Phoenix AZ — As diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and Cuban governments thawed this winter, pianist and Saxophonist Doc Jones was in New Orleans planning a CD release album with his Recording Artist daughter Nayo Jones.
“I saw people break out into tears of joy,” Doc Jones told 504 Magazine,“and I think that moment will make its way into the next issue of 504 magazine.”
The Chicago born and raised godson of a legendary Cuban bandleader has long looked to the island for inspiration. Although Doc Jones has never visited Cuba he has a standing invitation from one of his Cuba musician buddies to bring his International Jazz Day Foundation AZ Festival to Havana. Doc Jones Plan to visit Cuba in 2016 to develop a project that symbolizes the long-awaited relaxing of Cold War hostilities that have defined the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba for half a century.
For his next album entitled “The latinization of DocJones” Doc will teamed up with a group of his Cuban friends he has played with in New Orleans and Phoenix AZ to reimagine the encounter between U.S. jazz giant Dizzy Gillespie and Cuban great Arturo Sandoval. The greats recorded classics like “Night in Tunisia” that fused Afro-Cuban rhythms with the emerging bebop style. Many view those collaborations as a pioneering step toward the creation of the now well-defined genre of Afro Jazz. For Doc Jones, the fusion between Afro-Cuban music and the American jazz tradition is one that has helped define both his personal and professional lives.“It’s based on a project that’s been cooking in my mind forever, see I love to salsa dance and I must say I’m pretty good at it thank’s to my Cuban brothers,” Doc Jones told The 504 Magazine. “You see, Diz and Sandoval understood the African roots of our music are universal… They realized that they were playing the same music, but that it came from different places.” The new CD will debut on April 30 2017 in Phoenix AZ at the 6th Annual “Phoenix International Jazz Day” at CityScpae,
Doc Jones and his 18pc Afro Latin group will be joined by three musicians traveling from the island to debut this new CD project.
Doc Jones says he hopes his musical collaborations with artists on the island will help encourage elected officials and policymakers working to mend the fractures U.S.-Cuba relationship. “There’s a lot of suffering and poverty [in Cuba],” Doc Jones said. “But I gotta tell you that there’s a lot of brilliant joy and beauty. I don’t know how they do that. So I said, this is something we’ve got to keep studying, keep working on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xncznvkB7S8