It was Sunday November 21st 2004, right after the past presidential election. I felt pretty devastated about the Bush re-election, you know being a musician and all, and my "Euro-snobbiness" was at a peak high wondering how the hell all these Americans chose a moron like that as president. Obama had entered the global awareness just a few weeks before after his phenomenal speech at the DNC, and I remember watching that online and thinking "there is someone that finally makes sense in this mess of a country ".

That Sunday was particularly shitty for me as I was returning from a tour in California, and the rest of the band was flown straight back to NY... except me! I got a mileage ticket with 4 and 1/2 layover at Chicago O'Hare and was plotting a murder to eliminate the bandleader (he's a good guy and we still friends though).

So I get to my gate in Chicago, and I see him sitting there, just calmly reading the New York Times . He certainly projected a calming aura, so I think to myself: "What the hell, I'll say something". The conversation went like something like this:

AC: Hi, are you Barack Obama?

BO: Yes, I am!

AC: Hey just wanted to say that I'm really sorry you guys lost the election… and that I saw your speech at the Democratic Convention and really liked it… it made a lot of sense…

BO: Thanks a lot! We're just going to have to work hard…

AC: Well, I'm from Spain and it's just hard to live in this country sometimes, you know…

BO: Oh, I love Spain, what part of Spain are you from?

AC: Barcelona

BO: I love it there, these good friends of mine live there and we visited a while back, what a great place…

AC: Yeah and everyone has health insurance over there, you know…

BO: Of course,… hey is that a bass bow you're carrying there?

AC: (thinking to myself… "Holy shit how does he know that?") errr… yeah! I'm a bassist how did you know it was a …

BO: So you play jazz?

AC: Yes, I do, I'm coming back to NY from a tour in California…

BO: Cool! So that's why you came to the US for… your music?

AC: Yeah I did my masters and then, you know, I met the right girl, and still here…

BO: Great, best of luck to you, what's your name?

AC: Alexis

BO: Alexis, it's great to meet you.

AC: Likewise, I think you should run for President next time you know?

BO: Well… we're just going to have to work real hard, we're on it!

AC: Thanks! It's been great to meet you too

At that moment we shake hands, and he goes back to reading the times. He is a brand new senator and once we're on the plane I see he's flying coach and sitting in the center seat. My thoughts of a shitty flight are now gone, and when I we land at JFK I call Ave (the right girl who is now my wife) and tell her that Obama is in the same plane. At the arrival gate I cross paths with him once more and he says goodbye. What a great fucking guy he is, I feel lucky and dignified, honored to have met him.

Four years later he is going to be the President of the United States and I've just had two beautiful children. Ave and I had already decided that if McCain wins we're leaving the country. Last night, when seeing the reaction of his victory's across the country I realized that I have never seen anyone inspire people like Obama does, and I feel like the world is going to be OK again and that staying in the US will be great, I might even want to become a citizen now…

It's been way too long since i've posted anything... Life has kind of taken over and kept me so busy. Here's a summary of what happened in the last 6 months... see if I can catch up with my own memory.
School year ended in May and I finished my first year as a teacher at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary music. A great experience where I got to learn so much from a group of wonderful students... I hope they learned a good deal as well. As may ended i jetted to Spain to collaborate with my old friend Joan Sanmarti in his new recording called "1967". The band also included accordion master Victor Prieto and another old friend, David Xirgu. We played a few gigs and recorded a set of beautiful originals that Joan wrote inspired in events that happened in 1967. Can't wait to hear the final result.
After that, my wife Ave and I took our very first real vacation since we've been married (over 6 years!). We drove through the south of Spain and visited Granada, Ronda, Cordoba and Sevilla. What an amazing trip! we had so much food and visited incredible sights, including the Alhambra and Mezquita. After that we visited Madrid for 5 days and ended up in Barcelona with family and friends.
So in Mid June I had the chance to tech a week-long camp lead by guitarist Francisco Pais in Rhode island that was great fun and I had the chance to play and teach with Francisco, Myron Walden, Ferenc Nemeth and Julian Shore. Then visited my wife's family in Oakland, California and flew back on July 4th to drive up to teach another year of the Maine Jazz Camp with John O'Gallagher, Russ Johnson, Alan Ferber, Ben Waltzer, Pete McCann, Jeremy Udden and Owen Howard.
In Mid-July I flew back to Spain for a 2 week tour with my band, the "Puzzles Quartet". We started in Zarautz, near San Sebastian with a week-long workshop and concerts... we had our concert filmed there and will post on youtube briefly! After that we continued on to the East with 2 gigs in the Island of Menorca, Barcelona, Terrassa and Gironella.

