Trumpet player Luis Gasca has put together a fantastic night of Latin jazz and music that is making the rounds of central Mexico with one-night-only concerts from March 23 to 26 at the Incrujero Rock House in Queretaro, The Ajijic Spot, Teatro Cervantes in Guanajuato and Coyote Flaco in San Miguel de Allende.
Direct From Cuba combines the Cuban band leader Gabriel Hernandez with his quintet (also featuring trumpet sensation Alejandro Delgado); Bolivian-born saxophone legend Alfred Thompson, giving a tribute to the Buena Vista Social Club; Yaima Gutierrez with her group Primera Clase, which will get you up and dancing with their fervent Latin beat; and Gasca himself, performing a tribute to Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Chuck Mangione.
• Hernandez has shared stages with Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Ray Charles and also participated as a pianist with important artists such as Gene Pearl, Tito Puente, Bob Sheppar, Roy Hargrove, Arturo Sandoval, Paquito D’Rivera, Greg Fishman, among others. He is a member of the famous AfroCuban All Stars and is the main pianist of the band Cubanismo, which has performed concerts in the U.S. and Canada.
• Alejandro Delgado is a young trumpet player from the band Interactivo. He has played with some of Latin music’s great personalities and is considered one of the best and most looked for session musicians in recent years.
• Alfred Thompson, a long-time Cuban and Latin music star, is a composer, record producer, music arranger and musical director, whose band, Alfred Thompson and Caribbean Emsemble, was formed in 2010. He was with the Irakere orchestra in the mid 1990s and founded the group Habana Ensemble in 1997, which was nominated various times at Cubadisco. He was involved with the Buena Vista Social Club and Habana Sax among others.
• Yaima Gutierrez is the musical director for Primera Clase, which plays contemporary Latin music.
• Texas born trumpeter Luis Gasca played with Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana, Van Morrison and Mike Bloomfield, and was considered one of the hottest and most influential trumpet players of the 1970s.
Gasca grew up poor in Houston. His parents made and sold tamales. Earning a living was first for them. Performing music was not part of the picture, but one day Luis saw two men playing trumpets and he felt something. By the time he was 15 he was playing gigs and by 16 getting paid to play. By 18 he had a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music in Boston and traveled on weekends to New York City, where he absorbed the sounds of Tito Puente, Cal Tjader, Miles Davis and John Coltrane.
About his love of the trumpet, he said, “It’s a very demanding instrument ... and I’ll never quit learning it. I got that at an early age: Never let anything slide. I have a hunger and a thirst for music. That love for something, that is the impetus to make you never ever quit, to make you give it your all. That love cannot be taught. One has to love the music and the knowledge. I’m 100 percent joyous playing music with other masters.”
One of his greatest achievements, Gasca said, was being a part of the Count Basie Band.
Gasca also played for Bob Weir on his first solo album, “Ace,” on the cuts “Black-Throated Wind,” “Mexicali Blues” and “One More Saturday Night.”
In 2012 he led an all-star Latin Jazz Big Band, The Mambo Kings, on the second night of a three-day Latin Jazz Festival.
Tickets, 500 pesos, are available at So Chic Boutique, Corona 5A, Ajijic, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Ajijic Spot, located inside the El Jardin Restaurant on the Ajijic Plaza, noon to 5 p.m. and at the door on the night of the show, Friday, March 24. Doors open 6:30 p.m.; concert at 7 p.m. Information: 376-766-4672.