Fandango at the Wall in New York (ALJA)
Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra featuring The Congra Patria Son Jarocho Collective
Released September 29, 2022
Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album 2023
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kjVSWCL2FJ_0ROyhNnMNAlj8fzVOT9ZSo
Spotify:
About:
The diplomatic relationship between the United States and Mexico has soured considerably in the last few years. When the US President launched his campaign in 2015 with a speech that blamed Mexicans, he tore off the scabs of what was already a fraught relationship that has involved periods of bigotry, invasions, and wars. Yet considering the two-hundred-year up-and-down relationship between these two countries, it might be easy to dismiss the recent antagonism as just the latest swing or even a return to normal of mutual skepticism. But we shouldn’t be so complacent or dismissive because this distrust and suspicion, left unchecked, can turn into darker forces.
So, it falls upon private citizens and individuals to promote cross-border friendship and rapprochement. And that is ultimately the goal of Fandango at the Wall: to bring the people of the United States and Mexico together through music. After all, we don’t just share a border but families and friends, histories and futures. Our countries are interconnected, and our fates are interlinked. Indeed, we should root for and help each other.
One of these individuals working to bring our countries together is Jorge Francisco Castillo. He is a retired librarian who organizes the Fandango Fronterizo Festival, which began in 2008. It’s a cross-border fandango, like a jam session, that features son jarocho music from Veracruz, Mexico. Once a year, around Memorial Day, these son jarocho musicians gather on both sides of the border wall in Tijuana and San Diego, and they perform a fandango. Members of the public are encouraged to come, eat, sing, and enjoy the festivities. Jorge’s vision has grown into a movement in which hundreds of people attend the festival, and many around the world have taken notice.
Maestro Arturo O’Farrill, who was born in Mexico, came across a story about Jorge and the fandango in the New York Times. He instantly thought it could be grist for a project that tears down the human-made walls that form between people. So, we traveled to Tijuana to meet Jorge and asked him if he’d like to collaborate on a new project, and he said yes. And then we got to work!
Fandango at the Wall tears down three types of wall: (1) physical walls, as we recorded musicians on both sides of the San Diego and Tijuana border; (2) musical walls, as we invited special guests from different musical traditions such as jazz, classical, Broadway, hip hop, san jarocho; and (3) recording borders, as we recorded both outside in the live environment and also in a recording studio.
What is more, this project has several formats: (1) live music Grammy Award winning album recorded in New York and released by Tiger Turn in 2022; (2) music album released by Resilience Music Alliance in 2018; (3) a book on the history of United States-Mexico (with a foreword by historian Douglas Brinkley and afterword by Ambassador Andrew Young) released by Hachette Audio & Grand Central Press; (4) and a feature documentary directed by Varda Bar-Kar that premiered on HBO.
If you want to learn more about the making of the album, please read the book, as the first chapter is a detailed description of what it took to make this project happen. It also provides biographical information on the special guest artists and provides more descriptions on the key songs. It explores the history of son jarocho music and contextualizes its role in the Mexican diaspora within the US.
But here is the short version: you will hear the incredible Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra making music with some of the best son jarocho musicians in the world that comprise the Conga Patria Son Jarocho Collective like Patrico Hidalgo, Ramón Gutiérrez Hernández, Tacho Utrera, Fernando Guadarrama Olivera, among others. You will hear the virtuosity of Regina Carter on violin, Akua Dixon on cello, and the tantalizing rhythms of Antonio Sánchez. The terrific Villalobos Brothers inject their songs with passion and intensity. Rahim AlHaj Trio and Sahba Motallebi brilliantly bring the traditions of the Middle East. Ana Tijoux electrifies with her rap performance, and Mandy Gonzales takes your breath away with her powerful and searing vocals.
Arturo and I have made several albums together, including Cuba: The Conversation Continues, which we recorded in Havana in December 2014, at the same time the US and Cuba were restoring governmental relations. With its diplomatic undercurrent, that production is the precursor to Fandango at the Wall, which has proven to be the most challenging yet. Mobilizing a small army of musicians, producers, staff to stage a concert was a significant amount of work. But it was worth it.