While in Spain I got thenews that i was awarded with a Chamber Music America grant to jump-start a big project called "Noneto Ibérico". This project will be premiered in 2009. I'm working in a new long piece of music that will be performed by a group that combines some of he best NYC performers with some of the most outstanding musicians from Spain, check it out:lineup: Perico Sambeat - Saxes, Loren Stillman - Saxes, Avishai Cohen - Trumpet, Alan Ferber - Trombone, Victor Prieto - Accordion, Brad Shepik - Guitar, Marc Miralta - Percussion
and Mark Ferber - Drums More on this later!

So after 3 months of traveling, I made it home where I spent most of August working in our house getting ready for the arrival of our twin sons... Lots of house work that had to be done... Finally I spent september practicing and writing as much as possible and going out A LOT at night to see music. Got to see Lovano-Frisell-Motian at the Vanguard for the first time (It should have been much earlier) and a lot of other great concerts... all leading to the birth of or amazing twin boys Guillem and Biel on October 13th.

Thanks for reading if you made it so far... And catch you later.

Interview
Brooklyn Jazz Underground
By Eric Nemeyer
The Brooklyn Jazz Underground is an association
of independent bandleaders with a shared commitment
to improvised music. Through cooperative effort,
members of the BJU strive to create greater awareness
of their work.
JI: Could you talk about how you met and how the
Brooklyn Jazz Underground grew out of that association?
Alexis Cuadrado: We all knew each other from
networking, playing together, playing in each others'
bands, or having seen each other's bands. We had often
spoken about being frustrated about being bandleaders,
and being alone in the field and trying to get
our projects moved ahead. That was about three years
ago. Alan Ferber and myself sat and made a list of
people who we thought would be interested in forming
the collective. We ended up with ten people and
we formed the initial collective. The idea was to pool
our resources, to get more attention, and to outreach
to the community where we are, and also to start
different creative projects, and to inspire each other
with this project. We started a website. We have done
a couple of festivals. We have a number of podcasts,
interviewing each other, and they are available on
i-Tunes. Eventually, this developed into the formation
of the record label. The collective is looking into
becoming a non-profit organization. So, we have created
two different entities that are totally linked together,
that are legally and physically separate.
JI: Was there a written plan that you put together when
you organized the Brooklyn Jazz Underground?
AC: We had a number of goals. We all wanted to
share our contact information because we are from
different parts of the world. I'm from Spain so I know
a lot of people from Spain and Portugal. Anne Mette
is from Denmark. Jerome Sabbagh is from France.
Sunny Jain is from Southeast Asia, India originally.
We wanted to bring things to the table that would
be beneficial for all of us. We developed a system of
functioning as we went along. We didn't have an established
business plan. We set baby-step goals and
tried to achieve them, and learn how to achieve them
as we were going — kind of improvising.
Anne Mette Iversen: We worked for almost a year
before we launched the Brooklyn Jazz Underground.
Throughout that year we had meetings where we
were trying to figure out how we were going to do
this, what we wanted to achieve. For about a year and
a half we have been looking at how it has worked, and
if it works, and where are we now. We've found that
it does work and that we've gotten a lot of really good
things out of it. Because it has worked so well, we've
decided to expand it by creating this record label.
JI: Are there members of the collective who bring
business experience to the group, or is there a business
consultant with whom you are working, who
provides advice.
AMI: None of us really has business experience.
Alexis and I run the label. It is not a record label in
the traditional sense. It is artist run. It is very independent.
We are not putting money into artists. The
label is really a tool for artists who would like to release
their albums, using this vehicle. The artists receive
all the profits from any sales.
AC: We created a legal platform with the label, so
that we could publish, as a publisher. We also had
quite a bit of help from friends who are lawyers, accountants.
So it has been a long period of research to
figure out what kind of company we wanted to form.
How do we want it to work? We had to create an operating
agreement. What's an operating agreement? We
didn't know anything. We have learned as we've gone
along. The basic philosophy is that we are a non-profit
company, and the organization provides a tool for us.
Perhaps, eventually, it may be for other musicians, although
we are not sure about that. But, basically we
wanted this as a tool to publish our own music.
JI: What are the musical goals that you have in working
together?
AC: We haven't really set a structure like "this is the
way the music has to be." We were looking more for
a group of like-minded people — one that has a very
strong creative personality. We also wanted people
who were trying to put their work out there, and were
working actively on putting out CDs, and setting up
tours; and not someone with a nine to five job, and
writes some music on the side. Everyone is seriously
committed. That is basically the only requirement
that we wanted from the members of the initial collective,
and the record label has the same philosophy.
We all have pretty high standards in how we want the
music to be, so there's a lot of trust between the members.
When we organized these festivals, there were all
these meetings, and we were hanging out, and talking
about tax returns and things like that. Suddenly, you
see people play, and you go "Wow, this band is great."
It has been very reassuring for all of us to know that
everyone is very dedicated to the music.
JI: What kinds of challenges do you experience as
independent artists and how is the collective helping
you overcome those?
AMI: The challenge is that it is extremely difficult
to be a single musician, a bandleader, having to do
all the work. This is including writing the music,
running the band, getting rehearsal times together,
booking the studios when you record, pay for the recordings,
publish it afterwards, book the tours, do all
the logistics. It's like two, three, four full-time jobs
when you're doing that as a single person, a single
bandleader. It is minimizing the workload of the individual
