Defection in Rome
PDX Jazz puts its whole 2027 festival on paper, ten days in March with Emmylou Harris and Lila Downs on top and Stanley Clarke reuniting with Hiromi for Chick Corea. Then a 1989 Gillespie concert with Arturo Sandoval in the trumpet section, five rooms from Chicago to New York, and the July night in 1990 when Sandoval asked for asylum in Rome.
LioraPortland puts ten days of its 2027 festival on paper. Tonight, a Chicago band plays its weekly Tuesday for ten dollars. Later, a trumpeter walks into an embassy in Rome. It's Tuesday. Let's go.
LioraIt's Tuesday, October 20th. This is The Daily Quintet. I'm Liora. Five stories from the world of jazz, in about ten minutes. Here we go.
One. The Lead: PDX Jazz publishes the whole 2027 Biamp Portland Jazz Festival
LioraPortland has put ten days on paper, and the whole 2027 festival is public.
PDX Jazz heads its own release with two names. Emmylou Harris and Lila Downs. A ten day citywide celebration, March fourth to the thirteenth, 2027. Over twenty five ticketed performances, at venues across Portland.
Night by night, as the release prints it. March fifth, Emmylou Harris at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, opened by the Daniel Lanois Trio. March sixth, Lila Downs at the Roseland. March tenth, Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band at The Reser.
Then the twelfth. Stanley Clarke reunites with Hiromi at Revolution Hall, with PUBLIQuartet, on a program the festival calls A Celebration of the Music of Chick Corea and Beyond.
Clarke on Corea, in the festival's own copy: "Chick was like a brother to me."
LioraLarry Carlton closes the run on the thirteenth, at the Aladdin. PDX Jazz also named Bobby Torres its 2027 Portland Jazz Master.
Public sale opened Friday at ten in the morning, Pacific. The festival prints no ticket price on any page we read.
Two. Listen to This: The New York Public Library's catalog holds the Kultur disc of Dizzy Gillespie's United
LioraToday's record is a concert from the year before tonight's Bridge.
The New York Public Library's research catalog holds it. "Live at the Royal Festival Hall," on Kultur, publisher number D thirteen fifty. Recorded live the tenth of June, 1989, in London.
Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, with his United Nation Orchestra. Paquito D'Rivera on sax and clarinet. James Moody, sax and flute. And in the trumpet section, Arturo Sandoval, on trumpet and flugelhorn.
Eleven tracks. It opens on Manteca and ends on A Night in Tunisia.
Here is the tip. The same library holds a second record of that concert, the 1991 tape, and the two do not agree. The tape drops Giovanni Hidalgo from the band, and it calls the group the United Nations Orchestra, plural, where the disc says United Nation.
LioraThen play what came after. The catalog has Sandoval's own "Dream Come True," on GRP, from 1993, Michel Legrand conducting. The last of its ten tracks is "To Diz With Love."
Now Rome, July 1990. A Cuban trumpeter on tour with Dizzy Gillespie walks into the American embassy and asks for political asylum. Tonight on The Bridge: how his wife and son got out too, on a permission he calls a mistake. Silas has the story.
Three. The Bridge: In July 1990 a Cuban trumpeter on tour with Dizzy Gillespie asked for political asylum at
LioraOne true story from this music's history, every day. Silas tells it, I ask the questions. Silas, where are we?
SilasRome, Italy. July 1990. Arturo Sandoval is on tour. He's a Cuban trumpeter, 41 years old, once a member of the band Irakere. He's in Europe with his mentor, Dizzy Gillespie, playing in Dizzy's United Nation Orchestra. One history of jazz trumpet says that as long as Sandoval "toed the government line," he could sometimes travel abroad. This time, he won't go back. He isn't the only Sandoval out of Cuba, either.
LioraWait. His family got out too?
SilasThey did. CBS reports that Cuban authorities made a one-time exception that year and let his wife and son meet him in London. Sandoval puts it this way: "the Cuban government made a mistake and gave my wife and son special permission to travel and go to Europe." Billboard later wrote that he defected only once he was sure his family was safe in London. One book has the family with him in Rome instead, but the other reports say London. Then, in Rome, he goes to the American embassy and asks for political asylum. By one account, from a jazz magazine two years later, he turns up with a small suitcase and his trumpet.
