Sonido Solar honors Eddie Palmieri ft. Donald Harrison, Pedrito Martinez & Little Johnny Rivero

***Due to health concerns, Eddie Palmieri has canceled his engagement at Blue Note. He has selected Sonido Solar, a group consisting of his band members and protégés, to perform in his place.***

For six consecutive nights, Sonido Solar honors 10-time Grammy winner Eddie Palmieri and celebrates the international release of their debut album “Eddie Palmieri Presents Sonido Solar.”

Led by Louis Fouché, Jonathan Powell, Zaccai Curtis, and Luques Curtis, Sonido Solar’s debut album is a thrilling passage across the Afro-Cuban jazz songbook, bringing together decades of musical collaboration under the guidance of Eddie Palmieri. The band name “Sonido Solar” translates to “Solar Sound” and is a tribute to Palmieri, who is known as “The Sun of Latin Music.” Palmieri is featured on the debut album as a special guest on two tracks.

Throughout his illustrious 70+ year career, Palmieri has cultivated younger generations of musicians with a famously keen eye for talent. During their Blue Note residency, Sonido Solar will feature members of Palmieri’s ensembles, both past and present, and special guests as they honor the legendary Eddie Palmieri and celebrate the release of their debut album!

Line up:

Louis Fouché - saxophone, bandleader

Jonathan Powell - trumpet, bandleader

Luques Curtis - bass, bandleader

Zaccai Curtis - piano, bandleader

Jimmy Bosch - trombone

Ivan Renta - tenor saxophone (Nov 22-23)

Jeremy Powell - tenor saxophone (Nov 24-27)

Camilo Molina - drums

Marcos Torres - percussion

Special Guests:

Donald Harrison - alto saxophone (Nov 22-24)

Pedrito Martinez - percussion, vocals (Nov 24-27)

Nelson Gonzalez - tres cubano (Nov 25-26)

Little Johnny Rivero - percussion (Nov 22-27)

New Orleans born saxophonist Donald Harrison is a musician/composer who master musicians consider a master of every era of jazz, soul, funk, and a composer of orchestral classical music. He is also a genius, according to geniuses like Eddie Palmieri and Mike Clark. In the HBO drama Treme, Emmy winning director David Simon created two characters to portray how Harrison innovated new styles of music. Harrison has appeared as an actor/musician in 9 episodes of Treme, Oscar-winning director Johnathon Demme’s film Rachel Getting Married, Spike Lee’s When The Levee’s Broke documentary, and Marvel’s Luke Cage. This talented artist is the recognized Big Chief of Congo Square in Afro-New Orleans culture and was made a Chief in 2019 by Queen Diambi Kabatusuila in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa.

Harrison honed his experience playing with Roy Haynes, Art Blakey, Eddie Palmieri, Dr. John, Lena Horne, McCoy Tyner, Dr. Eddie Henderson, Miles Davis, Ron Carter, Billy Cobham, Chuck Loeb, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Digable Planets, Guru’s Jazzmatazz, The Headhunters, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and The Notorious BIG. He has performed with over 200 jazz masters and created three influential styles of jazz. At the age of nineteen, Harrison created a modern jazz take on the New Orleans second-line tradition and introduced his composition New York Second-Line to the jazz world in 1979. By the mid-’80s, he created Nouveau Swing, a distinctive sound that blended the swing beat of modern jazz with hip-hop, funk, and soul music. In the ’90s, Harrison recorded hits in the smooth jazz genre. He began exploring music through the lens of quantum physics in 2000. With quantum jazz, Harrison heard how to move music from a two-dimensional state into a four-dimensional state. Harrison has been a mentor to artist as diverse as The Notorious Big, Jonathon Batiste, Christian Scott, Trombone Shorty, and Esperanza Spaulding.