that we are experiencing that the Brooklyn
Jazz Underground does for us, and the record label
does for us. In terms of reaching out to the public and
the audience and the media, that's probably where I
get the biggest benefit from these two organizations.
JI: Could you talk about your musical background?
AC: I think I always had a creative personality. After
a number of chances I ended up liking to play the
bass, and loving to play jazz. When I was nineteen
or twenty I was writing my own music, and having
my own bands. It's kind of just become what I do. I
love playing as a sideman and freelancer. But there is
always the itch of having my own creative project. I
stopped worrying about why I do it. I just try to do it
as best I can and have as much fun as possible.
AMI: I knew I wanted to play music when I was
thirteen or fourteen. But I had to go through a lot
of different ways. I was a classical pianist for awhile.
Eventually, I ended up playing the acoustic bass and
playing jazz. I had no doubts anymore. I knew it was
the right thing. My instincts were guiding me.
JI: Talk about your influences.
AMI: What has driven me more than single musicians
has been when I have heard good music, or
good writing. When I was playing electric bass, I
was into Steve Swallow a lot, both his writing and
his melodic playing was very inspiring. Because I had
this long history of playing classical music, one of my
main driving forces has been classical composition:
Brahms, Beethoven, Dvorak. I also went through
a period where Brazilian music was inspiring me.
When I was younger, I listened to everything. It
wasn't just jazz music.
AC: When I was a teenager I was into the pop music
of the 1980s — luckily the good music. I feel like my
music research moved backward. I started with music
that was current at the time and then worked back
and started discovering music from the 70s and 80s
— like jazz fusion. Then I traced back to Miles Davis'
second quintet, then back to bebop… Now when
I listen to Louis Armstrong I am hearing things I
couldn't hear before. I am gradually getting more interested
in classical music from the last century, and
Baroque music. I go backwards in time as my life goes
forward — kind of a little weird paradox. For me, it's
important that the music hits me at some emotional
level. It doesn't really matter to me if its punk rock,
or Steve Reich, or Charlie Parker. I really don't want
to have my mind boxed in by labels. I really listen to
a lot of varied stuff. Miles Davis' album Decoy, in the
1980s, was a breakthrough for me. I thought, "This is
really cool. I want to do this." Also, Jaco Pastorius.
AMI: I've had two periods in my life - one where I
switched from classical piano to playing bass. That
was definitely because I attended this summer jazz
camp, and met some of the greatest jazz musicians.
I was playing bass for a year, and one of the teachers
said, "Forget about the piano. Play the bass." I went
home and quit the conservatory. When I came to New
York, I met and took lessons with some of the great
jazz musicians. They were very encouraging also.
AC: I was very fortunate to find this great bass
teacher, Francois Rabas, who was very kind to me,
showed me a lot. He is a super virtuoso, contemporary
classical guy. I used to commute to Paris to study
with him. He set me free to do what I wanted to do.
I didn't know whether I wanted to do jazz or study
classical on the bass. He told me to do whatever felt
right and do it the best you can, and it will be cool.
JI: In the past, jazz musicians had the opportunity to
apprentice in different bands that were touring and
playing every night. The economy is different now
and those opportunities don't exist. How has the
absence of these opportunities, and the nature of being
an independent artist, helped or hindered in your
pursuit of your own voice and creative efforts?
AC: It still happens in a different way. I came from
Europe and I'm now playing with a lot of players
whose records I used to buy. Suddenly, I'm playing
with somebody that I really admire. I've learned a lot
by playing with musicians that I know, and from just
being exposed to the New York scene. It is constantly
inspiring for me. I go out to see music and get blown
away a few times a month. Having conversations and
traveling with people…I have aa sense of community.
It is very enriching.
AMI: My move to New York gave me some of that.
I got to play a lot when I first got here. I've been here
nine and a half years. If I had been playing five times
a week, for ten years, my voice on my instrument
would be more developed than it is at the moment.
It's just a slower process if you don't get to play that
much. I feel like my composing skills are developed
much more. I know my own voice in my composition
language. I do also playing-wise. But it may not
come out as clearly on the instrument. I think that
may have to do with the situation you were describing
— by playing every night with the greatest of the
greatest, and learning first hand.
JI: Tell us about your new albums on the Brooklyn
Jazz Underground label
AMI: I have a double CD, with my jazz quartet, and
the jazz quartet with string quartet. It is called Best
of the West + Many Places. The quartet music came
out of our playing together, new writing when
we've been touring. The music with the string
quartet evolved from my classical background. I
wrote to fuse the two genres, but to try to keep the
identity of each genre. I didn't want the strings to
be background for the jazz group. I really wanted
all the musicians that they were playing serious
music, and doing what they do best.
AC: In my case, it's a band that I've been playing with
the last couple of years. I have long relationships with
all the members. It was a very homemade CD, that
culminated with the formation of the record label. I
have a music room here at home, and we rehearse all
the material here. I decided that I was going to record
the CD at home. So I hired an engineer and we recorded
the CD in my living room. So, it's very linked
to the house where I live — my wife and I. We bought
the house and we've been fixing it for the last four
years. While we were working on the house, I was
writing all this music. Both project grew together.
Doing it here at home, it was a lot of fun and very
relaxed. It has a strong identity. It was almost like the
way the Blue Note records used to be made in Rudy
Van Gelder's living room. There were a few panels
between us. We weren't using any headphones. The
musicians sound phenomenal. They understand the
personality of each piece. It's pretty straight-ahead
with influences of things I like, such as pop music,
world music, Spanish music. It definitely has a jazz
essence with a modern kind of take.

