David Sanchez

Award-winning saxophonist, percussionist, composer, and arranger David Sanchez developed a distinctive strident yet rhythmic tone by merging the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of his Puerto Rican upbringing with the jazz he pursued during his early adulthood in New York City, thereby securing recognition as one of the twenty-first century’s most esteemed jazz composers and performers. Years before his 1994 leader debut The Departure, Sanchez served apprenticeships alongside jazz luminaries Paquito d’Rivera, Claudio Roditi, and Eddie Palmieri, the last of whom instructed him in fusing traditional Latin elements with jazz; at twenty-three he became the youngest participant in Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nations Orchestra. Following The Departure, released a year after Gillespie’s passing, Sanchez issued a succession of recordings that earned both critical praise and commercial traction, among them the Grammy-nominated Obsession in 1998 and Melaza in 2000. His 2005 album Coral received the Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. The Afro-Cuban jazz project Ninety Miles, recorded with Stefon Harris and Christian Scott, reached number thirteen on the jazz albums chart and later became a documentary film. While maintaining an active schedule of touring, mentoring, and composing, Sanchez remains a member of the SF Jazz Collective and returned to leader work with the 2019 release Carib on Ropeadope.

Born in Puerto Rico in 1968, Sanchez began playing congas at age eight and pursued formal percussion studies both in school and privately. By twelve he had advanced sufficiently to enter La Escuela Libre de Música, remaining there from seventh grade through his final year of high school. During secondary school he adopted the saxophone, quickly developing a lasting affinity for the instrument while also studying classical repertoire and theory; unable to choose a single horn, he mastered alto and soprano saxophone as well as flute and clarinet before graduating in 1986. He subsequently enrolled at the Universidad de Puerto Rico in Río Piedras to study psychology, yet soon recognized music as his true calling and withdrew after one year. Awarded a scholarship to the music program at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Sanchez benefited from the school’s proximity to New York City and began establishing his professional career there, initially gravitating toward fellow Latino musicians such as Paquito d’Rivera and Claudio Roditi because of his limited English. He also encountered pianist Eddie Palmieri, who methodically demonstrated how to integrate Caribbean and West African folk traditions with jazz, a lesson Sanchez absorbed rapidly. His first major opportunity arrived when he substituted in Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nations Orchestra at twenty-three, becoming its youngest member; Gillespie was sufficiently impressed to retain him until the trumpeter’s death in 1993. After the orchestra disbanded, Sanchez toured with the Philip Morris Superband and contributed as a sideman to recordings by Slide Hampton & the Jazz Masters (a group he co-founded), Charlie Sepulveda, Kenny Drew, Jr., Hilton Ruiz, and additional artists.

Sanchez signed with Columbia and recorded The Departure in 1994, enlisting bassist Andy Gonzalez, Peter Washington, drummer Leon Parker, percussionist Milton Cardona, pianist Danilo Perez, and trumpeter Tom Harrell. Although the album did not chart, reviewers commended its integration of jazz syntax with the musical idioms of Puerto Rico and other Caribbean and Latin American sources. The 1995 follow-up Sketches of Dreams employed a larger ensemble featuring guests trumpeter Roy Hargrove, Jerry Gonzalez, Larry Grenadier, and David Kikoski. Street Scenes, issued in 1996, conveyed Sanchez’s impressions of urban atmospheres in cities such as Paris and New York. Produced by Branford Marsalis, the 1998 album Obsession introduced a new band, reached the jazz album charts, and earned Sanchez his first Grammy nomination.

Melaza, Sanchez’s first release of the new century, was again produced by Marsalis, who also appeared on one track; the album received nominations for both a Grammy and a Latin Grammy after the band had performed extensively for American troops in Bosnia. Sanchez subsequently toured with his quintet augmented by strings and later formed a sextet. In 2001 he issued two contrasting albums, Y Sus Corridos Bravos and Travesía, the latter marking his first self-produced effort. During the same period he appeared as a sideman on Charlie Haden’s Nocturne and Steve Turre’s TNT. Following an extended phase of international touring and a brief hiatus, Sanchez’s band recorded Coral in 2004, releasing it in 2005. The album garnered his fifth Grammy nomination and his first Latin Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album; it featured orchestrations and arrangements by Argentinian composer Carlos Franzetti with the City of Prague Philharmonic and included works by Hector Villa-Lobos, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Alberto Ginastera, Franzetti, and original compositions. Amid a demanding touring schedule, Sanchez also contributed to recordings by Kenny Werner, Ignacio Berroa, Ray Barretto, Andy Narrell, and others.

He joined Concord Picante for the 2008 album Cultural Survival, which earned universal acclaim and a sixth Grammy nomination. That same year he participated in Takana Miyamoto’s and Kirk Whalum’s Promises Made: The Millennium Promise Jazz Project. Two years later Sanchez, Stefon Harris, and Christian Scott collaborated on the Ninety Miles project, whose album and documentary were recorded in Havana with leading Cuban musicians. In 2013 Sanchez joined the SF Jazz Collective, remaining an active participant both live and in the studio, while also accepting teaching positions at the Conservatory of Puerto Rico and the Conservatory of San Francisco. He has conducted master classes at the Peabody Conservatory in Brazil, the Manhattan School of Music, Indiana University’s School of Music, Stanford University, the University of Memphis, and Emory University, and completed a year-long residency at Georgia State University. Sanchez continues to tour worldwide as a bandleader, presenting mainstream jazz enriched by Pan-African influences. In 2019 he released Carib, a project two years in preparation that presented original compositions drawn from Afro-Rican and Haitian traditions; two tracks, “Canto” and “Fernando’s Theme,” appeared on the soundtrack to Robert Mailer Anderson’s film Windows on the World.