Calendar

MusicLab Workshop Series: Latin Jazz

This MusicLab workshop series brings you master Latin Jazz artists to share their experience in an interactive setting. You can learn, listen, practice, play and discuss online in real time in these online workshops hosted by Community Music Center in partnership with the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble and MisterLatinJazz.

Dive in to Latin jazz and check out each of our exciting upcoming MusicLab workshops with incredible guest artists:

• Sept 10 –John Calloway: Improvisation Techniques & Strategies for Latin Jazz
• Oct 8 – Oscar Hernandez: 50 Years of Musical Innovations in Latin Music
• Nov 12 – Michele Rosewoman: Creative Expression Through Afro-Cuban Rhythms & Improvisation

John Calloway: Improvisation Techniques & Strategies for Latin Jazz

When: Thursday, September 10, 5:30–7:00pm
Tickets: $15 General, $10 Community Music Center students & faculty / Seniors
Purchase tickets here: https://musiclab-workshop-john-calloway.eventbrite.com
A note on ticket prices: If cost is a barrier to your participation in this workshop, contact Adriana Marrero, amarrero@sfcmc.org.

Dr. John Calloway is a revered multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger and educator, who has performed and toured with such internationally known jazz musicians as Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Musselwhite, Arturo Sandoval, Israel “Cachao” Lopez, Max Roach, and Pete Escovedo.

This online interactive clinic will focus on developing techniques and strategies to expand one’s improvisational ability in Latin jazz and Cuban music styles and grooves. This clinic will be useful for musicians who are developing improvisers, as well as those with improvising experience and skill sets in other genres and styles but want to sound more “authentic” in their approach to soloing in the world of Latin music.

We will focus on aspects of improvisation relevant to the genres, including rhythmic ideas, motif development, vocabulary and an understanding of phrasing with respect to the clave pattern that guides Latin jazz and Cuban music. Simple repetitive chord progressions and grooves as well as sections of jazz standards will be used for analysis and interactive playing. The clinic will also include guided listening to music and viewing visual examples with time at the end for participant questions and feedback.

This course will be conducted live via video conferencing. A computer or other device with a webcam and microphone and a reliable internet connection is required. Log-in information will be sent to students before the workshop.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Dr. John Calloway is a nationally recognized multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger who has simultaneously had a dual career in education for over 30 years.

Known for his prolific work in jazz, Latin American and other World music styles, John has performed and toured with such internationally known jazz musicians as Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Musselwhite, Arturo Sandoval, Israel “Cachao” Lopez, Max Roach, Pete Escovedo and in the SF Bay Area, with, Jesus Diaz, Mark Levine, John Santos and Marcus Shelby. As an arranger and composer, he has written for several GRAMMY-nominated recording projects as well as for films, including the HBO movie “Hemingway & Gelhorn.”

As a music director, John has taught at the Stanford Jazz Workshop, JazzCampWest, the Monterey Jazz Festival Summer Camp, La Escuela Nacional de Arte in Habana, Cuba, and currently directs the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco and the Afro-Cuban Ensemble of San Francisco State University. John has several recording projects of his own. His latest CD “Asere Ko,” was released in 2016, which is in addition to his two previous recordings “The Code” (2007) and “Diaspora” (2001).

John holds a Master of Arts degree in music education from San Francisco State University and a Doctorate in Multicultural Education from the University of San Francisco. He spent 35 years as an educator in the San Francisco Unified School District, ending his tenure in 2020 as the Music Supervisor for the Visual and Performing Arts Department. John has also been a long-time faculty member at San Francisco State University in the School of Music, including his directorship of its Afro-Cuban Ensemble since 1999, and in the College of Ethnic Studies, where he teaches courses on Latinx music and culture and Afro-Latinx history and culture. Dr. Calloway has been recognized by the Jazz Journalists Association with the Jazz Hero Award in 2012, and by the California Music Educators Association with the Ernest R. Yee Illuminating Culture Award in 2015.

Lastly, Dr. Calloway is a community activist and a long time social justice and cultural advocate. He served as an SF Arts Commissioner from 2008–2013, is on the advisory board for Living Jazz, and is the Entertainment coordinator for Carnaval San Francisco.