Go to page 12 of this PDF file!

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/newyork/aaj_ny_200801.pdf

Interview by Paula Rodrigues of Diário de Notícias da Madeira

Who is Alexis Cuadrado, and how you define yourself?

I am a musician from Barcelona and have lived in NYC for the last 8 years. I like to approach life and music as naturally as possible, and try to enjoy as much as I can my main activities: learning, playing, teaching and writing music and getting by with everyday life.

 Why did you choose Jazz?

 It was a long process. I started playing in rock bands as a teenager until a friend gave me a tape of Miles Davis (the album Decoy to be precise) and another one of Jaco Pastorius. Around that time (mid 80's) I saw a concert with the bassist Carles Benavent (of Paco De Lucia) and then I started going to jazz school and listening to older recordings. I was hooked then, and still am. I think that jazz came to me by chance… but I never neglected all the other music that I love… rock, pop, and later world and classical music. I like it all!

 What's your opinion on the last ten years of Jazz?

 I think the technical and creative level of musicianship is extraordinary nowadays. This combined with very adventurous writing makes contemporary jazz an extremely vibrant type of music. I like to think in the broadest possible spectrum style-wise. In my opinion there have been a lot of boundaries broken in the last decade, and I hope that this is only going to get better.

What does it take to be a good jazz musician?

Unconditional love of music, lots of patience and endless hours of (fun) practicing.

 Is the 'stage' important for the career evolution (on this case New York)?  Do you believe that if you had continued in Spain your success would be similar?

I have mixed feelings about this and it's really hard for me to be objective. I have great respect and admiration for a lot of Spanish musicians, but at the same time I acknowledge that NY has a very special energy for an artist. NY is the jazz Mecca and there you meet incredible musicians from all over the world. You are constantly learning from that experience. That doesn't happen so much in smaller places. I think that everyone changes in NYC and becomes a better musician much faster… Whether that means you're more or less successful is not for me to say. I feel extremely lucky to make a living as a musician, so to me that's my own definition of success… I can't really speak for anyone else.

