This performance is made possible in part by a generous grant from the Russell Hill Rogers Fund for the Arts.

KLRN is proud to present the KRTU South Texas Jazz Project, featuring Los Prados with the Aaron Prado Sextet and Special guest George Prado.

Recorded live at the Carver Community Cultural Center.

Well, good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back for another installment of a South Texas Jazz project.

We have such a wonderful program lined up for you, a program we're calling Los Prados, a celebration of two generations of jazz royalty right here in San Antonio.

Bassist George Prado and pianist Doctor Aaron Prado.

Got a wonderful set for you.

It is the South Texas Jazz.

Project, so that means their stories.

We're going to do some interviews.

We're going to meet the band.

And most importantly, we're going to experience some incredible live jazz.

Why don't we kick it off with the song, ladies and gentlemen, at this time, let's get Aaron Prado and the band out here to kick off our first song.

Ladies and gentlemen, Aaron Prado and the sextet.

Aaron Prado in this sextet.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Wasn't that nice?

Well, as promised, it is the South Texas Jazz Project.

And that means there's some interviews and an opportunity to meet our special guest tonight, Doctor Aaron Prado.

Aaron, thank you so much for being here tonight.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you to all of our beautiful audience here for coming out, enjoying some music with us.

Thank you to the Carver KLRN and KRTU.

Thank you so.

Much.

Aaron.

Why don't we a little radio talk here?

I want you back, announce what we just heard.

Yeah, sure, sure.

That was a piece called home, which is the opening section of a suite that I wrote a couple of years back called The Hero's Journey.

All about, you know, the journeys we take, whether it be, you know, going to get some chores done for the day or the larger, journeys and challenges we face throughout our lives.

And, and that, you know, we're all heroes in our own daily life.

And I think we should meet the band because we're looking at an all star cast of players.

All star band.

That's right.

Thank you.

And I'd like to introduce from, from my right over here, doctor Nicole Cherry on the violin.

Ladies and gentlemen.

And also on the front line tenor saxophone is Mr. Jason Galbraith.

On the alto saxophone.

Also the soprano saxophone.

Bill King.

And a long time collaborator and, And colleague, Doctor Adrian Ruiz.

Ladies and gentlemen, on the trumpet and flugelhorn.

Yeah.

Going around here to the, to the rhythm section on the drums, Brandon Guerra Ladies and gentlemen.

And in the bass section, we have, Doctor Andrew Bergman.

Now, I should mention, I said the bass section.

That means there's more than one.

And in fact, of course, this evening is all about Los Prado's.

And we'd like to bring out one more member of the Aaron Prado Sextet, plus two.

George Prado, ladies and gentlemen.

George, thank you so much for joining us this evening.

And you know, there's going to be, a lot of thanks going around, George, but I do want to take this opportunity to right now for on behalf of San Antonio in the jazz community, in this moment, to say thank you so much for your commitment to jazz in San Antonio, your mentorship, your guidance and your leadership and the presence.

You are right here in San Antonio.

Thank you, George.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

You're very welcome.

Thank you.

I'm very glad to be here.

George.

You spent little time in the military and then your formative years.

You make your way over to California, study with a couple of greats.

Ralph Benny was a great bass player and Frank Sinatra's bass player for a good long time, you know.

But the story that always stands out to me is, I like, do you want to share?

Tonight is Now.

You spent a little time as a postman and use this opportunity to maybe deliver mail to some of the great jazz greats out there?

Yes.

When I first got to town, I was going to go to school and find my fortune, but I had to get a job.

And so I got a job at the post office.

Wonderful.

It was great.

It was a very important part of my education.

I met a lot of my heroes that were home during the day.

A lot of musicians are home during the day and.

And while you're out there, even checked out, the lighthouse at Hermosa Beach is on.

My way home from this job.

I stop off at the lighthouse every night.

For the.

Last set, and a Rudy would let me, and he would the owner.

And like that, I own stock there.

And then after that time, you make your way back to San Antonio and you start a family.

