Over the last 12 years, William Cepeda has broadened the consciousness of Puerto Rican music worldwide with his Afrorican Jazz, an original concept he created in 1993, presenting highly sophisticated jazz arrangements combined with rhythms and musical styles of Puerto Rico.
Sounds Like
Project activities
Puerto Rican Music Roots and Beyond is the vision of musician, composer and arranger, William Cepeda. The centerpiece of the project is four concerts to be held at the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture in the Bronx, with additional presentations in Buffalo and Albany. In each concert, one of Puerto Rico’s traditional music expressions—la música jíbara, la danza, la plena and la bomba - will be presented by master artists from the Island.
William Cepeda and his group, Afro-Rican Jazz, will then perform Cepeda’s new compositions based on and embedded in the tradition, and in which artists from the traditional group will make special appearances. Activities surrounding the concerts include lecture-demonstrations, master classes, workshops, and opportunities for artists from New York and Puerto Rico to interact with one another musically and socially.
William Cepeda’s two-year multi-media project includes a four-concert series, “Puerto Rican Music Roots & Beyond” brings together some of Puerto Rico’s master practitioners of the Island’s traditional music and Cepeda’s Afro Rican Jazz Ensemble.
Over the last 12 years, William Cepeda has broadened the consciousness of Puerto Rican music worldwide with his Afrorican Jazz, an original concept he created in 1993, presenting highly sophisticated jazz arrangements combined with rhythms and musical styles of Puerto Rico.
Since then, William Cepeda's eight-member band explores idioms from all over the world creating a dense mosaic of rhythms, an universal and challenging repertoire.
Cepeda surely gave birth to a new shade of jazz, revealing the multi-cultural richness and creative potential of Puerto Rican traditional music.
"William Cepedas's Afrorican Jazz swings between Africa and America; and the cultural mix resulting seems to come as much from Fela Kuti, as Mario Bauza or the Vienna Art Orchestra."
-Blaise Delay / 24 heures - Montreux Jazz Festival
William Cepeda
Accomplished on the trombone and a noted composer and arranger, William Cepeda comes from a well known family rooted in music. The Familia Cepeda is famous for their performances of folkloric music with African roots, and as keepers of traditional Puerto Rican music for many years.
Despite his family’s intimate association with folkloric music, as a soloist Cepeda went his own way. His interest in jazz and great talent has enabled him to develop a unique jazz style which he calls “Afrorican Jazz”. The music is a fusion of jazz with the musical themes so prevalent in the folk music he grew up with.
Born in Loiza, Puerto Rico, Cepeda was immersed in the rhythms and melodies of the native danza, bomba and plena and even the folk music of the jibaro. With this background and family history, he started playing percussion with friends by age ten. In his teens, Cepeda picked up the trombone and got an early start as a professional musician.
Cepeda’s formal musical training includes BA degrees from Berklee College of Music in Boston and from the Conservatory of Music in Puerto Rico. He also attended the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College in New York, on a full scholarship, where he was awarded a Master’s Degree. Cepeda is currently on the faculty at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, teaches part-time and conducts seminars and workshops.
The training exposed Cepeda to some of the greatest jazz musicians and taught him complexities of jazz improvisation and composition. He studied and played with such notable jazz musicians as Slide Hampton, Donald Byrd, David Murray, and others. He also played and recorded with Latin music artists such as Oscar De Leon, Paquito d’Rivera, Celia Cruz, Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri.
Cepeda also played with and learned much from Dizzy Gillespie, one of the founders of Latin Jazz. The association began in 1989 when Cepeda was hired by Gillespie during a tour by Gillespie’s United Nation Orchestra. Joining the tour with Miriam Makeba, Cepeda participated in the fusion of jazz with South African music.
On his return to Puerto Rico in 1990, after the tour, and inspired by collaboration with Gillespie and Makeba, Cepeda created his Afrorican jazz style. He had made a unique contribution in fusing the distinct musical styles and traditions of Africa and Puerto Rico, in a way that only Rafael Cortijo had done before with the major difference being the addition of jazz.
A chance encounter with Gillespie had opened a great artistic vehicle for Cepeda. It turned into an invitation to tour Europe with Gillespie, a lasting relationship, and unique musical style. It has afforded Cepeda to show his talents as a composer as well as an accomplished trombonist.
In 1997, Cepeda was selected one of the most important and influential Puerto Rican composers. His talent has brought him more than just popular recognition. It has won him many awards as well as grants from such diverse groups as the American Composers Orchestra, Meet The Composer, the American Composers Forum, the Association of Hispanic Arts and the Latino Arts Advancement Program.
But Cepeda has also been successful as a record producer. He produced “Bombazo” for Grupo Afro Boricua, as well as his own CD’s on the Blue Jackel label. One of these was "My Roots and Beyond" a wonderful example of his Afro-Rican music style with songs such as Ponte P’al Monte.
. The sound of the drum could be a call to war, the same way if could be a call for celebration. Let's use and understand the drum in all its functions and let us get used to it's differing sound, and let's accept it. It is part of our world, it has always been, and always will be, now and forever, till the end!
Tato Torres & YERBABUENA in Puerto Rico: November 8 & 9
Thursday, 11/08/2007 11:00 AM - Medio Día Puerto Rico, Televicentro de PR Canal 4, Puerto Rico TV
Tato Torres & the Urban Jíbaros of YERBABUEN bring the best Boricua Roots Music from New York to the Homeland. Appearing on Medio Día Puerto Rico on WAPA-TV (Televicentro). WAPA-TV is a full-power, independent television station located in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico transmitting over analog channel 4, digital channel 27.
Tato Torres & the Urban Jíbaros of YERBABUENA bring the best Boricua Roots Music to the Bienvenida (’Reception’) for the 2007 Annual Conference of the New York State Assembly Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Thursday, 11/08/2007 11:00 PM - Nuyorican Cafe Calle San Francisco Number 312, Viejo San Juan, PR, Cost: $7
New York City’s Hottest Boricua Roots Music Crew; Tato Torres & YERBABUENA return with the their Boricua Roots Music to the Nuyorican Cafe in the heart of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico with special guests PLENA LIBRE. Come enjoy the sounds of YERBABUENA’s Bomba, Pl
BIENVENIDO! BIENVENIDO! BIENVENIDO! Desde la Calle Loiza hasta NYC, llegaron los aplausos para felicitatre por tu mision y lo grande de tu musica,mucho exito y pa'lante que el cielo es el limite, con los tambores de frente!
Great show at Hostos College!!!!!! also enjoyed very much your workshop on the DECIMA, wow that was very interested, thank u very much. Hope to c u again at your next concert ASHEo
Online Now!
