start with was the bongo because it would help me understand a little more about how salsa works and that helped me a lot. He showed me the basic pattern and how to imitate the sounds I heard until they were similar.

After that, I also learned to play the conga, the Dominican tambora, the güira, the batá, the cajon and the timbales.

His career started at the age of 15 and his first instrument was the bongo

When you played the bongo for the first time, did you know you wanted to dedicate yourself to the Latin genres permanently?

When I was nine years old, I moved to Martinique and lived there for about four years. There I was fortunate to learn its folklore, its rhythms, its typical instruments and its dances. I also learned to perform all those genres with the drums and tried to absorb all I saw. Concurrently, the zouk era was beginning and I fell in love with the genre since I heard it for the first time.

Sometime later, my dad and I went to the United States to be with my dad, who was living in Washington at the time. It was there where I started to accompany him in several of his activities and shows with his orchestras. Then, I began listening more to salsa, cumbia and merengue, something I liked very much. Then, I told him that I would like to learn what he knew and play with him, to which he replied that it looked good, but that it was a profession that I had to take very seriously. Therefore, he advised me to listen to everything, even if it wasn’t Latin music because all genres nurture the musician in one way or another.

With whom he has worked?

You have worked with Tito Puente Jr, Tito Rojas, Izis La Enfermera de La Salsa, Frankie Vasquez, Lalo Rodriguez, among others. What have you learned from them?

I have had the opportunity to play with maestro Tito Rojas and his musical director, Celso Clemente, gave me some advice. When rehearsing, I approached him to thank him for allowing me to play the bongo with them and ask him for advice for my career, to which he replied that he liked my work very much and that I was very good for someone who was not born in this Latin music environment.

He also advised me that I had to move forward, never play down my goals, accept constructive criticism and always stay humble. I will never forget his words.

Dominique Patrick Noel next to Gloria Estefan and Emilio Estefan

We know that you are a voting member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which is well known for giving the Grammy Awards. What do you base to vote for a nominated candidate for an award?

There are several processes for artists to be nominated. For us the voters, it is a long process because we have the task of listening to much music and analyzing many details such as recording quality, lyrics, musicality and much more. There are many important elements to consider when choosing the person. I want to get to the point of saying that someone really deserves my vote for this or that category.

Voting takes time. It’s not something that you do in an hour or two, it takes a long time. The day of the awards ceremony, we already know who will the winners. At that point, we can say that all of them have managed to win via an arduous selection process.

Tell us about your song Mi Secreto with D’ William.

The skeleton of the song was my idea and I got together D’ William, to whom I offered to join the song. He wanted to collaborate with me in a merengue song for some time and I sent him the skeleton, which he liked and told me that something could be done with it. When he asked me if I already had the lyrics, I said no, but I wanted to base the song on an experience of mine, so I told him what it was about and the lyrics were written about that fact. Later, we made some additional arrangements and that’s how Mi Secreto was born.

Dominique Patrick Noel next to Bobby Cruz

Earl Miranda and Ric Feliciano talk about the Latin Rhythm Boys and its history

Here we have Miranda and Feliciano

Good afternoon, we have here Earl Miranda, musical director of the Latin Rhythm Boys, and Ric Feliciano, writer and arranger for the group. Nice to meet you guys. It’s a pleasure to have you here.

Hi, Karina. It’s great to see you. We’re doing great.

Earl Miranda, Henry Miranda, and Yomo Toro

Okay, wonderful. This project began with your father, Mr. Miranda, who was at the head of the group. What did you and your brother Henry learn the most from your father? How did you develop a love for music?

This all started when we were just kids. We had a lot of family celebrations like Christmas and my father’s band always came and play until three or four o’clock in the morning. My mother made food. Music was always very important to all of us from the beginning. When my father died in 1969, my brother started playing for some bands and I started working as a DJ until it got to the point where we got together and decided to start this whole project together.

Around 2003 or 2004, we contacted our cousin Ric Feliciano to ask him to join us. We started to develop a new salsa style. Ric came with the salsa flavor, while we had the jíbaro flavor, so we brought those two things together to start making music.

Mr. Feliciano, do you have anything to add?