Welcome, Aaron.

And and but you do two things that are, I think, really important when we think about the history of jazz in San Antonio, you start the Regency Jazz Band.

And I think that deserves a big round of applause.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Yeah.

I found out that the great Clifford Scott was here.

One of my childhood heroes.

What I used to hear in Los Angeles, he had moved back to town, wasn't even playing.

And so I persuaded him to put something together.

And that was that with the band Joe Piscatella.

Well, he came later.

At first we had guitar and and drums and bass and tenor one and then Joe later.

And then the next thing you do and I think this is incredible, you start this annual holiday event that is now a tradition in San Antonio.

The only thing you can get only in San Antonio, 42 years of holiday saxophones and still going good.

Yeah.

Owe it all to the saxophone player.

Yeah, George.

It's incredible.

And again, just want to take this moment to say thank you for that.

On this stage we are honoring you and Aaron Prado.

Thank you very.

Much.

And let's get on with some music because I understand that we got a world debut tonight, don't we?

One of your compositions.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we're going to play one of my tunes.

Yeah.

A little a little ditty.

I wrote.

It's the South Texas Jazz Project, ladies and gentlemen, Los Prado.

So we're going to kick it off with another song, and Aaron will bring us in on this one.

Thank you.

Don't think about it.

That's the name of the tune.

George Prado composition.

There.

That's good.

Okay.

And we'd like to carry on with, something that I wrote called falling.

And on this one, I get the rare opportunity to hear two bass players.

Playing at the same time in a jazz combo, which I think is a lot of fun.

And we'll let them open this one up.

This is.

Falling.

Yeah.

You know another aspect that makes the South Texas Jazz Project so special is the opportunity to speak with composers about the music.

And, in that spirit, I wanted to take them on it and just, Now, you brought all original music tonight, right?

These are all the original music.

That's right.

Yeah.

And, and I wasn't joking when I said I have officially heard my favorite Aaron Prado song.

That was amazing.

What did we just hear?

So that's that's called falling.

Falling.

And, And, yeah, we decided to have the, the two bases there at the beginning to sort of begin the descent, if you will, and, and from there, yeah.

It's just got this, this vibe to it.

I don't remember why I wrote that or what the feeling was, but every time we play it, it's a little different and takes on a different sort of feeling.

And this was a real highlight for me for sure.

Yeah.

And where was this featured?

Was this part of a of a larger body of work?

It's just a tune.

No.

Well actually it did figure fairly prominently in a commission that I wrote for a piece, wrote for solely chamber ensemble.

Solely a chamber ensemble.

Yeah.

Used that theme in the, the, the quartet for the between Time was the name of the piece that I wrote during the pandemic.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, earlier in the set, you were saying you wrote something with the Hero's Journey, and now that's Joseph Campbell, right?

Yes.

Joseph Campbell.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's right.

And, that was sort of my take on, on putting that story into a sonic sort of, form.

Yeah, true.

Tell me about your creative practice.

Well, a lot of it was just comes from sitting and playing something.

But oftentimes when I'm ready to actually create the piece or the arrangement, I'm thinking about who's playing with me.

And so, you know, I think about Adrian playing these notes and, and know what that's going to sound like.

I have him in my ear or I have, you know, my dad's bass in mind, or think about Brandon, or he might sound like on the drums and so forth.

And the some of the arrangements tonight are written especially for, Doctor Nicole Cherry to play the lead.

So, a lot of it has to do with that.

Yeah.

And that's part of the conversation that we have as composers is creating a frame for Improvization, because you're not writing out all the notes.

Yeah.

You're writing out some of the notes and then leaving enough space for the improvisers to fill in the rest.

So you don't want to overdo it, but you have to have enough there.

So there's something to to, to conjure with as, as Richard would say over there.

It's something to, you know, something to conjure the spirits with.

There has to be a frame.

So we create the frame.

When we want to get on with some more music here, because I know you brought some more original compositions, but, you know, for us listening the audience, what maybe should we be listening for?

