Member:
Arturo O'Farrill - piano;
Adam O'Farrill - trumpet;
Zak O'Farrill - drums;
Chad Lefkowitz-Brown - saxophone;
Boris Kozlov - bass.
ARTURO O’FARRILL, a pianist, composer and educator, was born in Mexico City and grew up in New York City
Arturo, a five-time Grammy Award winner, received formal music education at the Manhattan School of Music, the Brooklyn Conservatory College, and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. His professional career began with the Carla Bley Big Band from 1979 to 1983. He then developed as a solo artist and performed with such artists as Dizzy Gillespie, Steve Turre, Freddy Cole, The Fort Apache Band, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis and Harry Belafonte.
In 1995, Arturo agreed to manage the orchestra, which retained much of the music of his father, Chico O'Farrill Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra. In December 2010, Arturo toured with the original composition of the Chico O'Farrill Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra in Cuba, returning his father's musicians to his homeland, where they were headlining at the International Havana International Jazz Festival. Currently his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra continues the tradition of performing every Sunday night at the Birdland Club, which has been one of the most popular jazz clubs in the United States for decades. He continues regularly touring Cuba as an unofficial ambassador of culture, working with Cuban musicians and students, bringing local musicians from Cuba to the US and American musicians to Cuba. Currently, Arturo performs around the world as a solo artist with his own orchestra Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, as well as small ensembles.
As an art teacher, Arturo gives master classes, conducts seminars around the world for students and teachers of all levels, including Yale University, Dartmouth College, Wellesley College and University of Caldas, Colombia. He is currently the director of Jazz Studies at CUNY Brooklyn College.
In 2007, Arturo founded the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance (Afro Latin Jazz Alliance) as a non-profit organization for performances, education and preservation of Afro-Latin American music. Find out more about ALJA at: http://www.afrolatinjazz.org
Arturo performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Boston Symphony Hall, Newport Jazz Festival, Joyce Theater (with Ballet Hispanico and Malpaso Dance Company, for which he wrote three ballets ) And in New York's Symphony Space, where he and his orchestra have been performing since 2007. Abroad, he and his orchestra performed at Megaron Concert Hall (Athens, Greece), Kannai Hall (Yokohama, Japan), Taichung Jazz Festival (Taichung, Taiwan). In 2016, he performed, among other things, at the Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London and Teatro Manzoni Milano, as well as in Amsterdam, Paris, Munich, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Melbourne, Manizales (Colombia) and the jazz festivals Spoleto and North Sea Jazz Festival.
Recognized composer, composing serious music, Arturo received orders from Meet the Composer, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Philadelphia Music Project, Symphony Space, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and the famous Apollo Theater Theater). He also composed music for films, including Hollywoodland and Salud. The Alvin Ailey Dance Company is currently on tour with the ballet "Open Door" in the choreography of the excellent Ron Brown on several compositions and records by Arturo. The premiere of his new ballet "Dreaming of Lions" in the choreography of Osnel Delgado for the Malpaso Dance Company took place at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in early February 2017. The well-received and highly rated Arturo suite "Afro-Latin Jazz Suite" from CUBA: The Conversation Continues (Motéma Music) won the Grammy Award for the 2016 Grammy Award in the nomination "Best Instrumental Composition".
Adam O'Farrill (Adam O'Farrill), trumpeter and composer from Brooklyn, New York. He has a rich musical heritage, as his grandfather, Chico O'Farrill, was a legendary Afro-Cuban composer and arranger; His father, Arturo O'Farrill, is a jazz pianist and composer; His mother, Alison Deane, a classical pianist and educator, and his brother, Zack O'Farrill, a drummer and composer.
O'Farrell has worked with artists such as Arturo O'Farrill, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Vijay Iyer, Fred Ho, Gabriel Zucker, JIL, Stephan Crump, Sister Helen, Ambrose Akinmusire, Onyx Collective, Samora Pinderhughes and performed abroad, including the Jazz Festival Newport Jazz Festival, Chicago Symphony Center, Mount Fuji Jazz Festival (Japan), North Sea Jazz Festival (The Netherlands), Luminato Fesival (Toronto) and Teatro Mella (Cuba).
O'Farrill won the third place in 2014 at the Jazz Trumpet Competition of Thelonious Monk Institute, competing with hundreds of applicants and 11 other semifinalists. In 2015, he became more famous, being widely represented on two of the most favorably accepted albums of the year: Rudresh Mahanthappa's Bird Calls and Arturo O'Farrill's Cuba: The Conversation Continued. The first is on many of the best albums of 2015 (NPR, Chicago Tribune, NY Times and others); The latter was nominated for the Grammy Award in 2016 in the nomination "The Best Album of a Great Jazz Ensemble". In 2016, O'Farryll's projects included recording a new album with Stephan Crump, Brothers, with Ellery Eskelin and Tyshawn Sorey performing with Octet Octavet Steve Lehman and collaborating with 35th anniversary YoungArts film project called Transformation.
In the spring of 2016, Adam released his debut album as the band's leader, Stranger Days (Sunnyside Records), with the same quartet. It involves Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, Walter Stinson and Zack O'Farrill, and consists mostly of Adam's compositions. Nate Chinen of the New York Times wrote in his review of the album: "Mr. O 'Farrill creates a brand identity and a deliberate desire to expand and adapt."
O 'Farrill recently received a bachelor's degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied the trumpet with Laurie Frink, Cecil Bridgewater and Thomas Smith and a song with Reiko Fueting.
ZACK O’FARRILL is a young multiracial, multicultural, multi-musical drummer (percussionist) and composer from Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in an atmosphere of jazz, Afro-Latin American and classical music. Zak explored the world of hip-hop, electronic, ethnic music from around the world, classical music of the 20th century, the music of songwriters and many other trends in music. All these influences are reflected in his music, with which he constantly tries to break down the barriers.
