Pedro Iturralde

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Pedro Iturralde (2013)

Pedro Iturralde (born July 13, 1929 in Falces , Navarra , † November 1, 2020 ) was a Spanish saxophonist , composer and music teacher of Basque descent.

Live and act

Pedro Iturralde came from a musical family and played the clarinet and saxophone in the local Banda Municipal de Falces as a child . He later studied music at the Madrid Conservatory, graduating with a diploma as a classical saxophonist. His composition “La pequeña Czarda” for saxophone and piano was written as early as 1949.

In the early 1960s Iturralde played at the Whiskey Jazz Club in Madrid with American guest soloists such as Don Byas , Lee Konitz , Gerry Mulligan and Donald Byrd . In 1968 he recorded the LP Pedro Iturralde Quartet featuring Hampton Hawes for the American label Blue Note Records .

Iturralde did pioneering work with his own formations, with which he tried to fuse jazz and flamenco to flamenco jazz and in which the guitarist Paco de Lucía , the bassist Erich Peter and the drummer Peer Wyboris also participated. After a recording of a concert in London broadcast by the BBC, Joachim Ernst Berendt invited the group to the Berlin Jazz Days in 1967 and produced the LP Jazz Flamenco in the series Jazz Meets the World for the Black Forest record company Saba (later MPS ). As a result of this publication, Iturralde received a scholarship from Down Beat magazine , with which he could take an arranging course with Herb Pomeroy at Berklee College of Music in Boston .

In the field of classical music, Iturralde mastered practically the entire repertoire of works that have been composed for orchestra and saxophone. He has performed with many classical orchestras and wrote numerous works himself, mainly for saxophone ensembles.

From 1978 until his retirement in 1994 he taught as a saxophone teacher at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid . In 2007 he was awarded the Premio Principe Viana de la Cultura for his life's work . He was also awarded the gold medal of the Mérito de las Bellas Artes in 2009.

literature

  • Wolfram Knauer Jazz Meets Europe ( Liner Notes for the CD of the same name)
  • Jose Maria Garcia Martinez Del Fox-Trot al Jazz Flamenco. El jazz en Espana, 1916–1995. Madrid 1996
  • Gerhard Putschögl Flamenco Jazz Jazz Podium 7/2011: 3–8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Muere Pedro Iturralde, pionero y maestro del jazz en España, a los 91 años" on elpais.com from November 1, 2020 (Spanish)
  2. ^ Andrew Wright Hurley The Return of Jazz: Joachim-Ernst Berendt and West German Cultural Change New York: Berghahn 2009, pp. 93f.
personal data
SURNAME Iturralde, Pedro
SHORT DESCRIPTION Spanish saxophonist, composer and music teacher
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Falces , Spain
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 2020