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Arturo Sandoval – Trumpet Method
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Who was Arturo Sandoval?
Arturo Sandoval (Artemisa, Cuba. November 6, 1949), began playing music at the age of 13 in the band of his hometown, where he learned the basic principles of music theory and percussion. After playing many instruments, he finally decided on the trumpet. As a child, Sandoval had little access to Jazz, and he limited himself to playing traditional Cuban music. A friend made him listen to Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker one day, and things changed radically.
In 1964, he studied classical trumpet for three years at the Cuban National School of Arts and at the age of sixteen he got a position in the star-studded national orchestra. Sandoval did his military service in the army in 1971, although he was able to continue playing with the Cuban Modern Music Orchestra and rehearsing daily, something essential for any musician.
After military service he was one of the co-founders of Irakere, which became the most important Jazz ensemble in Cuba, with saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera and pianist Chucho Valdés. They soon had spectacular success on a global scale and their 1978 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in New York introduced them to American audiences, and resulted in a recording contract for the Columbia Records label. But Arturo was looking for new musical possibilities and left the group in 1981 to form his own band.
He continued to tour the world with his group, playing a unique blend of Latin music and Jazz, and also as a classical trumpeter, playing with the BBC and Leningrad symphonies in the former Soviet Union. Sandoval’s talent has led him to associate with many great musicians, but perhaps the most important was Dizzy Gillespie himself, an advocate of Afro-Cuban music, whom Sandoval called his spiritual father. The two musicians met in Cuba in 1977 when Gillespie was doing improvised performances in the Caribbean with saxophonist Stan Getz. His friendship with Dizzy Gillespie lasted until the bebop master’s death in 1992.
Exiled in Miami, Arturo Sandoval became a professor at Florida International University and soon recorded his first North American album, “Flight to Freedom” for the GRP label. Arturo Sandoval appeared as a guest on the album “Live at Festival Hall,” and later, Arturo recorded his second album, “I Remember Clifford,” his tribute to legendary trumpeter Clifford Brown. Arturo Sandoval has a parallel musical career as a classical performer. His recording, “The Classical Album”, contains trumpet concertos by Hummel and Mozart as well as his own Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra. He has also taught at the Paris Conservatory, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the Soviet Union, the University of California at Santa Barbara, the University of Miami, the University of Wisconsin, Purdue University and many other institutions around the world.
Currently, when this biography is written (2011), he is a permanent professor at Florida International University in Miami. Arturo Sandoval has also composed and performed on several film soundtracks such as “La Familia Pérez,” “Los Reyes del Mambo” and “La Habana.”