It's 'Latin Jazz' with the Jazz Kicks Band

The community-based Jazz Kicks Big Band presents a “Latin Jazz” concert Nov. 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the Caine Performance Hall on the Utah State University Logan campus. Admission is $10 for adults; all students free.

Although most American dance bands of the 1930s and 1940s played the occasional rhumba or samba and Xavier Cugat’s rhumba band was well known and featured in movies, Latin jazz began when, in 1947, Dizzy Gillespie hired Cuban conga drum player Chano Pozo to play with his big band. The style of music they developed combined jazz and Latin music and became known as Afro-Cuban jazz.

Since that time, many Latin American rhythms have been combined with jazz to produce "Latin Jazz.” The Jazz Kicks Band will play Dizzy Gillespie’s Tanga, a jazz samba featuring tenor saxophonist Mike Reeder and trumpeter Alex Meibos, and his Groovin’ High, a modern jazz classic played in Salsa rhythm.

Cuban trumpet virtuoso Arturo Sandoval loved and studied Dizzy Gillespie’s music. After they met in Cuba in 1977, Gillespie became a mentor and colleague. While touring Europe with Gillespie in 1990, Sandoval and his family defected to the United States from Spain. He became a naturalized citizen in 1999. Sandoval has won several Grammys, and in 2013 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama.

The Kicks Band is playing two of Sandoval’s numbers,  Rhythm Of Our World, which features trumpet soloist Alex Meibos, and contains the Latin rhythms Bembe, Samba, Bomba, Songo and Mambo; and Hot House, a classic modern jazz piece played in Salsa rhythm featuring trumpeter Brad Flinders and alto saxophonist Greg Wheeler.

Baritone saxophonist Jon Gudmundson is the soloist on the beautiful bossa nova Wave by the Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. Dominican composer/pianist’s On The Other Hand features Spencer Cooper on piano. Recorda Me by Joe Henderson has Brad Flinders on trumpet and Larry Smith on tenor sax as soloists.

Vocalist Monica Fronk will sing Jobim’s No More Blues, a jazz samba, and Bronislaw Kaper’s Invitation, played in Afro-Cuban rhythm.

The Jazz Kicks Big Band is led by Larry Smith and contains the best jazz musicians of northern Utah.  

“We hope you’ll join us for an exciting evening of “Latin Jazz!” Smith said.