Arturo Sandoval on falling in love with music and his journey to international fame

Transcript

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William Brangham: Famed musician Arturo Sandoval was among those celebrated at the 47th Kennedy Center Honors earlier this month, which aired last night on CBS.

But as a young boy in Cuba, Sandoval’s rise to the top of the music world was inconceivable. He has now won 10 Grammy Awards and performed the world over.

Geoff Bennett met up with Sandoval at the Pearl Street Warehouse in Washington, D.C., recently to talk about a life filled with music and paying and playing it forward.

It’s part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

Geoff Bennett: Improvisation like this is what sets Arturo Sandoval apart, every note a story unto itself, transforming each of his performances into a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

And whether entertaining audiences huge or small, he says he aims to engage at a very emotional level.

Arturo Sandoval, Musician: I love because I — I feel that I — I say, man, this is so worth it, that whatever I’m saying is penetrating their soul, and they understand, and we communicate.

Geoff Bennett: Born into a poor family in Artemisa, a small village in the province of Havana, Cuba, the 75-year-old learned early what brought him Joy, enrolling in the Cuban National School of Arts and earning a place in the country’s all-star national band.

What was your first introduction to music growing up in Cuba?

Arturo Sandoval: I started banging all over it, and everybody was so mad at me, my family, neighbors, everybody, because I want to play it on top of everything.

But you know what’s funny? Nobody in my family before or after me have been involved with the music in any capacity.

Geoff Bennett: Really? How did music find you then?

Arturo Sandoval: Oh, that’s a good question for God, not for me.

(Laughter)

Arturo Sandoval: The only thing I can assure you, that music saved my butt.

(Laughter)

Geoff Bennett: How? How? How did it save you?

Arturo Sandoval: How? Because I was a hopeless kid. And I didn’t see any light at the end of a tunnel, because I not even could find a tunnel.

And the music came and opened completely a new horizon for me, and I fell in love from the very beginning with music, man.

Geoff Bennett: Is it true that when you were doing your obligatory military service…

Arturo Sandoval: Military service, yes.

Geoff Bennett: … that you were caught listening to jazz music, which was a major offense at the time because the Cuban government called jazz the music of imperialism?

Arturo Sandoval: Yes.

Geoff Bennett: And you were punished for it.

What do you remember about that time?

Arturo Sandoval: I was at — as you say, I was in the obligatory military service for three years and four days. And then, as you say, they used to call it the music of the Yankee imperialists.

Geoff Bennett: You were in jail for three-and-a-half months for listening to jazz music.

Arturo Sandoval: Yes, sir. You know, that was good for me, because that corroborate my desire to leave the island.

Geoff Bennett: A chance meeting with Dizzy Gillespie on tour in Cuba would eventually make that possible.

Arturo Sandoval: They organized a kind of jam session with the visitor and the band I was playing at that time in Cuba. When we stopped playing for them, I said, he was looking at us and laughing and laughing at that.

But the bottom line is, when he came back to New York, he started talking about that band that he heard in Cuba nonstop.

Geoff Bennett: At Gillespie’s recommendation, the then-president of CBS records signed Sandoval to a life-changing record deal.

Arturo Sandoval: He put us on the plane from Havana to La Guardia in New York. We landed there mid-afternoon. They put us on the small bus. They drove us to the sound check.

We don’t even check in the hotel, so the sound check at Carnegie Hall.

Geoff Bennett: The first time you played in the States, you played at Carnegie Hall?

Arturo Sandoval: You hear me wrong, not the first time.

Geoff Bennett: Yes.

Arturo Sandoval: The first day ever.

Geoff Bennett: It was Gillespie who became a friend, as well as mentor, who helped him defect from Cuba, along with his wife and son, while on tour with the United Nations Orchestra in 1977.

What did you learn from him?

Arturo Sandoval: To keep your passion and love for music alive. Doesn’t matter the age. It doesn’t matter the fame or doesn’t matter anything. Keep that passion alive always.

Geoff Bennett: You still practice every day? You’re still pushing boundaries of what you can do?

Arturo Sandoval: It’s two ways to play music. You play what you want or you play what you can. The only thing you have to do is be consistent in your practicing, got a strong discipline and passion.

You need that kind of discipline, especially with the trumpet. The trumpet is merciless. The trumpet don’t give you a break, my friend.

Geoff Bennett: Merciless, yes.

Arturo Sandoval: Sandoval gained more acclaim and larger audiences as he toured worldwide with his own band and with Dizzy Gillespie.

Man: Arturo Sandoval.

Geoff Bennett: He became so popular that he played at the halftime of the 1995 Super Bowl and for the Obamas at the White House in 2012.

The following year, President Obama presented Sandoval a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

When did you know that music would be your life’s work?

Arturo Sandoval: It was a process that took years. And the concert that people used to have a bar mitzvah was terrible, you know?

But my decision was, how can I say, irrevocable, irrevocable?

Geoff Bennett: Irrevocable.

Arturo Sandoval: Eh?

Geoff Bennett: Irrevocable.

Arturo Sandoval: Irrevocable.

(Laughter)

Geoff Bennett: Sandoval is best known for his virtuoso playing of jazz trumpet and fluegelhorn, but also for piano, timbales, vocals and keyboard. I asked him what distinguishes jazz and Latin jazz in particular.

Arturo Sandoval: Jazz is synonymous of freedom. And, for me, I strongly believe that freedom is the most important word in any dictionary, in any language in the world, because no freedom, no life.

And I can talk about it because I know the difference between no freedom and freedom.

Geoff Bennett: You know, you’re a real master of technical expertise and emotional expression. How do you balance both elements?

Arturo Sandoval: I like the second part.

Geoff Bennett: The second one, the emotional expression.

Arturo Sandoval: Yes. Yes.

(Laughter)

Geoff Bennett: OK. Doesn’t one inform the other? And I ask you this because I was listening to “Mambo Caliente” the other day.

Arturo Sandoval: Yes.

Geoff Bennett: And you hit this high C. You hit a C7 in that song. And that, to me, is technical expertise.

Arturo Sandoval: To play low or high is more related to the technique.

But, for example, to really notice a big difference between a musician who can play technically flawless and incredible, and then you have to tell them, please, play for me a simple, slow melody and sing with your instrument like a good singer, because some people play the melody and say…

(Singing).

Arturo Sandoval: It’s different when you play an instrument.

(Singing)

Arturo Sandoval: You know, to sing with an instrument.

Geoff Bennett: What excites you about the future of jazz and the future of Latin music?

Arturo Sandoval: We have to keep our hope alive. Jazz never been the music of the huge mass — massive audience. But the real jazz fans are very special.

We must protect the fans and preserve jazz music. And I still — at 75, I’m still practicing every day, and I love music more every day.