Musicians regularly experience flashes of inspiration in their daily lives, that’s simply the reality of a creative life. Anything can spark a new idea or musical interest - a passing comment from a friend, a song on the radio, a bell, a whistle, or a sound in their community - when any of these sounds passes through a musician’s filter, they may trigger a creative surge. One thing leads to another and before they know it, that musician has an idea that can potentially send them in a new direction. At that point, true artistry can occur; the musician can take the idea and nurture it into a full-blown concept that drives a musical exploration. That process actually takes some skill and experience though; many musicians simply let these inspirational ideas float past them without further development. The ability to grab inspiration and run with it sits in the realm of the truly dedicated musician, and the long-term development of those ideas requires an experienced musical mind. The distance between inspiration and a fully developed concept may equate to months or even years; in some cases the realization of a concept may take a lifetime. Regardless of the path, the trip from inspiration to artistic execution requires a dedicated mind and an insightful musical persistence.

Trumpet player Gabriel Alegria saw flashes of inspiration all around him during his younger years, building the skills that would allow him to turn those sparks into reality. His family valued creativity on a large scale, encouraging Alegria to find his voice as an artist. In fact, major acts of artistic creation were a family tradition; Gabriel’s grandfather Ciro Alegria was one of Peru’s great novelists and his father Alonso Alegria was an important Peruvian playwright. Among all this creative energy, Alegria’s family encouraged him to explore music, which led him to the trumpet. The young musician experienced a greater worldview of the artistic process, traveling between Peru and the United States. School music programs expanded his musical perspective and encouraged him to dedicate himself even more fully to performance. By the time Alegria graduated from high school, he was completely immersed in music, leading him to the Conservatory in Peru for collegiate studies. He graduated a complete musician, finding steady employment in the Lima Philharmonic and side work in the city’s active music scene. Jazz sat at the core of Alegria’s musical interests though, and after five years in the symphony, Alegria left to find his own voice as a jazz musician. Once he started experimenting with mixtures of jazz and Afro-Peruvian music, his inspiration grew into a full-blown concept, guiding him towards his current work.

Building upon those initial sparks of inspiration, Alegria now stands as a leader in Afro-Peruvian Jazz, blazing trails into a new and exciting genre. His Afro-Peruvian Sextet has just finished an engaging new release, Pucusana, and has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the album’s independent release. In the first piece of our three-part interview with Alegria, we discuss his early musical development, his path towards a jazz focus, and the essence of Afro-Peruvian Jazz.

LATIN JAZZ CORNER: You grew up in an artistic family, how did that develop your appreciation for the arts and music?

GABRIEL ALEGRIA: Even though there weren’t any professional musicians in the family, I think the main thing was that there was this understanding that everybody needed to play an instrument – it was kind of an unwritten rule. So as we were growing up, my Dad would always say, “Well, what instrument are you going to play?” It was always an issue when I was really small. He’d take us to shows and we’d see things. Ultimately, I decided to play the trumpet. Once you get involved in music, you realize that you’re doing it in all your spare time so it would be really cool to get paid for it. You’re doing it all the time anyways, so why not try to get paid for it? That’s sort of how it all started. Then, of course, since everybody in the family is kind of artistic, they didn’t have any problem with that. I guess that environment pushes you in a certain way.

LJC: When did you jump into the trumpet and what music were you listening to at the time?

GA: When you’re 11 or 12 years old, at least in my case, you’re not listening like you do when you’re a little bit older. In the house, there was a lot of classical music, because my father is really into classical music. Outside, there was a lot of Eva Ayllon, and all these other musical people that I grew up knowing about and listening to. That’s kind of the combination. Jazz popped in there through teachers at school that made us play that music. At first, I didn’t even know what it was, it was sort of like, “Join the jazz band, it’s the cool thing to do versus the other band!” Now that I’m older and I see little kids playing, I realize the value system that they’re dealing with as they learn music is just completely different than actually being a dedicated musician. You’re just sort of playing songs that somebody is teaching you, and it’s for fun. At first, its just like a game, and then at some point you realize that you have to practice. That changes everything, because then you’re like, “O.K., I’ve got to get some lessons.”

