Arturo Sandoval is a giant among musicians, known for his history as jazz trumpeter, pianist, and composer. A protégé of the renowned jazz master Dizzy Gillespie, Mr. Sandoval carries on a mighty legacy. President Obama awarded him the 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom, and he has won 10 Grammy awards, an Emmy award for “Best Composer,” six Billboard awards, as well as an honorary doctorate in fine arts from the University of Notre Dame. Arturo Sandoval will perform in Atlanta at the Rialto Center on Nov. 12, and he joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom for a conversation ahead of the concert.
Interview highlights:
From humble beginnings to a luminous career in music:
“I came from an extremely poor family. I grew up in the middle of the countryside of the island of Cuba, in a small village, and nobody in my family was involved with music or any art manifestation. I was the very first one, and in the very beginning, nobody was agreeing with that. Everybody said, ‘Musician? Are you crazy? What you talking about?'” recalled Sandoval. “Even now, I don’t know why I follow music. I fell in love with music so intensely, and I was so sure about my decision that I wanted to become a musician. I wanted to, no matter what.”
He continued, “I’m never going to get tired of repeating that music saved my life, and also the life of my family as well. Because all my close family, they’re in the US, and I’m so happy that I brought them little by little. I’m eternally grateful to the music because the music gave me so many incredible opportunities over the years, that I have no words to express my gratitude.”
On meeting his hero, Dizzy Gillespie, who hooked him up with a gig at Carnegie Hall:
“Somebody called me and told me that, ‘Arturo, I know you are a big fan of Dizzy Gillespie. He’s coming to Havana this afternoon.’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s a good joke,'” Sandoval recounted. “I was waiting there, waiting until the boat arrived. When I saw him coming downstairs, I said, ‘Oh my goodness, now what am I going to do? Because I cannot speak one word in English. I would love to tell him a thousand things, but I cannot say one.’ But you know, God is so good to me. And when he was walking toward me, a guy walks behind him and starts talking to me in Spanish, perfect Spanish. He was a percussionist, he was in the boat playing percussion with Stan Getz.”
He went on, “He jumped in my car, and I showed him Havana for the very first time, and later on the same day at nighttime, we got a jam session with the visitors. I was playing with a band at that time; the name of the band was Irakere, and we played for them, and then we played all together… When [Gillespie] got to that place at nighttime, he saw me warming up backstage with the trumpet in my hand, and he had some people there. ‘What the heck my driver is doing with the trumpet?’ …But that day changed not only my life, but the whole group’s life, because when he came back to New York, he started talking about those musicians that he met in Cuba.”
A passionate music lover not to be pigeonholed:
“Talking about styles of music and different genres of things, most of the time I get very upset when they announce me as a ‘Latin jazz trumpet player.’ Oh my goodness, I don’t like that at all. I don’t like that at all because, you know, I am a music lover more than anything else. I love music, all kinds of music. My favorite composer is Sergei Rachmaninoff,” said Sandoval. “And I’m a huge fan of the Impressionists’ music, like Ravel and Satie and Debussy and all those, I love that so much. And also, those things help me to write scores for movies as well, because I have been doing that since – God, that’s one of my dreams, you know, to be more busy writing scores for movies.”
On the biopic “For Love or Country,” based on Sandoval’s life:
“I was really grateful, because we are not prepared for such a thing, to see a part of your life, a little part of your life on the big screen, you know? And I’m very, very grateful because HBO decided to share my part of my story with the people, because everybody has a story to tell. And if they decide to share mine, I’ll be very grateful until the last day of my life,” said Sandoval. “My great-grandchildren, whoever, they’re going to have a testimony to learn how we got in the country, or how it was, the whole process then. Unfortunately, the movie ends [on] the very first day – not the day, the moment – we arrived to the US.”
Arturo Sandoval performs Nov. 12 at the Rialto Center for the Arts at Georgia State University. Tickets and more information are available here.
