Since 2008, Jorge Francisco Castillo, a musician and retired librarian, has presented the Fandango Fronterizo, a celebratory jam session that brings together son jarocho musicians on both sides of the border separating Tijuana and San Diego. The idea is that music creates community despite separation, and son jarocho, a folk music born in Veracruz with a revolutionary pedigree, offers the perfect vehicle. When pianist, composer, band leader, educator, and activist Arturo O’Farrill learned about this annual event, he felt it provided an elegant opportunity to bring together a variety of cultures to make a musical statement of global community in response to the divisive cultural and political currents abroad in the world today. Working with Castillo and his own longtime producer, GRAMMY-winning Kabir Sehgal, O’Farrill brought together his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra with son jarocho musicians, internationally renowned jazz artists, and musicians from marginalized countries at the 11th annual Fandango. The result is a cornucopia of vibrant musics energized by a common purpose.
Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz
Orchestra
Fandango at the Wall (Resilience Music
Alliance)
A review
Recorded at the Fandango Fronterizo in Tijuana/San Diego, at the Casa Cultura Playas Cortijo San Jose in Tijuana, and at Power Station at BerkleeNYC in New York, Fandango at the Wall revels in its diversity. From O’Farrill’s newly composed Invisible Suite, which straddles the jazz and classical worlds, to traditional son jarocho songs, from the fusion of jazz and Iraqi music to South American rap, from the orchestral to the intimate, the two-CD album offers invigorating music that crosses as many boundaries as it can find. The album includes 32 tracks, with more than 60 musicians making signal contributions. Among the standouts are the son jarocho icons Patricio Hidalgo, Ramón Gutiérrez Hernández, Tacho Utrera, Fernando Guadarrama Olivera; violinist Regina Carter, cellist Akua Dixon, and drummer Antonio Sanchez from the jazz world; the Rahim AlHaj Trio, with Iraqi oudist AlHaj, Iranian santourist Sourena Sefati, and Palestinian/American percussionist Issa Maloof, who are joined by Iranian tar and setar virtuoso Sahba Motallebi; Chilean-French rap artist Ana Tijoux; and American vocalist Mandy Gonzalez. Let’s not forget O’Farrill’s Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, which performs with contagious passion and impeccable precision.
The album offers highlights aplenty and, for anyone unfamiliar with son jarocho, an ear-opening introduction to this spirited genre. (Those unfamiliar with jazz will enjoy an equally ear-opening adventure.) The maelstrom of rhythm that swirls in the traditional “El Cascabel” and in Patricio Hidalgo’s “Conga Patria”—to name just two of many—demand that you get up and dance. O’Farrill’s challenging Invisible Suite demands concentration while it sets your head to bobbing. The second of the three pieces in the suite, “Free Falling Borderless,” transfers the rhythmic elements of Afro Latin music to a string quartet and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City. AlHaj’s “Fly Away” is treated to a stunning arrangement by Todd Bashore that blends Middle Eastern and jazz orchestral sensibilities, as does O’Farrill’s “Tabla Rasa.” Ana Tijoux blasts off with a rousing rap on “Xalapa Bang!,” written by the Villalobos brothers and Humberto Manual Flores Guttierrez. Then, there’s Antonio Sanchez’s “Minotauro,” arranged by Bashore, which gives the orchestra quite a workout. Of the many exceptional soloists, Carter and saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown turn in standout performances across the board.
The album is also available as a book, ebook, and audio book by Sehgal that addresses the history of the troubled U.S.–Mexico relationship, with a foreword by historian Douglas Brinkley and an afterword by former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young (available from Grand Central Publishing and Hachette Audio), and it will be joined by a forthcoming documentary focusing on the lives of the son jarocho musicians.
© 2018 Mel Minter