Alfredo Rodriguez & Pedrito Martinez to bring Cuban jazz to The Arygros
By Dana DuGan
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts will present what should be a musical night to remember when it hosts Grammy-nominated Cuban jazz artists Alfredo Rodríguez and Pedrito Martinez for the final night of the Winter Performing Arts Series. The concert will be held at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 10, at the Argyros Performing Arts Center in Ketchum.
Rodriguez is known for his solo jazz piano career, and Martinez has a flourishing percussion career as the leader of the Pedrito Martinez Group. Rodriguez is the son of a famous Cuban professional singer and composer of the same name. Even before he defected to the U.S. in 2009, Rodriguez had caught the attention of Quincy Jones—at the Montreux Jazz Festival, no less.
Ultimately, Jones became his mentor and produced two of Rodriguez’s albums, on which Martinez also played, the newly released “Duologue” and “The Invasion Parade” released in 2014.
“The piano is so general,” Martinez said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t only play the piano as a melodic instrument. For me, it’s a total instrument. I could do whatever I wanted with a piano. I could play drums on the piano. I like music that’s very rhythmic, with a lot of contrapuntal. I’m a person who thinks that life is to be explored. And that is simply what I do with music.”
Though educated in rigorous classical training in Havana, Martinez’s piano playing is jazzed up by his Afro-Cuban roots. He has shared stages with jazz artists such as Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Patti Austin, James Ingram, McCoy Tyner and Esperanza Spalding.
Conversely, Martinez’s individualistic Afro-Cuban musical training came from the streets of the Cayo Hueso neighborhood of Old Havana where he grew up streetwise and musically inclined. Among those with whom he has performed are Eddie Palmieri, Paul Simon, Wynton Marsalis, Paquito D’Rivera and the super-group, Nuevo Jazz Latino.
The musicians began playing occasional live gigs as a duo just two years ago. The style of their collaboration is described as fuse jazz and Afro-Cuban music.
“That’s what he does with the music,” Martinez said of Rodriguez in an interview earlier this year on NPR. People expect something different, but “then he turns his music into something different that blows people’s minds. So, you know, that’s what’s going to happen.”
Kristine Bretall, The Center’s director of Performing Arts, recalled Rodriguez’s effect on the Sun Valley Summer Symphony audience a few years ago.
“Since then, I’ve [also] had the opportunity to see Pedrito Martinez on his own as well as when he’s played with Alfredo, and I feel like we’ve hit the jackpot to be able to get them both out here at the same time,” she said. “When they come together on stage, it’s magic. They play off each other, and it will be wonderful to see their individual and combined artistry in the intimate space of The Argyros.”
For more information and tickets, contact the Sun Valley Center at sunvalleycenter.org or (208) 726-9491.