My father was a playwright, and he had a job at a university in the United States. So I was there for a little bit and I had my first lessons. At that point, I actually had private lessons in the States in Ohio. There was some higher level playing, and I really liked the jazz band at that point – it was my favorite thing. Then I started to buy albums. Once you started to buy albums, then you get more of a personal stake in it all. Definitely the Miles electric albums were the first things that I got into, because they were out then (during the eighties). There were some of these Miles electric albums that I really thought were cool. From there, you start to discover that he wasn’t always electric, and then you discover other musicians, and it just kind of evolves from there.

LJC: So you were back and forth between the States and Peru in your younger days?

GA: Yes, that was how I lost my accent! There was some back and forth there. I came to New York when I was a kid for the first time. My Dad took me on a trip where he was meeting with a composer that was writing the music for a musical that he was writing. So I got to see people working in New York and that was really interesting. Then I went back to Peru and studied in the conservatory. People get really serious there. I was doing a lot of classical trumpet and stuff like that. I actually played in the symphony for five years - after college, I got a job in the Lima Philharmonic. It was a really good job. I was doing that, and then I realized that I didn’t want to play in the symphony. That’s about the time that we started to mess around with all these rhythms – the Afro-Peruvian grooves. That’s fifteen years ago now; it’s been a while. That’s when we first started to mess around with these things and get some recordings together. Those were the first steps towards what we’re doing now.

LJC: When you were down in Peru playing in the symphony, what was the music scene like at the time – were you doing other things as well?

GA: Yea, I was always doing the other things. I was always going out at night and playing with jazz bands and rock bands - different things that were not related to the symphonic world. Ultimately, I was much more comfortable in that scene than I was in the classical world. At one point, I decided that I really needed to do my own thing. So I did that first album which is now kind of out of print and disappeared. Then I decided to take a group on the road to create a band around some of the sounds that I was imagining. I called up Hugo (Alcázar), the drummer in the band – we had been playing since we were kids. I said, “Here’s what I want to do, do you have somebody that can handle this kind of percussion?” I kind of described it to him – I needed some dancing and I needed these various things. He recommended that we reach out to Huevito (Freddy Lobatón). Unbeknownst to us, he’s a very, very difficult cat to find. It took like a month to just find where he was. He didn’t have a cell phone, no e-mail, nothing like that. We finally tracked him down. He’s such a personality, such great energy, and everything. He really wanted to do it. He had no idea what we were talking about; he was just strictly an Afro-Peruvian musician with a sensibility for all kinds of things. He’d never done anything outside of the tradition. But he was super open minded, so he was like, “Yea, Yea, let’s do it!” It’s been like a family ever since. Laurandrea, the saxophonist, was in the band from the beginning, as well as Hugo, Huevito, and myself – the four of us have been together for about five years, going on six. We’ve been through a couple of different bass players and a couple of different guitar players. Yuri’s been with us now for about three years, so he’s pretty much part of the family. It’s been kind of a special and unique thing that evolved.

Involving the fans so much has been great. First, there was the Tour Peru project, where we invite all the fans to come to Peru with us. That kind of took off, so we’re now going to go on the forth one. Having the fans and the friends of the band so involved has made us realize that this really is a different time period. We were kind of flirting with taking some record label offers and this and that, but then, it just didn’t feel like it’s the right time to do that. It feels like it’s the right time to do this other thing. Everywhere we go when we play shows, people come around, and they really dig what we’re doing. There’s a lot of enthusiasm for more people to know about Afro-Peruvian Jazz music. It’s a new sound. All the jazzers think it’s incredible because they’ve never heard anything like it. The mainstream people sort of think that this is a really easy way to listen to jazz. They find it very appealing and easy to kind of follow – I think more so in the live show than perhaps on the recording. Because of the way the band plays on stage, it’s very much a fun thing, not intimidating. While they’re completely confused sometimes, it’s a confused pleasure! So we’re kind of riding that confused pleasure into the idea of Kickstarter, seeing if we can take it to a whole other participation level from all the people involved.

