Background
Paquito D'Rivera was born in Havana on June 4, 1948, into a musical family. His Father Francisco "Tito" D'Rivera, his first teacher, was well known as a classical musician and conductor as well as a saxophone player.
Paquito D'Rivera was born in Havana on June 4, 1948, into a musical family. His Father Francisco "Tito" D'Rivera, his first teacher, was well known as a classical musician and conductor as well as a saxophone player.
Paquito began his musical studies at five and by the time he was six was considered a child prodigy. By seven he signed with a saxophone manufacturer and became the youngest artist ever to endorse a musical instrument for the company. In 1958 he was performing to rave reviews at the National Theater in Havana. His musical training continued at the Havana Conservatory of Music when he was 12.
His early professional experience included performing with and conducting the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, which he co-founded with Cuban musician Chucho Valdés in 1965. hi the early 1970s, Valdes invited D'Rivera to co-direct the Cuban band Irakere, whose fusion of jazz, rock and Afro-Cuban rhythms made them hugely popular in Cuba. Their 1978 performances in the Newport, New York, and Montreaux jazz festivals put them on the jazz' world map, and the performances were recorded on two double LP sets titled Havana Jam and Havana Jam II, both released in 1979. This historical recording made Irakere the first post-Castro Cuban group to record for an American label and win a Grammy.
By 1980, D'Rivera felt constrained by Cuba's political system. During a 1981 concert tour in Spain he went to the American Embassy and sought political asylum. Among the very first people who helped him re-start his musical career were Dizzy Gillespie and Mario Bauza who opened the doors to jazz in the United States, particularly in New York City jazz clubs.
Among his early U.S. recordings were the very successful Paquito Blowin (1981) and Mariel (1982). By 1984 his work had been featured on public television, the CBS television program Sunday Morning, and Time magazine, as well as being the cover feature story for the trade publication Jazz Times. With Iris group Havana/ New York, he has performed all over the world. In 1988, D'Rivera and Dizzy Gillespie co-founded the United Nations Orchestra, with which he has performed as both conductor and as soloist. That same year, he appeared as soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra and with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra.
Since 1995, D'Rivera has been artistic director of Uruguay's international jazz festival, Festival Internacional de Jazz en el Tambo. In 2000, D'Rivera was commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center and wrote "Pan American Suite" for their As of Now series. In 1999, he played at the White House and at the Kennedy Center as guest artist in the "Americanos Concert." In 2000, D'Rivera published his autobiography Mi vida saxual (My Saxual Life), whose prologue was written by Cuban author Guillermo Cabrera Infante. He is also a talented writer, whose first novel En tus brazos morenos, will be published shortly. His 2000 recordings include Music From Two Worlds and Habanera; Brazilian Dreams was released in 2002.
D'Rivera performs and records as a soloist, but he has three main groups with which he also works: Triangulo, his chamber music ensemble; the Paquito D'Rivera Big Band; and the Paquito D'Rivera Quintet. D'Rivera is artistic director of jazz programming for the New Jersey Chamber Music Society, and he was one of the featured soloists in director Fernando Trueba's 2001 film Calle 54.
(Paquito D'Rivera, GRAMMY award winning Clarinetist and Sa...)