Tickets are still available for the concert tonight!
The Capitol Theatre box office will open at 6:30 pm, Saturday, March 3.
Please come to the theater at that time for best seating options!
Made possible with generous support from
McDONALD'S OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
PONCHO SANCHEZ LATIN JAZZ BAND
Saturday, March 3, 8:00 PM
Reserved tickets are available from the box office, and will also be sold at the door
Capitol Theatre, 159 S. Main St., Chambersburg, PA
717-263-0202
Tickets are still available for the PONCHO SANCHEZ concert tonight!
The Capitol Theatre box office will open at 6:30 pm, Saturday, March 3.
Please come to the theater at that time for best seating options!
"As Elvis is to rock and James Brown is to soul, Poncho Sanchez is to salsa ...”
- Los Angeles Times
The GRAMMY Award winner (in the Latin Jazz category) and 2006 Percussionist of the Year (Downbeat readers' poll) will be appearing with his internationally renowned 8-piece Latin jazz band. Based in California, the group will be coming during an East Coast tour, direct from an appearance at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. This concert is made possible with generous support from McDonalds of Franklin County. Reserved tickets are from the Capitol Theatre box office by calling 717-263-0202. Tickets are only $20, with a special $10 discount price for students K-12. Tickets will also be available at the door on the day of the event.
Poncho Sanchez Biography
For almost two decades as leader of one of the world's most celebrated Latin jazz bands Poncho Sanchez has been an unswervingly-passionate exponent of the bedrock style of Afro-Cuban Latin jazz pioneered half a century ago by such legendary musicians as Machito, Tito Puente and Dizzy Gillespie. The bearded, jovial conguero and the members of his octet are today virtual living symbols of the best of the modern jazz and tropical Latin traditions. Poncho and his men are undisputed kings of a vibrant hybrid that has become one of the most dynamic and enduringly popular styles of the century.
Born in Laredo, Texas as the youngest of 11 children, he grew up in Norwalk, California (where he still lives) and remembers hearing Afro-Cuban music while growing up. “As a kid in third or fourth grade, I would hear my sisters dancing while listening to Machito, Tito Puente, Cal Tjader and various bands from Cuba while my brothers listened to doo-wop music and early rhythm and blues.” While in sixth grade, Sanchez bought a fifty- cent guitar in hopes of joining an R&B band that rehearsed across the street from his home. Although he practiced quite a bit, when he showed up for an audition, he knew immediately that he did not stand a chance. “But it turned out that they needed a singer and, although I had never sung, I gave it a try and became the lead vocalist in that band for five years. Then when I was in high school, the first chance I had to get behind a set of conga drums, I hit them and it felt quite natural.” Soon Sanchez had saved up money from his singing jobs and was practicing congas as much as possible in his garage, playing to Machito, Tito Puente and Cal Tjader records.
Sanchez’s big break occurred in 1975 when, after a period of struggle, he had an opportunity to play with his idol, vibraphonist Cal Tjader. “I found out later that Cal’s conga player was planning on leaving soon and he was letting a lot of people sit in with him. I played one number with Cal, he asked if I could play the rest of the set with him and a week later he asked if I could join him for a week, starting New Year’s Eve at the Coconut Grove opposite Carmen McRae!” Sanchez would be a major part of Tjader’s band for the next seven years, an association that lasted until the vibraphonist’s death.
Poncho Sanchez first formed his own group in 1980, leading his ensemble during Tjader’s vacation periods and recording two albums for Discovery. Shortly before his death, Tjader recommended to Concord founder Carl Jefferson that he sign Sanchez to his Concord Picante label (a subsidiary originally started to document Tjader’s music). 18 recordings, a Grammy Award (for 1999’s Latin Soul) and a countless number of performances around the world (at venues ranging from concert halls and nightclubs to free festivals) have resulted in the years since. “My band and I really do love Latin jazz. We played this music before it was popular and I think we’ve played a part in helping it to become popular again. Our main goal is always to keep Latin jazz alive, growing and moving, while being authentic to the music that we love. I’m proud to say that we have stuck to the basic fundamentals and the roots, which are very important to us. And, as I always say in clinics, this music is not just for Latino people. It was born in the United States and it is American music. It is for everybody!”
