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| Arturo O'Farrill at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus Tuesday, November 7, Arturo O'Farrill will lead a Latin jazz seminar as part of Long Island University's Jazz Clinic Series. The series features musicians and music professionals with extraordinary links tojazz history in additionto being outstanding in their own right. The clinics are free and open to the general public. Mr. O'Farrill, winner of the Latin Jazz USA Outstanding Achievement Award for 2003, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. In 2002, Mr. O'Farrill and Wynton Marsalis created the Afro- Latin Jazz Orchestra for Jazz at Lincoln Center due in part to a large and very demanding body of substantial music in the genre of Latin and Afro Cuban Jazz that deserves to be much more widely appreciated and experienced by the general jazz audience. His debut album with the Orchestra "Una Noche Inolvidable" earned a Grammy award nomination in 2006. Educated at the Manhattan School of Music, Brooklyn College Conservatory, and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, Mr. O'Farrill played piano with the Carla Bley Big Band from 1979 through 1983. He then went on to develop as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Steve Turre, Freddy Cole, The Fort Apache Band, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Belafonte. In 1995 Mr. O'Farrill agreed to direct the band that preserved much of his father's music, Chico O'Farrill's Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, which has been in residence at Birdland, New York City's famed nightclub, for the past nine years, as well as performing throughout the world as a solo artist and with his smaller groups. Besides recording five albums as a leader for Milestone Records, 32 Jazz, Zoho and M & I (Bloodlines, A Night in Tunisia, Cumana Bop, Live in Brooklyn and The Jim Seeley/ Arturo O'Farrill Quintet), Mr. O'Farrill has appeared on numerous records including the Grammy-nominated Heart of a Legend, Caram- bola, and the soundtrack to the critically acclaimed movie Calle 54. Mr. O'Farrill was a special guest soloist at threelandmark Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts-- Afro-Cuban Jazz: Chico O'Farrill's Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, November 1995; Con Alma: The Latin Tinge in Big Band Jazz, September 1998; and the 2001 Jazz at Lincoln Center Gala: The Spirit of Tito Puente, November 2001. In the Spring and Fall of 2002, he was also the featured artist in Jazz at Lincoln Center's Jazz in the Schools Tour, when he led a Latin jazz quintet for more than 50 educational performances that reached over 10, 000 students in NYC metropolitan area schools. As an educator, he has taught master classes, seminars and workshops throughout the world for students and teachers of all levels. Recently, Mr. O'Farrill received the Distinguished Alumnus Medal from Brooklyn College and is currently serving as the Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist in Residence at Lafayette College. Throughout the past few years, Mr. O'Farrill has toured throughout the U.S. Europe and Asia. In the Spring of 2006, he will lead the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra on a tour of Mexico. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Jazz News :: home page |