LJC: It is really interesting how well received the band is and how it’s really taken off. Before your CD, Afro-Peruvian music was a mystery to me and I think a lot of people. When you were initially coming up with this idea of combining the two styles, were there other people doing this – were you inspired by someone else?

GA: Yea, I think so. What’s really important to always point out is that no one ever does just invent something out of a vacuum. Not even Miles – it’s never just out of the blue. When we were growing up, when we were 17 or 18, there was this project called Hijos Del Sol. Los Hijos Del Sol was Alex Acuña’s attempt to get back to Peru and try to involve Afro-Peruvian music in what he was doing. So he got Eva Allyon, Wayne Shorter, and a bunch of different musicians to play through traditional Peruvian tunes that had kind of been arranged in what to our ears now sounds like a pop-world music style. Back then, they were calling it fusion-jazz; different words like that were being thrown around. Regardless of what the sound actually was, the idea was floating around that this instrumental music and Afro-Peruvian music can co-exist. So we were already interested in that. We would go to these shows and they were spectacularly huge shows with twelve or thirteen people in the band, lights . . . they were just these really great shows. Eva Allyon of course, she’s such an inspiration; she always sang with the band. They did all these classic Afro-Peruvian tunes with this other sound.

Now, I think the main thing that happened with us was that we actually started to use functional jazz language. We use actual chord relationships and harmonic movements that are functional to jazz, so they really sound like jazz. Not so much coloring of chords that makes it sound like world music or just something that’s an embellishment of the folk music. In our music, it really does reach into each tradition kind of deeply, and we try to find the connection between jazz music and Afro-Peruvian music; we really try to find those connections. A lot of times, the connections aren’t necessarily just technical, meaning they’re not just rhythms and chords. It’s more like the spirit of a certain song. Certain songs work well on certain grooves and certain American songs work well with certain Afro-Peruvian grooves. But it’s not just a blank formula where you can take any tune, put it on any Afro-Peruvian groove and it will work. I’m not sure why – we haven’t really sorted it out. It would be great to have a formula.

What we’ve noticed is that there’s certain sounds that may come from the spirit of the music or where the original song was from. When we do these arrangements, like “Summertime” or these things that people really dig, there seems to be a real connection between the lando and that particular song. I don’t know if it’s the minor chords or what it is that makes them connect. But you can’t just simply take a Beatles song, put it on a festejo, and expect it to work. I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of that going on in this whole movement. With other artists, I’ve noticed that some folks have jumped on this idea. They even sometimes send me demos; people from around, they’re like, “Hey, I’m working on this.” I listen to it, and I think, “Why doesn’t this work?” They’re doing the rhythms, and they’re doing the grooves . . but I think there’s a spiritual thing with certain sounds. So when we compose original music, there’s also that concern to keep it balanced so that each of the traditions is respected and you can actually enjoy it. You can laugh, listen to it, and follow the solos; just really tell the story of this mix of music.

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Support The Release Of Pucusana!
Gabriel Alegria And The Afro-Peruvian Sextet will be releasing their latest recording, Pucusana in August of 2010, but they need your support to send this album out into the world in a big way. The group will be utilizing a fantastic fundraising site, Kickstarter, to build support for the promotion, release, and distribution of the recording. The process works much like a public radio fund drive - the group has 90 days to raise their goal of $9,000 and they need your support. Along the way, there’s some great rewards for donating and a chance to become part of the Afro-Peruvian Sextet’s family. This is a great way to help push Afro-Peruvian Jazz out into the public eye, so head on over to the group’s Kickstarter site, get the full details, and donate today!

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Make sure that you check back tomorrow for Part Two of our conversation with Afro-Peruvian Jazz pioneer Gabriel Alegria. We talk to Alegria about the Afro-Peruvian Sextet’s early musical explorations, the jazz scene in Peru, and the group’s 2007 recording Nuevo Mundo. Don’t miss it!

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Check Out These Related Posts:
Latin Jazz Conversations: Kat Parra (Part 1)
Jazz Now: 5 Latin Jazz Albums From The Present Moment
Latin Jazz Conversations: Pablo Aslan (Part 1)
Latin Jazz In The 2000s: A Diversification Of The Style

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