Bombajazzeando

The summer begins!

More gigs! Updated schedule!
Saturday May 26, Hawkes & Reed, Greenfield MA 7:30
Tuesday Jul 11 Festival on the Green, Middlebury VT 8:30
Friday July 28 Music on the River, Woodstock VTFriday September 15, Nova Arts, Keene NH
Saturday September 30, Garlic & Arts Festival, Quabbin MA, 3:30
Sunday October 8, Rockland Ballroom, Newmarket NH

The band's spring/summer schedule is shaping up:
• Saturday March 16, Bregamos Community Theater, New Haven CT. A free concert cosponsored by the theater, Movimiento Cultural, and the New Haven Arts Council.
• Saturday May 27, Nova Arts, Keene NH. With the band TapRoots.
• Tuesday July 11, Festival on the Green, Middlebury VT
• Friday July 28, Music on the River, Woodstock NY. Now we'll be able to say we played Woodstock.
Not bad for a new band's first season!

Bombajazzeando is the joint effort of wife-and-husband team Brendalíz Cepeda and Saúl Peñalosa, and composer-percussionist Julian Gerstin. Brendalíz and Saúl are co-directors of the traditional group Bomba de Aquí (Bomba Here), serving the huge Puerto Rican community of western Massachusetts and Connecticut. Julian, an afficionado of numerous Caribbean and African traditions, joined the group as a drummer, and soon began adapting its traditional songs for a jazz setting. He has also composed new pieces based on the many different bomba rhythms. Rounding out Bombajazzeando are Bomba de Aquí’s community of dancers, drummers, and singers The jazz musicians are among New England’s finest creative players.

In their daily life Brendalíz and Saúl teach bomba in school workshops and bring their tradition to weddings, parades, block parties, festivals, markets, and clubs. Julian and several of his jazz cohorts also teach, making Bombajazzeando ideal for residencies and workshops at colleges and high schools.

The drumming is lively and joyous. A dancer faces the drummers, who mirror her movements in sound. The trumpet wails, the piano follows, the bass anchors. Both bomba and jazz are musics of connection. They have similar roots — bomba is Afro-Puerto Rican, jazz is African American. They come together in Bombajazzeando.