| ARTURO IN TENERIFE
On tuesday I saw Arturo with his septet. First off, he was a lot thinner than I remember! He played less trumpet than usual, but when he did play........gentleman (the Arturo bashers) I don't know what kind of Arturo shows you have all been watching recently, but Arturo blew his balls off!! He and Ed Calle on tenor, played very well. The exposition of the themes alone on some of the numbers was brilliant. He didnī't resort to his usual bag of tricks, he played some very nice lines (yes, the fast ones too) and his high notes were there nice and clean too.
His flugel sounded great and his piano playing was excellent. Because he was playing in front of a Spanish speaking crowd on the island where his grandfather came from, he was very relaxed and they played a lot more latin/timba type tunes than they might have played elsewhere. Ed Calle was tremendous. The rest of the band where very good also. He also did a scat number, which I'm sure you've heard before, where he recreates a double bass solo. I don't know how he carries it off in English, but in Spanish it was hilarious! On the last number he finished off playing an arpeggio from pedal c to triple c and the sound was huge:eek. If he had to make an adjustment to his embouchure, so what? On this night at least he displayed control over all the aspects of trumpet playing, double and triple tonguing, great flexibility range and a good sound. He was playing a silver trumpet which I had not seen him playing before. Anyone know what make it is? By the way, just in case anyone thinks I adore all that Arturo has done, I too thought that his version of "Maynard Ferguson" was crappy:rollin |