"DO IT!" - Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band's new CD
More than anything else, Poncho Sanchez is a storyteller. And, as leader of the most popular Latin jazz group in the world today, it’s his congas and seasoned ensemble that do the talking. Live in concert or on recordings, they spin vivacious tales that pay homage to the glories of a half-century tradition that was born when Afro-Cuban rhythms merged with bebop. One-on-one, the Chicano conguero is equally expressive, recounting in vivid detail the encounters, friendships, and passions that have contributed to his remarkable career as a bandleader and recording artist. Behind the choice of every song, album title and guest artist, there’s a story Poncho Sanchez delights in telling.
Do It!, the latest in a long series of releases that began in 1982 for Concord Picante, is no exception. “Its name is taken from the tune by our trombone player Francisco Torres that was originally called ‘Duet,’” Sanchez explains. “It features a duet between the trombone and tenor sax. For a while, we even called it ‘Brothers Duet,’ and then Francisco suggested we just call it ‘Do It.’ When we announce it at gigs, the audience starts yelling, ‘Do it, do it!’ So, I said, ‘Well, there it is. That has to be the title for the new CD!’”
Do It! is distinct, even by Sanchez’s high standards. The album features on two tracks the entire nine member Tower of Power, an iconic group that has become a high-octane symbol of the funk era of the 1970s. Another two tracks boast the presence of an equally legendary musician, South African Hugh Masekela. Over the years, Sanchez has hand-picked guest artists who have had a special role in shaping his growth as a musician, from trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and saxophonist Eddie Harris, to Latin jazz patriarch Tito Puente, conga titan Mongo Santamaria and the late Ray Charles. The guests invited to participate on Do It! have been among Sanchez’s favorites for decades. “I’m just doing the things I grew up with and that I respect and really love,” he adds. “It’s part of my life.”
He was in high school, Sanchez recalls, when Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing in the Grass” became a hit. “But I was hip to him before that, through his album The Emancipation of Hugh Masekela. On ‘Grazing,’ there was a sound that my friends liked. They hadn’t really understood why I digged him so much until then, but when they heard this recording, they said, ‘Wow, he is pretty cool.’ It was a way for me to get my friends to listen to his Emancipation album, which was a little deeper.” Sanchez first encountered Masekela at a festival on the East Coast half a dozen years ago. Four years later the trumpeter was featured as a guest with Sanchez’s group at the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival in Washington, D.C. That laid the groundwork for his participation on Do It!
A fan of Tower of Power since day one, Sanchez first met members of the group when they shared the stage as part of an all-star band assembled for the eighth anniversary of “The David Letterman Show.” “That’s when I actually got to meet those guys, and I told Emilio Castillo, the tenor sax player and leader, that we should do something together. About six years ago, they invited me to play on one of their albums,” he details, launching into another story. “Then one day recently I got a call from Hal Gaba, the owner of Concord Records, who said, ‘Hey Poncho, you have to hear this track I’m listening to on satellite radio.’ He said he thought we should record it. So, he sent me a recording of the song by a Japanese big band playing ‘Squib Cakes.’ I called him and said, ‘Yeah, that’s good, but you know, that’s a Tower of Power song, so why don’t we get their horn section to do it with us?’” When he told Castillo that just the group’s highly touted horn section would be needed, the sax man responded, ‘Hey man, what are the other members of the band going to say when they find out the horns get to record with Poncho Sanchez and we don‘t?”
The story had a happy ending when the whole band was booked, making it the largest assemblage of guest artists ever to participate on a Sanchez recording date. Hanging out with Castillo also led to another bonus for the album. “Emilio is hip to all of the old funk stuff,” Sanchez states, “and he started talking about Dyke and the Blazers, a funk band. Dyke was killed really young. It was Emilio’s idea to do one of those old tunes, so I had Francisco Torres arrange ‘Shotgun Slim’ for the session.”
The album includes a variety of styles that illustrate the leader’s fondness for traditional tropical Latin fare, jazz standards, R&B, and funk. On “Yo Quisiera,” co-composed by Sanchez and trombonist Torres, Poncho croons in the best tradition of Tito Rodriguez and other storied vocalists. On Chano Pozo’s “Tin Tin Deo,” a standard made famous by the late Dizzy Gillespie, Sanchez revisits through a new arrangement a classic sound that had once been prominent in the band’s performances but had not been used in years. “We always like to do a 6/8 tune,” he explains, “so Duke Ellington’s ‘African Flower’ was a nice fit for this album. ‘Together,’ written by flautist Hubert Laws, was introduced on an old Mongo Santamaria album from the 1960s, El Pussy Cat.”