Special thanks to our partners: Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble and MisterLatinJazz

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MusicLab Workshop Series: Latin Jazz

This MusicLab workshop series brings you master Latin Jazz artists to share their experience in an interactive setting. You can learn, listen, practice, play and discuss online in real time in these online workshops hosted by Community Music Center in partnership with the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble and MisterLatinJazz.

Dive in to Latin jazz and check out each of our exciting upcoming MusicLab workshops with incredible guest artists:

• Sept 10 – John Calloway: Improvisation Techniques & Strategies for Latin Jazz
• Oct 8 – Oscar Hernandez: 50 Years of Musical Innovations in Latin Music
• Nov 12 – Michele Rosewoman: Creative Expression Through Afro-Cuban Rhythms & Improvisation

Oscar Hernandez: 50 Years of Musical Innovations in Latin Music

When: Thursday, October 8, 5:30–7:00pm
Tickets: $15 General, $10 Community Music Center students & faculty / seniors
Purchase tickets here: https://musiclab-workshop-oscar-hernandez.eventbrite.com
A note on ticket prices: If cost is a barrier to your participation in this workshop, contact Adriana Marrero, amarrero@sfcmc.org.

Oscar Hernandez has played with Latin music legends for decades, been musical director twice on Broadway, and has won four GRAMMYs with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra. Oscar will share insights about innovations within Latin music over the past 50 years drawing from his musical experiences with iconic groups such as Manny Oquendo y Su Conjunto Libre, Conjunto Folklórico y Experimental Nuevayorquino, Ray Barretto, Rubén Blades, Juan Luis Guerra, and most recently the Spanish Harlem Orchestra. He will discuss what gave each of these groups a signature sound including specific musical elements and/or how they related to the sociocultural landscape of their time.

This class will be formatted as a lecture/demonstration utilizing audio/video samples and with live demonstration and question/answers with Oscar Hernandez. Bring your questions for this rare opportunity to speak with a master!

This course will be conducted live via video conferencing. A computer or other device with a webcam and microphone and a reliable internet connection is required. Log-in information will be sent to students before the workshop.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Oscar Hernandez is another great Puerto Rican from the Bronx. His DNA carries pure melaza in white skin and piercing blue-green eyes that belie his innate percussive rhythm and prodigious way of learning to play the piano. And yet, Oscar is very much de la mata, made of roots so strong as a survival substance that has made him a legend in his own terms and style.

His musical trajectory symbolizes the Spanish saying, plantar bandera. Meaning everywhere he goes he shines like Armstrong on the moon. From Baretto’s “Rican Struction,” to his tenure with Ruben Blades and Seis del Solar, to Spanish Harlem Orchestra and everything in between and after, Oscar stands.

Spanish Harlem Orchestra is a pinnacle of artistic symbolism. While there is indeed a place called “Spanish Harlem,” SHO transcends. The orchestra is about all the Spanish Harlems in the U.S. and beyond that carry legacy. In Oscar’s case music from the heart of the Afro-Caribbean ancestry that permeates the entire Northern and Southern American Continents. And this is grand. Music after all makes the people come together.

The Latin Jazz Project goes a step further in bringing people together. The Afro sounds of the Caribbean and American Jazz integrate like when you’re making bread. And the all-stars of The Latin Jazz Project fine-tuned an hour + of old meets new styles with the signature flair of SHO.

The Latin Jazz Project features Kurt Elling, Bob Franceschini, Tom Harrell, Jimmy Haslip, and Dave Liebman, Bob Mintzer, Jonathan Powell, Michael Rodriguez, and Miguel Zenón.

The usual suspects Marco Bermúdez, Doug Beavers, Noah Bless, Jeremy Bosch, Jorge Castro, Carlos Cascante, Hector Colón, Mitch Frohman, Jerry Madera, Luisito Quintero, Maneco Ruiz and are still on fire.

The Latin Jazz Project is beautiful and close to my heart are the tracks “Acid Rain,” “Invitation,” “Las Palmas,” and “Latin Perspective,” (cool as hades this tune). And perhaps closest still is “Silent Prayers,” lovely and probably because the times call for them, a lot of silent prayers if the world wants to survive. A few snakes have lazed apples with the most venomous poison to lure weak ones into bitting sin and bring down paradise, the only one we have.

Special thanks to our partners: Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble and MisterLatinJazz