LioraWhere's Dizzy in all this?
SilasBy Sandoval's own telling, right beside him. In a 2013 NPR piece he says, "He helped me all the way. I went with him to the American Embassy for the whole process of political asylum." Then there's a phone call. Sandoval told CBS that Dizzy contacted the White House after Cuban authorities found out about the plan. Another account says it was an early-morning call, made so Sandoval would be welcomed into the embassy. Those two don't line up, and the sources don't agree on who picked up. So we'll leave it open.
LioraAnd his wife and son?
SilasThey make it to Miami. A report that July has his wife, Marianela, and their 14-year-old son, Arturo Jr., arriving there. The same report describes "Sandoval's formal introduction to the American media." It has Dizzy eager to perform and record with him. One jazz magazine that year set it against the news: "All around communist Europe the wall is falling, but Cuba is nonetheless Castro'ted." On August 20, 1990, by one writer's date, Sandoval is a special guest with the Tito Puente and Mario Bauza bands at the Village Gate in New York. Within months, CBS says, he's on stage at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, paying tribute to Dizzy.
LioraSo, a happy ending.
SilasMostly. He settled in Miami and taught at Florida International University. He recorded "Flight to Freedom" with Chick Corea and Anthony Jackson, and "Reunion" with Paquito D'Rivera, who also came out of Irakere and had defected earlier. Then, in 1997, the United States denied him citizenship over his past membership in the Communist Party. One biography says he joined so his family could travel with him on the tour. Sandoval told Billboard he was coerced into joining. He fought it, and one biography dates his citizenship to November 1998.
LioraOne exception he calls a mistake, and a mentor who, as he tells it, helped him all the way. That's The Bridge. Back to today, right after this.
Four. On the Road: Five rooms tonight, from the Chicago Cellar Boys' weekly Tuesday at the Green Mill for
LioraTonight, coast to coast.
Tonight's ticket is in Chicago.
The Green Mill gives Tuesday to the Chicago Cellar Boys. Eight to midnight, ten dollars. The club credits all six. Andy Schumm, cornet, clarinet and saxophone. John Otto and Natalie Scharf, clarinet and saxophone. Jim Barrett, banjo and guitar. Paul Asaro, piano and vocals. Dan Anderson, tuba and bass.
The same band plays every Tuesday into December.
Now the sweep.
In Washington, Blues Alley runs night two of Hammond B-3 Week. Benjie Porecki at the organ, Mark Prince on drums, Michael Bowie on electric bass. Seven and half past nine, thirty dollars plus a seven dollar fee.
In Austin, the Elephant Room has two bills. The Mitch Watkins Trio at six, then Double Vision at nine, with Hank Hehmsoth and Dr. John Mills. Seven dollars, and nothing before eight.
LioraIn Denver, Dazzle has Connect Four at seven, filed under Americana and folk.
And in New York, Mezzrow runs four piano trio sets. The Ray Gallon Trio at six and half past seven. The Tardo Hammer Trio at nine and half past ten. Then Vinyl After Hours at half past eleven, no cover.
Five. One More Note: Shirley Horn died on this date in 2005, the same year the National Endowment for the Arts
LioraTwenty one years ago today, Shirley Horn died.
The National Endowment for the Arts made her a Jazz Master that same year, 2005, and its own page gives the date, the twentieth of October. The French national library prints the same day.
The agency's biography has Miles Davis hearing her record "Embers and Ashes" and bringing her to New York, where she began opening for him at the Village Vanguard.
In 1998 she went back to her mentor with "I Remember Miles," and won the Grammy for best jazz vocal performance.
Outro
LioraThat's the Quintet. If today's show earned it, follow The Daily Quintet wherever you listen.
The Daily Quintet is an AI-crafted production, researched and checked by humans. Every listing you heard came from the venue or the festival's own organizer.
That's your Tuesday. I'm Liora. See you tomorrow.