Arturo Sandoval life and biography

Arturo Sandoval is a jazz trumpeter and pianist. He was born in Artemisa, in the newest renamed Artemisa Province, Cuba.

A blazing, technically flawless trumpeter from Cuba, Arturo Sandoval has been dazzling audiences all over the world with his supercharged tone and bop-flavored flurries way up in the trumpet's highest register. In slower numbers, he sports a golden, mellow tone on the flügelhorn, marked with a sure, subtle sense of swing. Apparently he is capable of playing anything, proving it more than once by tackling classical repertoire as well as jazz in the same concert, and he has enough curiosity to search far beyond his Cubop base for repertory. Yet he often lets his desire to please the crowd with high-note displays get in the way of musical values, and he has yet to make a great record that can stand with those trumpet giants that have preceded him.

The son of an auto mechanic, Sandoval took up the classical trumpet at 12 and was enrolled in the Cuban National School of the Arts at 15, studying with a Russian classical trumpeter. Early in the 1970s, he became one of the founding members of the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, which by 1973 had evolved into the Afro-Cuban, rock-influenced band Irakere. Sandoval met his idol Dizzy Gillespie in 1977, who promptly became a mentor and colleague, playing with Sandoval in concerts in Europe and Cuba and later featuring him in the United Nation Orchestra. After recording an album with David Amram, Havana/New York, and a couple of high-profile Irakere albums on Columbia, Sandoval left the group in 1981 to tour with his own band and record in Cuba. Occasionally, the Castro government would allow Sandoval to appear in various international jazz festivals and with orchestras like the BBC Symphony and Leningrad Philharmonic. Though he chafed under a regime that restricted his touring, Sandoval bided his time until he could get his wife and son out of Cuba, and only then, in July 1990 during a long European tour, did he defect at the American Embassy in Rome, settling in Florida.

Signing with GRP, Sandoval's first American album, appropriately titled Flight to Freedom, demonstrated his versatility in several idioms, and he toured with his own high-energy Afro-Cuban group in the 1990s. Hot House followed in 1998, and a year later he returned with Americana. L.A. Meetings appeared in spring 2001. For 2003's Trumpet Evolution, Sandoval selected material from his favorite horn players. Since that time, he has released a handful of recordings including Live at the Blue Note in 2005 and Arturo Sandoval & the Latin Jazz Orchestra and Rumba Palace, both in 2007. In 2010, Sandoval released his first album for the Concord Jazz imprint, a collection of ballads entitled Time for Love.

Albums of Arturo Sandoval:
1976 - Havana - with David Amram
1977 - New York - with David Amram
1978 - The Best of Irakere - Irakere
1979 - Irakere - Irakere
1981 - Turi
1982 - To a Finland Station - with Dizzy Gillespie ; Arturo Sandoval
1983 - Breaking the Sound Barrier
1986 - No Problem
1986 - Arturo Sandoval EN CONCIERTO VOL.1
1986 - Arturo Sandoval EN CONCIERTO VOL.2
1987 - Tumbaito
1988 - Straight Ahead
1989 - Classics
1990 - Live at the Royal Festival Hall 1989 - with Dizzy Gillespie
1991 - Flight to Freedom
1992 - I Remember Clifford
1993 - Dreams Come True ; Danzón (Dance On) ; Passion - with Regina Belle
1994 - Cubano
1995 - Arturo Sandoval y el Tren Latino ; Concerto ; Arturo Sandoval & The Latin Train
1996 - Double Talk - with Ed Calle ; Swingin
1997 - Just Music
1998 - Hot House
1999 - Americana ; Sunset Harbor - with Ed Calle ; Los Elefantes - Arturo Sandoval & Wynton Marsalis
2000 - Ronnie Scott's Jazz House ; For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story - Soundtrack
2001 - Piedras Y Flores - Amaury Gutiérrez ; L.A. Meetings ; Swingin' For The Fences - Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band
2002 - My Passion for the Piano
2003 - From Havana With Love ; Trumpet Evolution
2005 - Live at the Blue Note ; Journey to Chateau de la Fuente
2007 - Rumba Palace ; Arturo Sandoval & the Latin Jazz Orchestra
2009 - Featured in "The Last" album with Aventura
2010 - A Time for Love

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