Here is the moment that struck me: the border wall was behind us, the sun was setting over the Pacific Ocean, the crowd was yelling “Epa” and “Otra!”, and the band was grooving. Many of us were in tears as we took everything in. For a moment, we had helped to turn a symbol of division into a common space of peace and harmony.
Fandango at the Wall is ultimately a project of convergence. I hope that as you listen to this music, you’ll hear the possibilities of what the relationship between the United States and Mexico can become. And that we as artists and activists continue to create the world in which we want to live.
Kabir Sehgal
(Executive Producer & Producer)
Track Listing:
1. Bemba Y Tablao 7:19
2. Cielito Lindo 2:41
3. BeboChicoChuchoTuro 9:35
4. El Pijul 4:49
5. Fly Away 6:39
6. Las Poblanas 5:38
7. El Maquech 6:51
8. Xalapa Bang! 5:07
9. La Bamba 7:11
10. Conga Patria 5:00
Personnel:
Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra
Arturo O’Farrill: director, composer, conductor, arranger, piano, keyboard
Saxophones: Roman Filiú (alto), Alexa Tarantino (alto), Ivan Renta (tenor), Alejandro Avilés (tenor), Larry Bustamante (baritone)
Trumpets: Seneca Black, Jim Seeley, Bryan Davis, Vitaly Golovnev
Trombones: Rafi Malkiel, Frank Cohen, Abulrahman Rocky Amer, Earl McIntyre (bass)
Rhythm: Vince Cherico (drums), Bambam Rodriguez (bass), Carlos Maldonado (percussion), Keisel Jiménez (congas), Kabir Sehgal (leona/bass)
Special Guests
Yaratse Hidalgo: zapateo dancing & dancing
Claudia Valentina: jarana & vocals
Julia del Palacio: zapateo dancing
Jacob Hernández: marimbol
Ernesto Villalobos: violin & vocals
Alberto Villalobos: violin, viola & vocals
Humberto Flores: guitar, vocals
Ina Paris: violin
Leonor Falcon: viola
Marisol Espada: cello
Gabriel Chakarji: piano
Sharon Moe: French horn
Conga Patria Son Jarocho Collective
Patricio Hidalgo Belli: jarana, vocals, composer
Ramón Gutiérrez Hernández: requinto, vocals, composer
Tacho Utrera: leona, vocals
Fernando Guadarrama Olivera: jarana, vocals, composer
Jorge Francisco Castillo: jarana, vocals
Wendy Cao Romero: jarana, vocals, zapateado
Recorded live on July 9th, 2022, at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier I, NY
Executive Producers: Kabir Sehgal, Rotimi Alakija, Chris Taylor, Nicolas Rodriguez-Brizuela
Review:
From the barrage of “breaking news” alerts on the 24-hour news cycle to the incessant buzz and chirp of social media, there’s no shortage of reminders of the things that divide us: walls being built, lines being drawn, the notion of “difference” being wielded as a political weapon.
That’s what makes an artist like Arturo O’Farrill such an important voice for these times. As a pianist, composer, bandleader, educator, activist, and founder of the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance, O’Farrill has dedicated his life to not only crossing artificial borders but to erasing them in his wake. With his latest project, Fandango at the Wall, O’Farrill has created a stunningly ambitious and profoundly moving work that showcases the rich fruits that can grow from common ground.
Fandango at the Wall, due out September 28 via Resilience Music Alliance, is the brainchild of O’Farrill and his longtime collaborator and GRAMMY® Award-winning producer, Kabir Sehgal. The project brings together brilliant voices from a variety of cultural and musical traditions to tear down a variety of walls that isolate us — physical, musical, or cultural. The piece was inspired by Jorge Francisco Castillo, a musician and retired librarian who has organized the Fandango Fronterizo Festival for the past decade. The annual event gathers son jarocho musicians on both sides of the border wall between Tijuana and San Diego for a celebratory jam session.
