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North America / USA / New York

If a flute could talk and sing, it would certainly be in the voice of Nestor Torres

If a flute could talk and sing, it would certainly be in the voice of Nestor Torres, for he speaks through his instrument. Equally fluent in Jazz, Classical and Latin sounds, his fluid versatility sets him apart.

Nestor’s total command of his instrument allows him a freedom of expression that is at once captivating and liberating, powerful and genuine.

Born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, Nestor Torres has played music all his life. His parents (His father, a gifted musician himself, and his mother, an educator and business woman) gave him a set of drums at age 5, and later took up the flute (at age twelve).

He moved to NYC with his family in his teenage years and went on to study at Mannes School of Music and later at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

At that time he was also able to learn to improvise in a style of Cuban Dance music called ‘Charanga’, which helped to shape and develop Nestor’s melodic and danceable sound.

In 1981, Nestor moved to Miami, where he continued to develop his unique sound – and a strong following. Since then he has – and continues to – tour all over the world.

He has also performed and recorded Ricky Martin, Tito Puente, Herbie Hancock, Gloria Estefan, and many more.

Nestor Torres has recorded 14 Cd’s to the date. His 5th & 7th records, Treasure of the Heart and My Latin Soul, were nominated for a Latin Grammy, and his production This Side Of Paradise won the Latin Grammy award in the Pop instrumental category on September 11, 2001.

“Of course it was a great honor and privilege to win the Grammy,” Torres reflects. “That being said, the fact that I was to receive it on 9/11 gave my work and my music a stronger sense of mission and purpose. Terrorism and violence come from ignorance, anger, and hopelessness.

Music inspires and empowers; it soothes the human heart and enlightens the spirit. I have made it my prime point to create music and live my life in a way that does just that.”

From that experience, together with a commission to compose and perform for the Dalai Lama, Nestor Torres produced Dances, Prayers & Meditations For Peace in 2005.

In his brand new CD, Nouveau Latino, Nestor Torres returns to his Latin roots with a fresh approach, impeccable musicianship, and irresistible improvisations. Featuring songs from stars like Celia Cruz and Ruben Blades, Torres’ interpretations of these great Latin hits appeal to those discovering the songs for the first time as much as those who remember them.

In addition to his achievements in the studio and on the stage, Torres is also recipient of two honorary doctorate degrees; one in 1994 from Barry University, and the other in 2000 from Carlos Albizu University, for his commitment to youth education and cultural exchanges.

NESTOR TORRES: Facts & Career Highlights

• Classical and Jazz flute studies at Mannes School of Music, and New England Conservatory of Music.

• Early improvisational ‘on the job training’ playing in Cuban and Latin Dance bands including Ray Barretto, Eddie Palmieri, Celia Cruz and Tito Puente.

• Regular featured guest at the ‘Salsa Meets Jazz At The Village Gate’ series in NYC.

• Has toured Japan repeatedly, including collaborations with Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter.

• Collaborations: with James Moody, Jon Faddis, Chris Botti, Larry Coryell, Hubert Laws, Arturo Sandoval, Michel Camilo, Paquito D’ Rivera, Danilo Perez, David Sanchez, Pablo Zigler, Makoto Ozone, Patrice Rushen, Bob James, George Duke, Wallace Roney, Peter Nero and Clare Fisher, among many, many others.

• Jazz Festivals: Capitol Jazz Festival, JVC Jazz Festivals; in Los Angeles and in NYC with Eddie Palmieri; Aspen Snowmass; Maui; Heineken in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic; Sedona; Atlanta…. Among many others.

• Symphonic: Has performed with the New World, Singapore, Springfield Missouri, Charleston, Signature (Tulsa, OK), Puerto Rico, and Stanford Symphonies; Philly Pops Orchestra; and the Naples, Florida; Malaysia, and Florida Philharmonics.

• Recordings to date (14): ‘Colombia En Charanga’, ‘Afro Charanga Volume 2’, ‘No Me Provoques, ‘Morning Ride’, ‘Dance of the Phoenix’, ‘Burning Whispers’, ‘Talk To Me’, ‘Treasures Of The Heart’, ‘Canciones Primeras’, ‘This Side Of Paradise’, ‘My Latin Soul’, ‘Sin Palabras’ (Without Words),‘Dances, Prayers & Meditations For Peace’, and ‘Nouveau Latino’.

• Grammys: His Latin-jazz composition “ Luna Latina” (from Treasures of the Heart) was nominated in 2000 for a Latin Grammy as well as his CD ‘My Latin Soul’ in 2002. In 2001, he won a Latin Grammy for his CD ‘This Side of Paradise’.

• Two Honorary Doctorate degrees from Miami-based Universities – one in 1994 from Barry University and the other in 2000 from Carlos Albizu University – for his commitment to youth education and cultural exchange as an Ambassador of Peace and Culture.

