Paquito D'Rivera

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Paquito D'Rivera 2015 at the World Music Festival Horizonte on the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress
Paquito D'Rivera 2010
Paquito D'Rivera together with the Trio Corrente at the World Music Festival Horizonte 2015 at the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress

Paquito D'Rivera (born June 4, 1948 in Havana ) is a Cuban jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.

Live and act

When he was five years old, D'Rivera had saxophone lessons from his father Tito D'Rivera , a classical saxophonist and conductor who was a close friend of the pianist and arranger Bebo Valdés . A year later he appeared in his school for the first time, at the age of ten he had an appearance in the National Theater of Havana that was praised by audiences and critics.

From 1960 D'Rivera studied clarinet, composition and harmony at the Havana Conservatory, and in 1965 he was principal clarinet in a radio and television program of the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra. From 1967 he was a member of the new jazz orchestra Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna , which he directed for two years. In 1973 he was one of the founding members of the Irakere ensemble , which played a mixture of jazz, rock , classical and traditional Cuban music. The group, led by pianist Chucho Valdés , caused a sensation at the Newport and Montreux Jazz Festivals in 1978, earning two Grammy nominations and winning a Grammy.

In 1979 D'Rivera organized the Havana Jam , an event that brought together thousands of rock and jazz musicians in Cuba's capital and was documented in two double LPs. During a tour of Spain in 1981, he applied for asylum at the American embassy. After his arrival in the USA he was supported by musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie , Dave Amram , Mario Bauzá and Bruce Lundvall , who gave him the opportunity to perform as a soloist, and released two albums in 1981-82.

In the following years he toured with his own group, the Havana / New York Ensemble, through the USA and South America, Europe and Japan and performed with musicians such as Carmen McRae , McCoy Tyner , Toots Thielemans , Claudio Roditi , Roger Kellaway , Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Carter on. In 1988 he was one of the founders of the United Nation Orchestra , with which he also went on tour ( Live at the Royal Festival Hall , 1989).

In the same year he played the world premiere of Roger Kellaway's David Street Blues with the National Symphony Orchestra as a guest soloist and also performed with other symphony orchestras from the USA, Europe and Latin America as well as classical chamber music ensembles. He founded a number of his own bands: the Paquito D'Rivera Big Band , the Paquito D'Rivera Quintet , the Triangulo chamber music ensemble and the calypso and salsa band Caribbean Jazz Project . In 1989 he composed the "New York Suite" for the Gerald Danovich Saxophone Quartet , and in 1994 for the Aspen Wind Quintet "Aires Tropicales" . In 2019 he was the soloist in Daniel Freiberg's Latin American Chronicles , which he premiered with the WDR Funkhausorchester Cologne .

He received an honorary doctorate from the Berklee School of Music in 2003 , has received numerous Grammys (including for the album Portraits of Cuba in 1996 and the composition Merengue , performed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 2005) and Latin Grammys, and has been awarded by the Jazz Journalists Association 2004 and 2006 honored as clarinetist of the year. In 2008 D'Rivera was awarded the Frankfurt Music Prize.

In 2005 he received the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship .

Discographic notes

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Commons : Paquito D'Rivera  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME D'Rivera, Paquito
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban jazz clarinet and saxophonist
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Havana