Paquito D'Rivera opens Summer Concerts at the Hudson

August 15, 2020

The great jazz musician Paquito D'Rivera, a true cultural legend of the Cuban diaspora and exile, will inaugurate the return of the Summer Concerts on the banks of the Hudson River next Wednesday at 7 pm, in the city of Weehawken, New Jersey.

The official page of the Hudson Riverfront Performing Arts Center, the organization that organizes the performance season, recognizes D'Rivera as "one of the greatest creative forces in the Jazz scene today".

The days of free outdoor musical performances are held at Lincoln Harbor Park. To enjoy the presentations, it will be necessary to wear sanitary masks at all times and maintain a prudent social distance.

Those attending such concerts should bring with them, the organizers explain, folding chairs or blankets to sit on.

The independent Cuban cultural magazine Rialta reported that to inaugurate the 2020 edition, the concert "An Evening of Latin Jazz and More" was chosen, led by a quartet directed by Paquito D'Rivera, and also featuring three outstanding figures in contemporary jazz: Colombian harpist Edmar Castaneda, Venezuelan Jorge Glem, virtuoso of the cuatro and mandolin, and American pianist Alex Brown.

D'Rivera is a prominent multi-instrumentalist, composer, writer and music educator who has been recognized with numerous Grammy Awards and the National Medal of the Arts, among other distinctions awarded for his contribution to Latin and American culture.

On the island, Paquito D'Rivera was a founding member of the mythical band Irakere, which under the direction of Chucho Valdés became a dream team of Latin jazz, pioneering phenomena in dance music in other genres such as timba.

The master of the clarinet and saxophone joined in exile the United Nations Orchestra, formed by another great, Dizzy Gillespie, to showcase the fusion of Latin and Caribbean influences with American jazz.

During his career, the Cuban has recorded more than thirty albums, a list that according to the Hudson Riverfront Performing Arts Center "reflects his mastery of Jazz, Bebop and Latin music", but also "classical music".

As a composer, he has been acclaimed for his creations for Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, the Library of Congress, the National Symphony Orchestra (United States), and the Rotterdam Philharmonic, among many others.

The magazine Rialta recalls that D'Rivera is also the author of an autobiographical book, "Mi vida saxual" (2000), which includes a prologue by renowned Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante.

It is expected that during other dates the Venezuelan singer Nella Rojas (August 19), the jazz group The Matthew Whitaker Quartet (August 26), and American troubadour Matt Nakoa (September 2) will perform.