Current location

Miami, FL USA

General Manager

Ivette Delgado/ [email protected]

Influences

My Father, Hubert Laws, Miles Davis,Tito Puente, Richard Egues & Orchestra Aragon

Contacto de prensa

Wanda Jimenez/ [email protected]

Representative

The Jazz Agency
[email protected]
818-813-5299

https://www.facebook.com/NestorTorresMusic/

North America / USA / New York

Felipe Pirela:

En mi barrio el empedrao
Parroquia Santa Lucia
Había una barbería
Que era muy populachera
Te lavaban en ponchera
La silla se reclinaba
Y Luis el perro pelaba
Al son de una periquera

This is the sound of the tasty gaita performed by the group Sabor Gaitero and Los Gaiteros de Pillopo. It refers to a barbershop in a picturesque neighbourhood of Maracaibo in the Venezuelan state of Zulia. It was in this popular neighbourhood of Maracaibo, El Empedrao, that Felipe Antonio Pirela Morón was born in 1941. It was probably in this popular barbershop that he got his first haircut, and it was certainly in some corner of the neighbourhood that he took his first steps as a singer, perhaps interpreting gaitas or some other popular genre. The young Felipe was far from imagining that he would become “El Bolerista de América” (The Bolero of America).

The son of a bricklayer, Felipe Pirela Monsalve, and a housewife – an artist at heart – Lucia Morón de Pirela, the boy began his musical career as a child, supported by his mother, in small radio singing competitions. Incredibly, at the age of 13, together with some boys from the neighbourhood and his two brothers, he founded the group Los Happy Boys, which performed in various venues in Maracaibo, without even imagining that he would later become the main star of Billo’s Caracas Boys, a group that, upon arriving in Venezuela, debuted under the same name, Billo’s Happy Boys, directed by the Dominican maestro Billo Frometa.

At the beginning of his singing career, Felipe specialized as a bolerista, performing songs by prominent singers such as the Chilean Lucho Gatica, the Cuban bolerista Olga Gillot and Venezuela’s favorite tenor Alfredo Sadel.

Radio Caracas Television had the honor of making Felipe’s image public for the first time in 1957, through an amateur program in which Felipe placed third. Unfortunately, there were no video recording systems in those days, so there is no record of this historic achievement. Later, the now defunct and legendary Venezuelan regional television station from Maracaibo, Ondas del Lago, served as a springboard for Felipe, who was one of its founding artists.

These performances allowed him to sign a contract with the station in 1958, after which he moved to Caracas, where he performed on Radio Caracas and in various nightclubs.

Shortly thereafter, he returned to Maracaibo to join the orchestra Los Peniques, with whom he recorded his first album in 1960 and began his professional career.

Like most of the artists, baseball players and boxers from Maracaibo, Felipe was a man of humble origins, pobre del pobre, with limited economic resources, who for a time missed opportunities to be noticed despite his immense talent.

Fortune smiled on him when Maestro Billo Frometa heard him sing, at a time when the arranger, director and musician from Quisqueyano was preparing to restructure his band, Billo’s Caracas Boys, and at the same time hired another singer from Maracaibo, the remarkable José “Cheo” García. This hiring gave an enormous boost to the already famous Billo’s Caracas Boys; the band acquired great international prestige, performing throughout America and Europe, popularizing the immortal mosaics that for many years enlivened the parties and were the favorites of the Venezuelan public.

Not for nothing, Billo’s Caracas Boys Orchestra has been called the most popular in Venezuela, the Caracas and Venezuelan clubs, Latin American countries and even the European continent (Tenerife, Spain) showed full houses during the band’s performances. In these performances, the acclaim for Felipe Pirela was total. Huge demonstrations of support, full houses and legions of fans followed the “crooner” on his tours.

When Venezuela’s favorite tenor, Alfredo Sadel, left the popular genre and his country to devote himself to opera, Pirela almost immediately replaced him in the favorite place of Venezuelans.

In 1961, “El Bolerista de América” recorded with a string orchestra conducted by Billo, the long playing Canciones de Ayer, including old songs and songs of that time, a recording that marked his resignation and departure to Mexico, where he also had memorable successes.

In 1964 he married Mariela Montiel, a marriage that resulted in the birth of a daughter, Lennys, and in which La Retirada was quickly marked by the fact that Amor se Escribe con Llanto (Love is Written with Crying) and that it probably does not last a lifetime.

Canada and Mexico witnessed his successes in ’67 and his return to Venezuela. Successful performances in Miami that same year motivated him to reside in the United States, where he tried to structure his own record company, a project that came to nothing and he was deeply disillusioned and returned to Venezuela, later residing in Puerto Rico, where he was taking La Última Copa when he was tragically assassinated in 1972.

For some, his career was marked by Sombras Nada Más, but for the vast majority, “El Bolerista de America” remains in the memory as one of the most unique stars of Latin American music of all time.

For Mario Cabrera Bello