传奇爵士大师Arturo Sandoval亚卓.山多瓦这位1949年生于古巴的小喇叭手,其音乐生涯是以古典乐作为起点。12岁起开始学习小喇叭的他,早年是古巴现代乐管弦乐团(Cuban Orchestra of Modern Music)的一员,除此之外,也在BBC交响乐团及列宁格勒交响乐团中担任客座乐手。 尽管在古典乐界内已经建立起相当的知名度与声望,不过很显然的,他对音乐的喜好并不仅止於古典乐。Sandoval自称他第一次接触爵士乐,是在他一开始学习小喇叭时,听到了Dizzy大乐团融合古巴音乐所演出的名曲「Cubano Be, Cubano Bop」,自始便对爵士乐产生浓厚的兴趣。(1946年,Dizzy首先将拉丁音乐元素融入爵士乐。)而在爵士乐手中,他最喜爱的是Louis Armstrong、Ella Fitzgerald,以及Dizzy Gillespie,其中又以Dizzy对他的影响最深。除了演奏古典乐外,他曾在古巴当地组了一个乐团「Irakere」,演奏风格融合了爵士、古典乐、摇滚乐,以及传统的古巴音乐。之后更在Dizzy的United Nation Orchestra中担任了三年的乐手,自此之后,Sandoval便建立了他在爵士乐界的国际声望。 Sandoval在1990年时离开祖国,前往美国寻求发展,随后并入籍成为美国公民。目前在美国除了以乐手身份录制作品外,也同时着书论述,花了不少心力在音乐教育上。由于他的生长背景,以及早期Dizzy在音乐方面对他的影响,他的作品往往带有浓厚的拉丁音乐色彩。一般来说,他通常也被定位成一位拉丁爵士乐手(或古巴爵士乐手)。不过,Sandoval并不愿被这样狭隘的刻板印象所限制。在到美国定居之后,他也陆续录制了一些非拉丁风格的作品。Sandoval以行动证明,他就是一个爵士乐手,而不仅是一个拉丁爵士乐手,或古巴爵士乐手。
A blazing, technically flawless trumpeter from Cuba, Arturo Sandoval has been dazzling audiences all over the world with his supercharged tone and bop-flavored flurries way up in the trumpets highest register. In slower numbers, he sports a golden, mellow tone on the flügelhorn, marked with a sure, subtle sense of swing. Apparently he is capable of playing anything, proving it more than once by tackling classical repertoire as well as jazz in the same concert, and he has enough curiosity to search far beyond his Cubop base for repertory. Yet he often lets his desire to please the crowd with high-note displays get in the way of musical values, and he has yet to make a great record that can stand with those trumpet giants that have preceded him.
The son of an auto mechanic, Sandoval took up the classical trumpet at 12 and was enrolled in the Cuban National School of the Arts at 15, studying with a Russian classical trumpeter. Early in the 1970s, he became one of the founding members of the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, which by 1973 had evolved into the Afro-Cuban, rock-influenced band Irakere. Sandoval met his idol Dizzy Gillespie in 1977, who promptly became a mentor and colleague, playing with Sandoval in concerts in Europe and Cuba and later featuring him in the United Nation Orchestra. After recording an album with David Amram, Havana/New York, and a couple of high-profile Irakere albums on Columbia, Sandoval left the group in 1981 to tour with his own band and record in Cuba. Occasionally, the Castro government would allow Sandoval to appear in various international jazz festivals and with orchestras like the BBC Symphony and Leningrad Philharmonic. Though he chafed under a regime that restricted his touring, Sandoval bided his time until he could get his wife and son out of Cuba, and only then, in July 1990 during a long European tour, did he defect at the American Embassy in Rome, settling in Florida.
Signing with GRP, Sandovals first American album, appropriately titled Flight to Freedom, demonstrated his versatility in several idioms, and he toured with his own high-energy Afro-Cuban group in the 1990s. Hot House followed in 1998, and a year later he returned with Americana. L.A. Meetings appeared in spring 2001. For 2003s Trumpet Evolution, Sandoval selected material from his favorite horn players. Since that time, he has released a handful of recordings including Live at the Blue Note in 2005 and Arturo Sandoval & the Latin Jazz Orchestra and Rumba Palace, both in 2007.