Yes, I am a Boricua from New York, that is to say, a Nuyorican as people say here. Back in the 80’s and 90’s, I grew up listening to the music of Hector Lavoe, Mon Miranda, Willie Colón, among others. I am a trombonist and also like trombanga, which is the music of Mon Rivera and Willie Colón which involves placing trombones at the front of the group so that the sounds are very heavy. That is the style of the Latin Rhythm Boys, which seeks to look to the future, but honoring the stars of yesterday. Since we have three or four trombones and a very particular singing style, many people say we sound like La Fania, including Hector Lavoe’s timbalero, who tells us that our style reminds him a lot of the 70’s and 80’s.

When I listen to your music, it sounds a lot like old school salsa. Why choose that specific style?

For me, that style represents the story of which we come from. My family and his father come from Puerto Rico and moved to Hawaii. In 1963, my father made his life in the United States, California, but he actually started his band in 1957, which was called Junior Miranda and The Latin Rhythm Boys. Then, my brother called it The Latin Rhythm Boys Orchestra.

We have added certain elements to make our music more modern, but many of the arrangements are typical of old school salsa.

Earl Miranda, Henry Miranda and other members of the band

How Earl, Henry, and Ric work together

Mr. Miranda, you are the musical director of the Latin Rhythm Boys and your brother Henry is the music producer. How do you work together?

(Mr. Feliciano answers the question) Well, I’m the arranger, so what we do is Earl and I write all our lyrics together. My family comes from a long line of jíbaros, but we also love salsa. That’s why we are what we are today.

(Earl Miranda’s answer) We are a great team because I have a lot of ideas and Ric applies them in a phenomenal way. Things work out even better than when I thought of them.

We’ve been invited to awards shows and films to make soundtracks in Hollywood. We’ve done some jingles for certain Hollywood and Netflix films.

Mr. Miranda, you said in an interview that jibaro is more like heart and soul, what did you feel when you listened to jibaro music as a child? Why is jibaro music so important to you?

This taste for jibaro music started when I was a child. This reminds me of when I was with my family, my uncles, my aunts, my cousins and other members. It is in my soul. However, we knew we had to evolve into something more relevant. That’s how we created the group and decided to mix new with old. We look to the future, but honor the past.

There are many family members in the orchestra. Would you say this is a family project?

I would say that myself, Henry, Ric and Ricky Castillo are part of the same family. Certainly, there are many members of the family, but many things change over time and members get older, so they withdraw from group. There are also many members who are not family, but they become family and become very necessary for the band.

Ric Feliciano playing the trombone

This question is for Mr. Feliciano. I understand that you joined the orchestra in 2003. How did you join the Latin Rhythm Boys?

I came to California in the 90’s and was part of a few bands here, but I was looking for something that might take me back to my roots. That’s when I heard about the Latin Rhythm Boys (laughs) and decided it was a project I could work on. It brought me get back to my family roots, but we also achieved a new sound.

Music is very important to the family. You have always listened to Jíbara and Puerto Rican music. Would you say that education and training is important for musicians?

Yes and no. Musical training is important on the one hand, but on the other hand I think that music just flows. For example, I’m not very good at reading music, but it’s here in my heart. I could perceive it, even if I don’t have a lot of training around it. I think that’s part of the beauty of it all. Well, Ric is a teacher, so he can offer you another view on this subject.

(This is Mr. Ric Feliciano) Indeed, I am a teacher and I’ve been teaching music for over 30 years, but I must tell you something. Education is not enough to be a good musician because there is a connection that cannot be taught through a class. I’ve had many students who do everything right in technical terms, but they don’t have the necessary flavor. Not everybody has that. I think there needs to be a balance between feeling, flavor and education.

Ric, Earl, and Henry singing and playing

Do you have to be Latino to have that flavor?

We have some guys in the band who aren’t Latino, but they get the swing. We can work with anyone regardless of their ancestry, as we’ve had Americans and Europeans who have everything we’re looking for. We give them the sounds and they have no choice but to imitate them (laughs).

Do you consider it more important to make original music than to do covers?