Oh, it's it's in the ensemble parts.

So the rhythm section is doing, so to support the soloist, each soloist will have their own say and there will be an arc to each solo.

So I think that's the most exciting point where we don't know what's going to happen.

We we didn't know what was going to happen when the two basses started playing together.

That was a real moment of like, you know, epiphany, to hear what they would do.

So it's those kinds of moments that are the the unscripted, times that I find to be the most exciting.

And maybe you do, too.

So that's what I would say to listen for.

And that's jazz, that.

Hey, that's it.

That's the the, the improvization of jazz.

Yeah.

So tonight we've got, you know, we've got something old, we've got something new, something blue.

You know, it's like a wedding, So we've played, we have some new things, but, this one is actually goes back a little bit and it's a, the piece is, dear to my heart.

We've played it in many different situations.

It's called and now and we're going to play it, this is again a new arrangement to feature Doctor Nicole Cherry.

Aaron Prado in the sextet, ladies and gentlemen, on the South Texas Jazz Project.

Thank you.

That was called.

And now this is a piece called Amigos imaginary us or Imaginary Friends.

And, we hope you enjoy, Amigos.

Imaginary Well, Aaron, before we have our closing number, just, a couple more questions, because that's what we do on the South Texas Jazz project.

You have two wonderful albums out.

You have a trio album, and now and then you have this wonderful live album at Jazz Texas with the sextet.

Any future projects?

Well, I have a couple things in mind.

I've got, you know, I can't say too much about it.

Of course, I've got a couple irons in the fire just waiting for some, you know, my patrons to come through.

Sure.

Nice.

You have several commissions that you've been so busy doing.

You even did a partnership with KRTU in the city of San Antonio, the San Antonio Jazz Suite.

San Antonio Jazz Suite back in 2011, and that's when it debuted.

Anybody there for that one?

That was a good one.

You've led international groups with the Sister Cities program.

Sister Cities, International Jazz Ensemble, that musical bridges around the world put together bringing musicians from 17 different countries to San Antonio.

And we all played together in this wonderful opportunity to have, you know, fellowship in music.

And it was really a wonderful show.

You're a professor, you're a dad, you're a bandleader, you're out there.

How do you stay motivated?

What motivates you here?

You know, it's this, it's this, this opportunity to to play together.

Just being in the music is is something really sacred and special.

And then you add an a wonderful audience to it.

And it's just like, this is it.

I could just hang out here all night, you know?

And, it's being in those moments, where, you know, time seems to, you know, talk about Joseph Campbell, where you're in your bliss, you know, it's like the time seems to just melt away, and, we're in something ineffable, you know, the the timelessness of art.

And then we emerge from it.

And as I like to quote Art Blakey, you know, we've we've shaken off the dust of everyday life and we've had this communal experience as a band us, the band with you, the audience, the audience with each other.

And it's something I just think is really magical.

And and that's what I do it for us, these moments.

So thank you for being here everybody.

Well, and we want to take this opportunity right here and now and just say thank you for your commitment to San Antonio.

A gentleman of your caliber could easily go off to another city and be successful.

But you stayed in San Antonio as a mentor, as a teacher, contributing to really are San Antonio Jazz, a shining light.

And for that we say, thank you, Aaron.

Thank you so much for doing that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Ladies and gentlemen, Aaron Prado in the sextet with Jorge Prado going to close it out.

Aaron, why don't you bring us home?

Oh, yeah.

Well, I wrote the tune, but my dad named it.

And this is one of the original sextet tunes.

It goes back with the Aaron Prado Sextet, have been around for about ten years, and this is one of the very first tunes we played, and it's still one of our favorites.

It's called Somebody Swung with the Juice It's been the South Texas Jazz Project.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us.

Thats the Aaron.

Prado Sextet featuring George Prado.

Ladies and gentlemen.

A program recalling Los Prados This performance is made possible, in part, by a generous grant from the Russell Hill Rogers Fund for the Arts.