Today, Sanchez’s life’s story has become a well-known part of Latin jazz lore. He was born in Texas on October 30, 1951 into a large Mexican-American family (rumor has it that his 13-year old mother fled to the U.S. after hiding under the bed as revolutionary Pancho Villa stormed her village), but grew up in the Los Angeles area, where he was weaned on a broad range of Latin and non-Latin popular music. Inspired by the conga playing of Cuban great Mongo Santamaria, he honed his skills as a percussionist and broke into the limelight at the age of 23 when he joined vibraphonist Cal Tjader’s famed Latin jazz ensemble in 1975. Poncho performed with him until Tjader’s untimely death in 1982. A year later, he began his unprecedented 23-year relationship with Concord Records, which has produced two dozen recordings, a GRAMMY® Award and several GRAMMY nominations.
“It’s always worked for me and Concord,” Sanchez says, describing his unique, long-lasting relationship with the label that stands in contrast to the experience of virtually all of his peers. Picante, in fact, celebrated its 25-year anniversary in 2005, and the conguero has been part of the family for much of that time. “In the beginning, owner Carl Jefferson would keep an eye on us in the studio like a hawk, because he didn’t want us wasting any time and money,” he laughs. Jeff, as the Concord founder was known, actually introduced Poncho to Jim Cassell at the Berkeley Agency, who would become his long-time manager, as well as John Burk. “I hung out with John, and he was a nice guy,” Sanchez recounts. “He played guitar and knew a lot about music. Today, he’s vice president of Concord Records, and I consider him one of my best friends. The label never pushes me¯never tells me, ‘Hey Poncho, you need to do this or do that.’ That’s way I can just keep doing the stuff I grew up listening to, like we’ve done on Do It! As far as I’m concerned, it’s still the best stuff there is!” Fans of Latin jazz and Poncho Sanchez are likely to agree.
Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band
Poncho Sanchez Congas
George Ortiz Timbales
Tony Banda Bass
Ron Blake Trumpet
Javier Vergara Sax, Alto and Tenor
Francisco Torres Trombone
Alfredo Ortiz Bongo, Tres
David Torres Piano
Critics Quotes
Can there be any doubt that Poncho Sanchez leads one of the most accomplished and versatile Latin jazz bands in the United States? Perhaps that’s why portions of the audience at the House of Blues danced freely during several numbers, yet listened almost as intently as if this were Orchestra Hall during others.
Howard Reich. Chicago Tribune
Sanchez’s band is one of the finest of the ensembles that continue to pay allegiance to the almost symbiotic connection between jazz and Latin rhythms.
Don Heckman - LA Times
...with that bubbling formula, the Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band has forged one Grammy, three Grammy nominations, and a globe full of fans for their live appearances. You don’t have to be Latino to like them... Anybody that has a soul would love this music.
Jeff Kalis - Jazztimes
The music is lean and supple. It bristles with percussive élan, ensemble precision and inspired soloing.
Chuck Berg - Jazz Times
Now’s the time to give Poncho Sanchez some richly deserved recognition as a ‘great conguero’ and leader of the best small traditional Latin-jazz band working today... It doesn’t get any better than this.
Carlos Lando - KUVO Radio
Poncho Sanchez has become on of the most dynamically dependable symbols of Latin Jazz
Leonard Feather - LA Times
The bottom line on Poncho’s music has always been a deep respect for tradition, with fabulous percussive drives, colorful and vibrant brass textures, and razor -sharp ensemble tightness. The guys play as one, and that makes all the difference.
The Jazz Review
As Elvis is to rock and James Brown is to soul, Poncho Sanchez is to salsa .. particularly the congas...”
Scott Lenz - .LA Times
“Whether he’s flaming the fires on irresistible grooves...or pounding out hard-hitting housequaking solos, (Sanchez’s) playing is always lighting in a bottle.”
Jazz Times
Call it Latin Jazz, Cubob, buga-loo, jazz-funk or whatever but master conguero Poncho Sanchez has perfected the unions of Afro-Cuban polyrhythms and jazz melodies. It’s an infectious amalgam that has sustained the 51 year old percussionist for more than three decades while earning him a respected spot in both Latin and mainstream jazz worlds, erasing any cultural differences that plague larger society. It’s also the type of music that makes you wild with dance fever.
Michael J. Renner - Jazz Series Review