In commemoration of its 20th anniversary, the CCPA Jazz Quintet will present a concert, as part of the festivities and a tribute to Wayne Shorter, a talented contemporary North American saxophonist, tomorrow, Tuesday, July 25 at 8:30 p.m., at the Teatro de las Américas, located in José Berges, near the United States. The entrance will be free and free.
The JAZZ project at the CCPA began in 2003, at the request of Dr. Gustavo Díaz Gill – then president of the institution – with the advice of maestro Remigio Pereira who was in charge of directing the project in the early years, then the producer and radio personality Beto Barsotti added to this equation. Jazz has the peculiarity of connecting people in a very special way through its language, which is understood and appreciated in almost every country in the world. In their first formations the format was Ensemble or Big Band, for the 2007 season the formation of Septet was adopted, from 2010 Quartet and from 2015 to the present Quintet.
During the show, they will present songs such as Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, Black Nile, Ana María, Infant eyes, Yes or No, Footprints. The CCPA Jazz Quintet will be made up of: Paula Rodríguez band leader and double bass, José Burguez on drums, Jonathan Piñero on trumpet, Víctor Álvarez on piano and Bruno Muñoz on sax.
Wayne Shorter:
(August 25, 1933 – March 2, 2023), played clarinet, switching to tenor sax in his late teens. In his student days he had played with various bands, including the one led by Horace Silver, and upon his discharge from the Army he met John Coltrane and together they developed many theoretical approaches to music.
In 1959 he joined the “Jazz Messengers” of drummer Art Blakey, remaining with that school of jazz until 1963. With Blakey he recorded more than twenty albums, earning himself a well-deserved prestige. 1959 was also the year in which he recorded his first album under his name, the splendid “Blues a la Carte”. An essential stage in his artistic career was when in 1964 he joined the Miles Davis quintet, in which he was until 1970. There he met top-level musicians such as Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. Shorter’s contributions were very important to the Davis quintet, which experienced an expansion in highly innovative jazz parameters, comparable to the changes brought about by bebop in the 1940s.
In 1969, Shorter would participate in the album considered foundational of electric jazz, also, of course, led by Miles Davis, the extraordinary “In a Silent Way” (Columbia, 1969). In 1970 Wayne Shorter would cover another very important stage in his professional career, when he formed the Weather Report group together with keyboardist Joe Zawinul (with whom he met in his stage with Miles). This group would be responsible for forming a new jazz-rock sound, attracting a large audience. The consequence of all this is the sale in 1978 of more than a million copies of his album “Heavy Weather”, which obtained five Grammy Award nominations.
A major innovator who exerted great influence on hard bop and jazz fusion musicians, Shorter was one of the most imaginative musicians within jazz, constantly seeking new horizons, thanks to his extensive musical knowledge, while retaining identifiable ties to the past.