A driven musical artist
Jazz legend Paquito D’Rivera draws on Latin, jazz and classical roots
By Eliot Sekuler
For the TODAY
Housed on the second floor of New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Rose Museum preserves and displays artifacts collected during the famed concert hall’s 130-year history. Of the thousands of objects in the collection, few are more storied and treasured than the clarinet that once belonged to Benny Goodman, “the King of Swing.” The bandleader, composer and clarinetist redefined the role of his instrument and his groundbreaking Carnegie Hall concerts set many musical and societal precedents.
Earlier this summer, the museum’s archivists invited Cuban-born jazz legend Paquito D’Rivera to visit, play the instrument and talk about the influence that Goodman’s music had upon his own musical development and career. D’Rivera, who will perform at two Siletz Bay Music Festival concerts this month, has a long history of his own at Carnegie Hall, beginning in 1978, when he appeared with the Cuban group Irakere in a performance that was recorded by Columbia Records and earned him the first of his Grammy Awards. He now holds 16 in total: five Grammy and 11 Latin Grammys. Years later, he received Carnegie Hall’s “Lifetime Achievement Award” for his contributions to Latin music.
A virtuoso on both clarinet and saxophone, D’Rivera described his strong connection to the musical legacy of Goodman in a recent interview with the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies at the City University of New York. As was true of Goodman, D’Rivera is equally comfortable performing with a jazz ensemble and a symphony orchestra. He described being exposed for the first time to Goodman’s music by his father, Francisco Lorenzo Rivera Sanchez, a classical saxophone player known as “Tito,” whose eclectic musical tastes led the young D’Rivera to explore possibilities beyond the scope of his formal training at the Havana Conservatory of Music.
As D’Rivera recalled, his father came home with the LP of “Benny Goodman: The Famous 1938 Jazz Concert,” a recording of the first jazz concert to be hosted by that venue. On that historic occasion, Goodman shared the stage with such legends as Count Basie, Gene Krupa, Freddie Green, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges and Harry James, a veritable all-star team of the era’s jazz world and notably, the concert marked the first time that African American and white musicians performed together at a major venue.
For D’Rivera, Goodman’s versatility was inspirational, and he has acknowledged that aside from his father, Goodman was his earliest hero and role model. Years later, he was gratified to hear that Goodman thought highly of his playing.
“My manager at the time told me that Goodman liked me because I wasn’t trying to imitate him,” D’Rivera said. “But he was wrong. I was always trying to imitate him, but I just couldn’t get my act together.”
In 2009, D’Rivera recorded the album “Benny Goodman Revisited,” with new arrangements of some of Goodman’s most famous compositions.
Unhappy with some of the constraints placed upon artists by the Cuban government, D’ Rivera defected from Cuba in 1980 during a European tour. In the years that followed, his reputation as a bandleader and breathtaking reed instrumental stylist led to collaborations with such diverse musicians as jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and McCoy Tyner and with extraordinary cellist YoYo Ma, with whom he has recorded four albums. He has performed with symphony orchestras around the world, some of whom commissioned D’Rivera to compose new pieces. His dual abilities as a conservatory-trained classical musician and a dazzling improvisor have earned the highest accolades that can be bestowed upon a jazz musician, including the National Endowment for the Arts’ “Jazz Master Award” and a National Medal of the Arts.
At Siletz Bay Music Festival, D’Rivera’s diverse musical skills will be prominently on display at two concerts taking place at Chinook Winds Casino Resort. “Welcome to the Club, A Night of Latin Jazz” on Thursday, Aug 22, will feature D’Rivera leading a quintet that will include his longtime east coast-based collaborators, Argentina-born musicians Diego Urcola on trumpet and pianist Daniel Freiberg. They’ll be joined by Oregonians Kevin Dietz on bass and Jason Palmer on drums.
And on Sunday, Aug. 25, D’Rivera will be the featured soloist in a performance of Freiberg’s “Latin American Chronicles,” a piece originally commissioned for a German orchestra and clarinetist but written, according to the composer, with him in mind.
“I have always been interested in learning about different styles of music,” D’Rivera said. “I’ve learned there are really only two kinds of music. There’s good music and there’s the other kind.”
Paquito D’Rivera will perform at 7:30 pm on Thursday, Aug. 22 and at 4 pm on Sunday, Aug 25 at Chinook Winds Casino Resort, located at 1777 NW 44th Street in Lincoln City. For more information and tickets, go to SiletzBayMusic.org