Latin jazz bandleader and songwriter Gregorio Uribe will be headlining the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble in its 40th annual Winter Carnival concert this Friday. Joined by percussionists Jonathan Gómez from Colombia and Marcelo Woloski from Argentina, Uribe is rejoining the ensemble after performing with them in the 2013 Winter Carnival concert.
Uribe said that he found the experience of working with students pleasant and joyful. Although most of the students in Barbary Coast are not music majors, Uribe said that he found it impressive that they were able to catch onto his style of music so quickly, as if they had been rehearsing with him for longer than a week.
“[Playing with many non-music majors] has a refreshing aspect to it because they seem to be more open and very quick at internalizing my suggestions or my changes, whereas if someone has much more experience in playing music in the real world, they might be very set in their ideas on what work and what doesn’t,” Uribe said.
Uribe describes his music style as Latin jazz with a Colombian rhythm.
“What’s been interesting for me over the years is that depending on what the listener has been listening to in their lives or who they are or what influences that they’ve had, they’ll define my music in a different way,” Uribe said. “So some people will consider it Latin jazz, some people will consider it Colombian traditional music, and some people might even confuse it with salsa, which is similar.”
Uribe said that he thought of his work as different than traditional Latin jazz, as Colombian rhythms were not commonly combined with big band music. However, he said that there was a common compatibility between his music and both traditional American and Latin jazz because the Carribean provided an important cultural and historical connection between all three styles. Elements of big band in New Orleans would be very similar to a porro band in Colombia in its reinterpretation of the Creole and African indigenous musical influences, Uribe said.
His music places special emphasis on improvization, Uribe said.
“In that sense, what I try to do is reassess [Colombian big band music] in a post-60’s way, with current ideas and contemporary thoughts,” Uribe said.
Uribe started working on big band music in the United States, where he attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, he said. At Berklee, he not only learned the big band music style but also rediscovered more traditional Colombian music, he said.
“It’s interesting because my professional career has been in the U.S., so that’s why those two [styles of music] have been parallel, because they’ve been born from this idea of having a foot in both worlds,” Uribe said.
The combination of these two styles has helped define him as a musician in the U.S., Uribe said.
Uribe’s performance with the Barbery Coast will include mostly original music from his debut album, “Cumbia Universal,” that was released last year, as well as a cover of The Beatles’s “Come Together,” Uribe said.
One of the songs, “¿Por Que Se Ira Mi Neño?,” will be performed as an homage to Alan Gottesman ’13, who played tenor saxophone in the ensemble and passed away last November. The performance will be dedicated to him, Barbary Coast director Don Glasgo said.
“Gregorio wrote the song specifically about Colombian tradition on how they react to the death of a child,” Glasgo said.
Uribe said that every song will have space to feature one or two musicians to showcase individual talents. Matt Metzler ’15 Th’16, a trumpet player in the ensemble, said that solos give the musicians a platform to express themselves individually.
“It’s really to convey your own ideas about the music,” Metzler said. “It provides each person individually a way to convey their feelings about the piece and the way they play music in a non-verbal medium.”
Metzler said that he was very excited to have a chance to play with Uribe this year.
“He’s been absolutely wonderful,” Metzler said. “He knows so much about this Colombian music — cumbia, salsa, fandango — and what’s really great is that for him, this music comes from the heart. You can tell that from the way he feels the music, that it all comes from his soul, and he does a great job of helping us to feel the music the right way and get the many different kinds of rhythms.”
Isabel Hurley ’19, lead alto saxophone in this concert, said that it was interesting to see Uribe back on campus and to see him work with students who have played with him before.
“[With Uribe], we work on rhythms that are natural to him and natural to lots of other cultures, but not necessarily natural to us, so the challenge is in making it sound natural and comfortable even when it’s not,” Hurley said.
Hurley said she enjoyed the energy in Uribe’s style of music, because it requires musicians to both stay on top of and push the beat in the music.
Uribe said that through his music, he wants to bring a sense of a carnival celebration to the audience, as winter is the season of celebrations including Carnival de Barranquilla , Colombia’s most important folklore celebration and one of the biggest carnivals in the world.
“What we’re trying to do is bring some warmth to these days of winter and showing an inclusiveness of music, so that even [these musicians] who’ve never heard of Colombian music and have never met me, can make this music sound great, almost as if they’ve been playing it for many months,” Uribe said. “[I want people] going away with happy feet. With a smile and wanting to dance.”
