While the West Coast has built its own unique history of Latin Jazz over the past several decades, with significant contributions from musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and beyond, there’s one area that the West Coast has missed until recently – the Latin Big Band.  While Latin Jazz really took roots and grew into an essential part of the jazz scene through the work of big bands led by folks like Tito Puente, Machito, Dizzy Gillespie, and more, these groups were established around East Coast aesthetics.  The West Coast certainly has an important history of Latin Jazz, based around artists like Cal Tjader, Poncho Sanchez, John Santos, and more, most of this work is based around smaller groups.  We’ve seen groups fluctuate into larger ensembles, but we haven’t really seen the existence of a working Latin Jazz Big Band that continually inspires audiences and gets them moving on the dance floor. The Pacific Mambo Orchestra has been changing the state of West Coast Latin Jazz history by bringing the Latin Big Band to life in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Led by trumpet player Steffen Kuehn and pianist Christian Tumalan, the group honed their sound and approach through a regular Monday night  gig at San Francisco salsa mainstay Cafe Cocomo.  Working every week with some of the Bay Area’s finest musicians, the PMO developed a hard hitting sound that combined salsa, jazz, and mambo power.  Their rising profile and popularity among the Bay Area scene led to the recording of their self titled debut album, which featured guest appearances from folks like percussionist Karl Perazzo, drummer Tommy Igoe, guitarist Ray Obiedo, and vocalist Kenny Washington.  The recording has exploded in popularity, finding an audience for the PMO around the world.  As the band’s reputation continues to grown, the Pacific Mambo Orchestra has made the existence of West Coast Big Band Latin Jazz a reality and ensured that its a tradition that will me around for a while. This video finds the Pacific Mambo Orchestra performing live, giving us an interesting blend of East Coast heritage with a song made famous by Machito’s orchestra, “Asi No, Papa,” and some West Coast soul.  The clip features the band’s heavy hitting rhythm section, solid horn section, and some great vocals in both Spanish and English from Alexa Weber Morales.  It’s an inspired performance that shows the Latin Big Band tradition alive and well on the West Coast. Check out Pacific Mambo Orchestra’s Website Check out the Pacific Mambo Orchestra’s debut release: Pacific Mambo Orchestra ———- Check Out These Related Posts: Great Latin Jazz Albums From 2012 Bobby Sanabria & The Manhattan SchoolOf Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra On The Second Line Andrea Brachfeld Pays Tribute to Hilton Ruiz: Cha Cha Blue Chucho Valdes & Paquito D’Rivera Performing Claudia ———-

There’s no doubt that the modern jazz world is completely fragmented into any number of different styles and approaches, but an authentic approach in jazz definitely involves a connection to the music’s roots.  Whether an artist decides to integrate rhythms from Cuba or Brazil, add rock aesthetics to the groove, or look at improvisation from a perspective of freedom, they need to tie their work to the lessons of the past.  They’re certainly not required to repeat the music of the past; doing that would mean that they hadn’t really learned their history lessons.  They need to build upon the jazz work that has come before them in order to create something new and exciting that reflects an authentic connection to jazz. The students at the Manhattan School Of Music are definitely some lucky young people, as they’ve got one of the most knowledgeable folks about the past, present, and future of jazz in Bobby Sanabria.  He leads the Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra with smarts and style, makin

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At this point, Latin Jazz has a long and varied history; while we still have a number of important figures that contributed to the creation of the music with us, a larger number of those folks have left us.  Some musicians passed the test of time and stayed with us over the long haul of a lifetime career.  Others fell to some sort of tragedy that took them away from us much too soon.  Regardless of the details behind their passing, we can’t deny the importance of the work that they did while they were with us.  Even though we may not be able to experience their music in a live setting anymore, it’s important that we never forget those folks, continuing to remember how they shaped the music that we know and love. Pianist Hilton Ruiz was an important figure in Latin Jazz throughout the seventies, eighties, and nineties, who unfortunately died much too young.  A child prodigy, Ruiz studied classical piano diligently, and then dived head first into jazz studies with Mary Lou Williams.  He performed wi

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