Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jerry Gonzalez was born in the Bronx, New York City on June 5, 1949. Of Latin heritage, he grew up with jazz and Afro-Cuban music that left a deep impact on his musical appreciation. Listening to his father’s jazz collection he was influenced by Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong along with gleaning inspiration from Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri and Mongo Santamaria.
Studying music in junior high school, Gonzalez took up the trumpet and later the congas, continuing he formal training at New York College of Music and New York University. He began his professional career in 1963 playing with Lewellyn Mathews in New York State World’s Fair. In 1970 playing with Dizzy Gillespie, under whose tutelage he fused African based rhythms onto jazz elements seamlessly without detracting from either.
After playing with Manny Oquendo and Eddie Palmieri, Jerry created the Fort Apache Band with Andy Gonzalez (his brother), Larry Willis and Steve Berrios. A later reconfiguration and naming, Jerry Gonzalez & the Fort Apache Band became much more successful performing at European jazz festivals and subsequent recordings. Three albums later, “Rumba Para Monk” released in 1989, topped a readers’ poll in Down Beat magazine and was named the “Jazz Album Of The Year” in France by the Academie du Jazz. In 1998 they won both the industry and journalist polls in the New York Jazz Awards Latin Jazz category.
Gonzalez has played and/or collaborated with Tito Puente, McCoy Tyner, Jaco Pastorious, Chet Baker, Woody Shaw, Tony Williams, Larry Young, Freddie Hubbard, Chico O’Farill, Papo Vasquez, Ray Barretto, The Beach Boys, Chico Freeman and Paquito D’Rivera among others but his most noteworthy contribution is to Afro-Cuban jazz and a resurgence in Latin jazz in the 80s and 90s. With seventeen albums as a leader under his belt and a host of recording sessions as a sideman, since 2000, trumpeter Jerry Gonzalez has lived and played in and around jazz clubs in Madrid.