“I found that idea so touching and elegant in its activism,” O’Farrill recalls. “I held it inside my soul and spoke to everyone I could about my hope to join the Fandango Fronterizo and record at the border, bringing special guests and making it a true collaboration.”
O’Farrill’s esteemed Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra and Castillo’s son jarocho musicians came together at the border, joined by a more than 60 gifted musicians representing both sides of that divide as well as several of the countries targeted by President Trump’s travel ban: Broadway singer-actress Mandy Gonzalez (Hamilton, In the Heights); jazz greats Regina Carter (violin), Akua Dixon (cello), and Antonio Sanchez (drums); multi-talented Mexican violin trio The Villalobos Brothers; son jarocho greats Patricio Hidalgo, Ramón Gutiérrez Hernández, and Tacho Utréra; French-Chilean rapper-singer Ana Tijoux; Iraqi-American oud master Rahim AlHaj and his trio; Iranian sitar virtuoso Sahba Motallebi; and many others.
“Thinking about this awful, awful moment in history — not just American history but world history — I wanted to confront the darkness that has overcome all our lives,” O’Farrill says. “Faced with such stupidity and mediocrity, why not at least try to do something valuable? My first thought was to bring not just great artists but also people from marginalized nations. We understand that humanity and community are so much stronger than cultural constructs, physical walls, or geo-political borders. We saw this in action: we saw our people fall in love with their people and become one people.”
A bestselling author, investment banker, and military veteran, Sehgal helped transform O’Farrill’s long-held dream into a reality despite the logistical and political hurdles. Ultimately the project took on three forms: this astoundingly gorgeous album of music; a book on the history of the troubled U.S.-Mexico relationship with a foreword by renowned historian Douglas Brinkley and an afterword by former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young; and an in-production documentary focusing on the lives of the son jarocho musicians.
“It falls upon private citizens and individuals to promote cross-border friendship and reapprochement,” Sehgal writes in his liner notes. “And that is ultimately the goal of Fandango at the Wall: to bring the people of the United States and Mexico together through music. After all, we don’t just share a border but families and friends, histories and futures. Our countries are interconnected, and our fates are interlinked.”
What is most striking about the music of Fandango at the Wall is that for all of the anger, frustration and strife that fueled its creation, it is an intensely joyous celebration that exults in the universal language of music. That notion has become a cliché, but it’s one that O’Farrill has always thrived on making vividly and unpredictably real. Hence the surprising hybrid of approaches on display: not just a mélange of world musics, but virtuosic jazz and striking contemporary classical approaches.
“It’s not just geopolitical borders that offend me,” O’Farrill explains. “It’s also cultural construct borders — the idea that there’s a high music and a low music, a high culture and a low culture. The belief that folk music isn’t as impressive or as important as jazz, or that Middle Eastern music isn’t valid because it’s not born in America. I wanted to destroy these walls, and in fact I found out that the presence of borders and walls and constructs serves an incredible purpose — it unites us in opposition even more than it divides us.”
Another border torn down by Sehgal and O’Farrill was the one between the pristine conditions of the recording studio and the thrilling festivities of the Fandango Fronterizo. Fandango at the Wall flows seamlessly between both settings, with five sessions undertaken in recording studios and outdoors at a live session straddling the border with music freely crossing back and forth.
“The most terrifying thing about being human is the fear of other people,” O’Farrill concludes. “Very few people have the freedom of spirit to embrace things they don’t understand. So I really love the idea that Mexican families who enjoy jarocho music will be introduced to the virtuosity of Regina Carter, or that hardcore jazzheads will discover Patricio Hidalgo. I’m hoping that people will listen to this album and whether or not they understand the words or enjoy the music, they’ll take a moment to think about human beings that are not like them.”
“Fandango at the Wall is ultimately a project of convergence,” Sehgal writes. “I hope that as you listen to this music, you’ll hear the possibilities of what the relationship between the United States and Mexico can become. And that we as artists and activists continue to create the world in which we want to live.”
