Author Archives: Fernando González

Snarky Puppy and Friends and Three Days of Music Making, From the Ground Up

01 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by in Home, Jazz, On Music

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Esperanza Spalding, joining Snarky Puppy at the GroundUp Festival in Miami Beach, February.
Photo by Luis Olazábal – Rhythm Foundation

This piece was posted by Artburst Miami  in February, 2017

Half way through his set at the North Beach Bandshell, singer David Crosby, 75, who has been to a festival or two in his illustrious career, paused between songs to reflect: “How about this festival? Some of my favorite musicians in the world are playing here this weekend,” he exulted. “It’s been fantastic!”

And that was just Friday night. It’s hard to imagine what he would’ve said Sunday night.

The GroundUp Music Festival was that good.

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Finding the Symphony in the Sound of the City

30 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by in Home, On Music

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This piece was posted on the Knight Foundation blog on January, 2017

Think of the city as an orchestra – a rhythm section of cars and buses; the brass sounds of a factory; the emotions played out by a string section, told in the sounds of water; a choir of voices, perhaps in many different languages, all at once, telling stories.
In Miami, we live surrounded by those sounds.

Project 305, an ambitious multimedia piece involving the New World Symphony, MIT Media Lab and Knight Foundation, will translate these kinds of Miami sounds and sights into a symphonic work. Miami residents will be able to submit both audio and video clips through a new mobile and web app now available. The clips will become the source material for both the musical piece and accompanying video.

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Antonio Lizana, a voice in Jazz and Flamenco

23 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by in Home, Jazz, Latin Jazz, On Music

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Antonio Lizana, saxophonist and cantaor
Photo by Ana Solinis

This piece was posted by Artburst Miami on January, 2017

Flamenco and jazz have had a fitful relationship. The early, tentative approaches — such as the notable Sketches of Spain (1960) by Miles Davis and Gil Evans or Jazz Flamenco (1967) by Spanish saxophonist Pedro Iturralde and a young flamenco guitarist called Paco De Lucia — didn’t really bear fruit until decades later, when the emergence of musically bilingual musicians and a much more fluid contact helped produce albums such as Friday Night in San Francisco (1981) by the Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin and de Lucia trio and Flamenco Big Band (2008) by saxophonist Perico Sambeat.

Now the work of saxophonist and cantaor Antonio Lizana, appearing with his flamenco trio at the Spanish Cultural Center of Miami (Centro Cultural Español) Thursday, offers yet another twist to that fusion. Born and raised in Cádiz, in Andalucía, Lizana´s music is a truly organic blend of jazz and flamenco elements. A sax melody may give way, without missing a beat, to a moment of cante in true flamenco style – before going back to the jagged sax line of a post-bop improvisation. The surprise is not the juxtaposition but how natural it sounds.

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