JUAN-CARLOS FORMELL PRESENTS "JOHNNY'S DREAM CLUB" at Blue Note |
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| Venue: | Blue Note |
| Performer: | JUAN-CARLOS FORMELL PRESENTS "JOHNNY'S DREAM CLUB" |
| Start Time: | Monday, May 26, 8:00 pm |
| Price: | BAR: $5.00 TABLE:$10.00 |
| Description: | FEATURING:
Juan-Carlos Formell, guitar & vocals
Pedro Giraudo, bass
Jorge Leyva, percussion
Osmany Paredes, piano
special guest:
Yosvany Terry, tenor saxophone
Expect the unexpected from Cuban music rebel Juan-Carlos Formell, whose visionary songs have been compared to the work of Jobim, Caetano Veloso, Neil Young and Jackson Browne.
Born in Havana in 1964, singer/songwriter/guitarist/bassist Juan-Carlos Formell is a fourth generation musician. But the restrictions of the government-controlled music industry in his homeland made it difficult for him to express his new ideas. "While still in my twenties, at a time when most musicians are full of hope, I was resigned to a future of marginalization," Juan-Carlos recalls.
He fled to the United States in 1993, to make his own music, his way.
"Music is the combustion created by the impact of a moment on a place. I came to New York as part of an exodus of young Cuban musicians who had no place in their country, because the moment had been cut off. We came looking for legends-- the jazz clubs the jam sessions, the all-night dances -- but we didn't find them. I took my guitar and sang in the subway, looking for the moment."
In 1998 he was signed to his first record deal (Wicklow/BMG). The recording, "songs from a little blue house" produced by the legendary engineer/producer John Fischbach, was a tribute to the house in Oriente province where Juan-Carlos's grandmother had lived as a child. His years of struggle in exile were vindicated when this debut CD received a Grammy nomination in 2000.
His next release, "las calles del paraiso" (EMI Latin 2002), also produced by John Fischbach, was the critically-acclaimed concept album that Formell describes as "the soundtrack of an imaginary movie" about a day and night in the city of Havana.
Then, after several years of touring with his band and some major concerts -- with Buena Vista Social Club veteran Eliades Ochoa, and world music stars Cesaria Evora, Milton Nascimento and Susana Baca -- Juan-Carlos decided to take on the challenge of a solo guitar project. Inspired by a sojourn in New Orleans, Juan-Carlos returned to the Crescent City in May of 2005 to record "cemeteries & desire", which was released by Narada Records in August 2005. The album features powerful original ballads -- songs now haunted by the devastation of the city.
A recent project is "son radical", the spontaneous combustion of rock en clave that came out of Los Angeles recording sessions with two other exceptional Cuban musicians -- drummer/producer Jimmy Branly (of NG la Banda) and bassist Carlitos del Puerto (of Caravana Cubana). Channeling the writing of Cuban negrista poet Nicolas Guillen, Cuban patriot Jose Marti, and the African roots of the Caribbean experience, son radical creates a lyrical, politically-charged dimension of contemporary Cuban music.
At the Blue Note, Juan-Carlos will present his brand new project, "Johnny's Dream Club." The cabaret Johnny's Dream Club was a small masterpiece of modernist architecture at the beach outside Havana where the jazzistas went to play and hang out after their work night was over. What you'd often hear there was el Filin (Cuban for "feeling"), a cool undercurrent in the Havana music scene of the 1950s.
A precursor to and influence upon bossa nova, el Filin's jazz-infused ballads emerged in the late 1940s from the intimate after-hours clubs of Central Havana. Feeling's free-style guitar with progressive harmonies and diminished chords reflected the urbanity and sophistication of bohemian Black musicians: composer/guitarists Jose Antonio Mendez and Portillo de la Luz; pianist Peruchin and Bebo Valdes; singers Elena Burke and Omara Portuondo.
For Formell, "Johnny's Dream Club" also represents a state of mind -- "the little club where jazz musicians got together after hours and met new people to exchange ideas and create something new -- you have to keep doing that wherever you go."
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New York, NY | | URL: | www.bluenotejazz.com/newyork/ |
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