• Submitted by: manso
• Arts and Culture
• 10 / 24 / 2010

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By: Stephanie Simon. Latin Jazz musician and bandleader Arturo O'Farrill has performed all over the world, but no trip can rival the one he has planned for December. O’Farrill has be given permission to fly to Cuba for a historic concert that fulfills a lifelong dream. NY1's Stephanie Simon filed the following exclusive report on O'Farrill's plans to perform his father's music in Cuba for the first time.

Arturo O'Farrill is always at home at the piano playing. But it's father's homeland and music that continue to beckon him. Legendary composer and bandleader Chico O'Farrill died in 2001 without realizing his dream to return Cuba. He hadn't been there since 1960.

“I think that more than anything else, he just wanted to connect with the earth. He wanted to feel that land under his feet again,” said the younger O’Farrill. “He was too weak and unable to travel and really within two or three years of him making that statement, I think he passed on.”

Now with an invitation from the Cuban government, O’Farrill hopes to travel to Cuba with the orchestra his father founded and perform concerts there as part of the Havana Jazz Festival in mid-December. His earlier trips to lay the groundwork and the upcoming performances will also the subject of a new documentary “Oye Cuba!”

“We went out into the streets and spoke to people in Cuba about who Chico O'Farrill was and found, much to my amazement, that many people thought of him as a national hero and remembered who he was and actually knew about my career, which astonished me even further,” said O’Farrill.

The younger O’Farrill is certainly a superstar in his own right. He's a Grammy Award winner, and leads two acclaimed big bands: his own Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra and his father's band, the Chico O'Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra.

“My father was really the visionary who understood Big Band arranging, harmonic sophistication, and Cuban rhythms and Cuban folkloric musical practices,” said O’Farrill. “And he's the guy that really kind of integrated them.”

In addition to the Chico O'Farrill Orchestra members, Arturo's musician sons Zach and Adam will also travel to Cuba and perform. Arturo is in the midst of composing a new piece for the event. It's called called, "Fathers and Sons: From Havana to New York and Back."

Meanwhile, O'Farrill's non-profit music and education organization, The Afro Latin Jazz Alliance is in the midst of raising about $100,000 for the cost of the trip. Who says you can't go home.

For more information on O’Farrill and his trip, go to afrolatinjazz.org.

Source: www.ny1.com/content/ny1_living/arts/127659/ny1-exclusive--art