Absolutely. If you have the talent and vision in your head, everything flows. I think if a person has a song in his/her head, he/she is going to want to translate into reality that idea and play it for an audience to see its reaction. If the reaction is good, you think you’ve done something right.

(This is Mr. Feliciano) What we usually do is to play our own songs at 90 per cent and covers at 10 per cent to please the audience. In fact, many people ask us for certain songs that they think they’re not ours, when, in reality, they are our hits from many years ago.

Ric, Earl, and Henry performing

Oscar D’León celebrates 50 years of career in Caracas “International Salsa Magazine says present”

In September, the greatest exponent of Venezuelan salsa in the world will celebrate five decades of brilliant artistic career with an international tour that will have as its main event, an impressive and awaited symphonic gala at the Teresa Carreño Theater. And for september 22 at the Forum in Valencia.

Miami, May 19, 2022. Undisputed legend of Caribbean music, Oscar D’León, the Sonero of the World, celebrates 50 years of successful artistic career with an international tour that will take him to different locations in the Americas and Europe this summer.

This tour, which will begin on June 20 in Mexico City, will continue in July with the “50th Anniversary Europa Tour 2022”, culminating in a spectacular symphonic gala at the iconic Teresa Carreño Theater, which, during two performances on September 16 and 17, will give his audience the opportunity to sing and dance to the music that has made him the most recognized and admired Venezuelan artist in the world over the course of five decades.

Acapulco, Arequipa, Santiago de Chile, Miami, Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Tenerife, London, Istanbul are some of the cities that will live the energizing experience of seeing him on stage, a real party for music lovers.

Deserving of hundreds of awards and recognitions, including five Latin Grammys, D’León has been nominated nine times for the U.S. Grammy, being the first Venezuelan to obtain such a statuette. He did it in 2001 thanks to the song “Cielito Lindo, La Negra Mariachi Medley” Featuring-Oscar D’Leon, included in a collection album: “Masterpiece/Obra Maestra de Tito Puente y Eddie Palmieri”.

In 2013, he received the Award for Musical Excellence, a special recognition granted by vote of the Board of Trustees of the Latin Recording Academy to artists who have made creative contributions of exceptional artistic importance in the field of recording during their careers.

A true prophet in his own land, this global artist who began writing his formidable musical history in 1972, at the age of 28, when he formed the Dimensión Latina Orchestra, promises to celebrate his half-century of career with an unforgettable show at the Teresa Carreño Theater, the most important in Caracas, organized by the Venezuelan companies Imagen Producciones and Oz Show, in alliance with the National Orchestra System of that country.

Important Notes

Venezuelan musician who is among the most outstanding authors and performers of salsa and Caribbean music in general. Oscar D’León’s professional career began late: legend has it that one night, while visiting a nightclub in 1973, he heard that the band playing there had been fired. Oscar seized the opportunity and offered his own band to replace the one that had left.

The owner accepted and hired him to start playing a few days later. There was only one problem: the band at that time consisted only of D’León himself. He quickly got in touch with trombonist César Monge, told him what had happened and both got down to work to put together a line-up.

The band was finally formed by Oscar (vocals and bass, an instrument he had taught himself to play), César Monge (trombone), José Rodríguez (percussion), Enrique Iriarte (piano) and José Antonio Rojas (trombone).

Thus was formed La Dimensión Latina, Oscar D’León’s first orchestra. “Pensando en ti” was the first of the orchestra’s long list of hits. Four years later, Óscar left the band and was replaced by Puerto Rican Andy Montáñez, a vocalist who sang with the Gran Combo de Puerto Rico. Óscar returned with his own orchestra, La Salsa Mayor, with which he recorded his first album, titled after the group’s name: La Salsa Mayor (1977). The work was a great success in his country, and little by little his name began to be heard on an international scale. The following year he recorded the album El Más Grande, which contained the songs “El baile del suavecito” and “Mi bajo y yo”, and shortly afterwards he made his first visit to New York to offer live performances.

Aside from being a great sonero, Oscar D’León is also an extraordinary showman. Almost always accompanied by his bass, with which he plays and dances as if they were a couple, Óscar moves around the stage with great skill. In Venezuela, Óscar D’León is an idol, not only as a singer and musician, but also as a model of a self-made man who, from a very humble position, achieves fame and success on an international scale.