Zack took part in such prestigious jazz events in New York as Jazz Gallery, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, Cornelia Street Café and Birdland, and played in clubs and festivals around the world, in Spain, Japan, Switzerland and Cuba. A dedicated teacher, he worked at the Faculty of Samba Meets Jazz, the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance, the Flynn Center Jazz Camp and participated in extracurricular programs in high schools in New York. He continues to compose music with his father Arturo O'Farrill, brother of Adam O'Farrill and other musicians of the East Coast and beyond.
At the age of 27, Chad Lefkowitz-Brown is already a well-known jazz saxophonist and a recording international performer. He is currently a member of the Grammy-Awarded Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, and also appeared on television with international pop icons such as Taylor Swift, Don Henley and Phillip Phillips. Chad has performed throughout the world as a soloist and with a host of respected jazz artists, including Arturo O'Farrill and Clarence Penn.
Originally from Elmira, New York, Chad has established himself as a jazz virtuoso at the age of 11, performing throughout the state of New York under the guidance of the local jazz idol George Reed, who is famous for playing with legends such as Teddy Wilson, Buddy Tate and Marian McPartland.
Chad then continued to receive formal education in the arts at the Brubeck Institute within the prestigious scholarship and grants program created by jazz legend Dave Brubeck. While studying at the institute, he regularly spoke with Brubeck and was a member of the Jazz Quintet of the Brubeck Institute.
Chad received a large number of awards in the course of his academic career, including 15 awards from the DownBeat Student Music Awards in such categories as "Best Jazz Soloist" and "Best Original Song."
After the completion of the Brubeck Institute, Chad performed on all four continents, appearing on such concert venues as Carnegie Hall, Super Bowl and Madison Square Garden. His debut album Imagery Manifesto was named "Debut Album of the Year" by jazz critic and author Doug Ramsey, and on his upcoming album "Onward" jazz legend Randy Brecker plays.
In the autumn of 2017, Chad will join the teaching staff of the San Francisco Conservatory as a guest performer in the framework of their program Roots, Jazz and American Music (Root, Jazz and American Music).
"Kozlov is one of the pillars of modern jazz" Todd Barkan
Two-time Grammy Award winner, performer on acoustic and electric bass guitar, composer and arranger, Boris Kozlov has been performing on the jazz scene of New York and the international jazz scene for the last 20 years. Currently, he acts as bassist, arranger and music director of Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty and The Orchestra, as well as the head of his own projects. He is also the main bass player of such important jazz names and projects as Michael Brecker, John Blake, Ray Barretto's 'New World Spirit', Lew Tabackin, David Kikoski, Alex Sipyagin, Jean-Michel Pilc and many others.
Boris Kozlov was born in Moscow, the USSR, on December 5, 1967. Having the opportunity to study at the music school playing the piano for 7 years, he fell in love with the bass and won the Gnessin Academy Competition and at the age of 15 entered college for the electric bass- Guitars. Being influenced by rock music and classical music, at the age of 17 he became interested in jazz and continued studying acoustic bass with the outstanding bass player Anatoly Sobolev. After graduating from college with an honorary diploma at the age of 19, he served two years in the Soviet Army, where he had to play in a military ensemble on a tuba and other wind instruments, except for the bass.
After serving in the army in 1989, he was recruited to the State Instrumental Ensemble "Melody" and recorded with him and other Soviet jazz performers more than 40 albums. At the same time, he continued his studies at the State Academy of Music. At the first in the USSR competition of soloists of jazz in 1990, he became the owner of the Grand Prix, as well as a special prize for the original composition. After winning the first place in the category "Young Musician" in the jazz magazine of the USSR in 1991, he decided to move to New York.
Self-education continued in a special jazz environment in New York, where he eventually was hired by Hassan Williams and Terry Gibbs / Buddy De Franco, and later worked with the following musicians:
- saxophonists Bobby Watson, Bob Berg, Benny Golson, James Moody, Ronnie Cuber, John Stubblefield, Ravi Coltrane, Seamus Blake, Donny McCaslin;
- trumpeters Dizzy Reese, Phillip Harper, Brian Lynch (Grammy in 2007), Alex Sipyagin, Ray Vega;
- pianists Eddie Palmieri, Walter Bishop Jr., Michel Petrucciani, Arturo O'Farrill, Michel Legrand, Stanley Cowell, Jon Ballantyne, George Colligan, Orrin Evans, Edward Simon, Helen Sung, Joey Calderazzo;
- vibraphonists Joe Locke, Bill Ware;
- guitarists Mark Whitfield, David Gilmore, Adam Rogers, Jack Wilkins, Ximo Tebar;
- the drummers Tommy Campbell, Victor Jones, Marlon Simon, Victor Lewis, Jonathan Blake, Jeff 'Tain' Watts, Ali Jackson, Antonio Sanches;
- vocalists Jay Mc Govern, Urszula Dudziak, Monday Michiru;
- trombonists Conrad Herwig, Robin Eubanks, Andy Hunter;
- trombonist and vocalist Frank Lacy's Experience and funk-jazz band NewHypeJazz.
After repeated performances with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Cobb, Maceo Parker, Jimmy Smith, Henry Butler, Toots Thielemans & Clark Terry and participation in the recording 9 albums nominated for Grammy, album «Simpatico», winning one premium "Grammy", and 160 other albums by publishing some of their scores, Boris continues to serve as managing director for all projects Mingus Dynasty (won him his second Grammy award in 2010), actively toured and recorded with many other groups, as well as working at the international level with its own RUPP «Malfunction Alibi». In addition, he serves as a solo bassist and gives master classes all over the world after the release of his acoustic solo album "Double Standard".
Participation in festivals:2017