20 Years of the New Mexico Jazz Festival
Your listening guide to the festival, with insights from KUNM’s Andre Lacerda by Jennifer Moglia Lucil
(Photos: Jennifer Moglia Lucil)
A hot night of salsa and Latin jazz from the Spanish Harlem Orchestra at the Albuquerque Museum Amphitheater.
Festival Kickoff with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra
Something strange and wonderful happened when I stepped through the doors of the Albuquerque Museum Amphitheater last Friday for the Outpost’s New Mexico Jazz Festival kickoff, performed by the Spanish Harlem Orchestra.
The dregs of my workday fell away and I joined the salsa dura dancers.
Gripped by the force of the big band, it didn’t matter who was from Harlem, Barelas or Nob Hill. For one steamy summer night, we were all vecinos in the barrio with Oscar Hernandez’s legendary orchestra on full display–trumpets, trombones, timbales, sax, piano, bongos, bass and vocals.
The Spanish Harlem Orchestra’s flutist added flourish to the vocals before switching to his saxophone.
Behind that indigo curtain is the Outpost’s executive director and founder, Tom Guralnick. In 2006, Guralnick co-founded the festival with Bob Martin and Bob Weil, building on a longstanding commitment to showcase musical talent and to create spaces of music engagement in and around Albuquerque.
Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, the New Mexico Jazz Festival continues to expand New Mexico's vibrant jazz community by attracting talent from across the country. This year’s program runs through Sept. 30 in Albuquerque and Santa Fe; the full festival schedule is available on the Outpost’s website.
The Jazz Conversation
KUNM’s jazz host, Andre Lacerda.
After experiencing the festival from the dance floor, I wanted to know what a lifelong jazz listener hears from the other side of the stage. Andre Lacerda, KUNM’s host of “The House that Jazz Built” and “All that Jazz,” shared some musical insights ahead of the festival’s next performances. Born in Brazil, Lacerda was a morning show DJ playing rock and pop by age 16. But instead of hanging with the rockers who replayed the same hits, he found himself seeking out a more eclectic jazz crowd. “That group became my entry point into a deeper jazz journey...I was hooked,” he said.
Lacerda looks at you with a Seussian sparkle when talking about jazz. “It’s the elevating soundtrack of my daily life,” he said. For new listeners, he suggests approaching it without expectations or judgment: Allow the music to be present like a meditation, and you might find you’ve “opened a slice of your ears to it,” he added.
Jazz’s improvisation creates a musical conversation, and Lacerda sees the audience as part of that dialogue, too. The musicians, in turn, chase that live experience, coming to the Outpost to “find the open minds. That’s what feeds them. They can’t live without it,” Lacerda said.
This year’s festival spans Latin and Gypsy jazz to avant-garde music and more, inviting listeners into different corners of the genre. For Lacerda, that variety—and the
unpredictability of live performance—is the magic. “I just saw something that will never happen again. Damn! Life’s good,” he said.
What to Hear
Jazz Films at The Guild Cinema: Imagine the Sound (1981) and Chasing Trane (2017)
Sept. 3 and 4
The Guild presents the avant-garde free jazz movement of the 1960s with Imagine the Sound and the life and work of John Coltrane in Chasing Trane. For a deeper dive into Coltrane, Lacerda suggested listening to his masterful 1964 album, A Love Supreme. The Guild Cinema, 3405 Central Ave. NE, Albuquerque
William Parker Heart Trio with Hamid Drake and Cooper Moore Sept. 9
This trio “embodies the energetic improvisational nature of the avant-garde jazz lane, and it's exciting to see them live,” Lacerda said. William Parker is a multi-instrumentalist and highly innovative composer, integrating African and Eastern ancestral instruments and instruments created by each of the trio members.
Outpost Performance Space, 210 Yale Blvd. SE, Albuquerque
Fred Hersch Trio
Sept. 16
“Fred Hersch is one of the most brilliant piano players in jazz and that is one of those performances that can leave a deep impression on someone.” Hersch was the first to play the Outpost’s cherished grand piano, donated by a member more than a decade ago. Come witness their re-encounter.
Outpost Performance Space
Esperanza Spalding
September 18
Esperanza Spalding is a five-time Grammy Award winner “known primarily as a jazz vocalist but underneath that, she possesses the essence of many styles including Brazilian music, soul and jazz fusion. Plus she is a hell of a bass player,” said Lacerda. The Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco St., Santa Fe
Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band
September 30
Join for an Alert Reader field trip because Nob Hill News is going to the Jazz Festival! We’ll be listening to accomplished drummer Brian Blade and pianist/multi-instrumentalist
Jon Cowherd with The Fellowship Band. The band originated in New Orleans, where Blade and Cowherd studied and played with many of the city’s master musicians. Outpost Performance Space