He is considered one of the best interpreters of Afro-Latin music of all times and is undoubtedly among the Venezuelan artists with more projection abroad.

Despite having gone through several stages in the development of Latin music, Oscar D’León’s style, always unmistakable, has maintained some constants that have allowed him to ensure the loyalty of his wide audience. D’León has recorded with the most outstanding salsa stars; among his collaborations, which can be traced in more than fifty albums, stands out his participation in The Mambo King, the hundredth full-length album by the legendary Tito Puente.

Corresponsal: Lida. María Fernanda León

www.Sanjuanproducciones24.blogspot.com

Meet The Dates Of Havana D’ Primera – Europe Tour 2022

Alexander Abreu & Havana D’ Primera will begin their concert tour in Serbia celebrating their 15-year artistic career

cinco personas cantando — Alexander Abreu with the Van Van at Tempo Latino 2022

Alexander Abreu & Havana D’ Primera will visit Europe in September with their 2022 tour to celebrate their 15-year career with love and music, starting on Saturday, September 3rd in Belgrade (Serbia), and two days later they will step on the Bulgarian salsa stage (Monday, September 5th).

Subsequently, they will sing their repertoire in Spain (Seville, Madrid, Bilbao, and Barcelona) on September 8^th, 9^th, 23^rd, and 30^th, and will continue in France with two concerts: on Sunday 11^th, they will be on stage on the Cabaret Sauvage (Paris), while the Sunday, September 25^th, they will do so in the Patio de Camargue (Árles). In the same way, their tour of Germany (Hamburg) continues on Thursday, September 15^th, and the 16^th of this month, they will be in Finland, specifically in the capital city Helsinki.

The 2022 Tour continues in Italy (Florence and Naples) on September 17^th and 21^st. The latter will be in the Sweet Life concert hall located in the Somma Vesuviana municipality of the Neapolitan city.

On Thursday the 22^nd, they will do the same at the Cuban Latin Festival in the Netherlands (Amsterdam) and will end their 2022 Tour 400 miles from Europe in Tunisia in the Yasmine Hammamet neighborhood located in the north of the African continent on Saturday, October 1^st.

16 personas en un escenario — Ticket prices vary between £30 and £100.

Alexander Abreu spent his childhood in the city of Cienfuegos (Cuba) where he began playing the trumpet at the age of ten and has currently become one of the most versatile and acclaimed Cuban musicians of Afro-Cuban music. “I have always seen Havana D’Primera with 15 people on stage and everyone said that it was impossible, that it would be too expensive, too difficult to move… This is how we started: 14 or 15 of us and a lot of positive energy, now we are stronger than ever.” Abreu commente.

Havana D’ Primera (HDP) is a Cuban timba band founded by Alexander Abreu in 2007 and made up of 17 of the best Cuban musicians. The orchestra is led by the main composer Abreu, who has stood out for his melodic voice and ability to fuse genres through Salsa such as Jazz, Funk, and other Afro-Cuban rhythms.

“Since its inception, the band has released five studio albums and one live album. The debut album release was Making History with EGREM in 2009 and their first release for the Páfata Productions record label. 2012’s Pasaporte received favorable reviews from the international press and was voted one of the best Latin alternative albums of that year.

Since then, they have followed the success of “Pasaporte” with four more albums, released through Páfata Productions and the last one in co-production with the Cuban Producciones Abdala.

HDP released “La Vuelta al Mundo” in 2015 and “Haciendo Historia LIVE” arrived in 2016. “Cantor del Pueblo” in early 2018, earning the band a Latin Grammy nomination for Best Salsa album. We cannot forget “A Romper el Coco” with the participation of Mayito Rivera released in 2019, and the single Quiero Verte Otra Vez (2020) which won the Special Prize at the 2020 Lucas Awards gala and was also cataloged by the French newspaper “Le Monde” as one of the favorite songs of Latin music.

Finally, in 2021 the album “Será Que Se Acabó” was released, as a tribute to Cuban popular music of the 80s and 90s. Discography extracted from the Biography of Havana D’ Primera.

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