You normally play with well-known names of Jazz. Would you like to extend the experience to Portuguese musicians? If yes, which ones?

I have actually played with quite a few wonderful Portuguese musicians: I have a nice memory of a concert in Sweden where I met and played with the great Bernardo Sasetti in Perico Sambeat's band in 1998… Then once in NY I started playing with Nuno Ferreira a lot and I ended up being part of his band for a while… we recorded an album called "Long Distance Calls" in 2000 and toured Portugal a few times. That led to meet a bunch of other great guys such as the Moreira brothers, Alfonso Pais, Nelson Cascais, Andre Sousa-Machado, Bruno Pedroso, Andre Fernandes… I like them all.

Last year my band did a residency at the Guimaraes Jazz Festival and I had the opportunity to meet a lot of the younger musicians who are studying at ESMAE. I thought that they were great and we had so much fun sharing a week with them.

 And in an international level, who are your idols, with who would you like to share the stage, or an album?

I feel I'm really lucky to play with the guys in my band: Loren Stillman, Brad Shepik and Mark Ferber. To me they're some of the best musicians anywhere…  I get a lot of inspiration from them. I also like a lot of the guys who I play with Regularly…Alan Ferber, Steve Cardenas, John Ellis or the musicians from the Brooklyn Jazz Underground, a collective that I am part of which includes Shane Endsley, Anne Mette Iversen, Dan Pratt, Sunny Jain…

Having said that I do have some idols that I hope I'll get to play with some day: Joe Lovano, Hank Jones, Paul Motian, Roy Haynes, Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter…Then The Police, McCartney, Radiohead…Also Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Oumou Sangare or Madredeus for that matter…. I could go on for hours.

About records, how do you define 'Puzzles', what are the differences between this last album and the two previous ones?

I feel is my most private record. It tells my personal story of the last 3 years… There are many layers of idea associations on it (hence the name Puzzles).

It was integrally conceived in the place where I moved in 04…My wife and I bought a pretty run down house in Brooklyn and I wrote all the songs as we were fixing the space… it was like both projects were growing together. Then I decided that I actually wanted to record it here at home, and we did it in my living room with all the band playing together with no separation… so that gives it a real jazz feel. The sound we got reminds me a bit of the old Blue Note records… The actual  music has a very "jazz" concept to me… you know there's a blues, a rhythm changes a song in 3 , a ballad, a mid tempo… but all of them are pretty twisted and abstract in a way that you won't really notice that they are basically just jazz songs. Also, the cover art is a photo of a 1970's painting of my father-in-law which has all this little puzzle pieces…It's a crazy piece… especially because he duplicated it, that is he painted this huge canvases twice, and they look exactly the same. He died in 05 as we were in the middle of a construction zone in the house… pretty emotional stuff. My wife and her mom, who's a professional photographer took all the pictures for the record (I'm attaching one)… so it's all about friends, home, family life…

I also think it closes some sort of "trilogy" together with the previous CDs.

BUT you can also just enjoy the music and forget all that!

Do you have new projects in hands right now?

My most immediate project is a business one. I'm starting a record label with a few other partners and we're planning to be on business by March releasing a few albums… so Puzzles will be officially released then.

Then I also have a new project in hands called "Trio Ibérico" in which I'm exploring and learning about Spanish music. This will be my next CD.

And what about the future? What would you like to do?

To be honest I can't think of the "future" much… I just enjoy what I do and time goes by pretty quickly… I guess I'd like to get into film scoring. I did a score for a short last year and it was a lot of fun. I am constantly watching movies and checking out scores… I think if someday I stopped playing that's what I'd like to do.

Thanks very much for you time

You're very welcome

After a busy fall I'm finally off to Barcelona to enjoy a few days of well deserved real vacation and hang with family and friends. So exciting!

We had an amazing tour with the Puzzles Quartet in Portugal and Spain, check out some of the pics I posted!

The new year will start with the second annual BJU festival at Smalls, there will be 3 nights of great music, for more info please check www.brooklynjazz.org.

Then my record PUZZLES will be finally released in late January early february. I am so happy to see it finally come out! It will be published by our new record label Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records... a cooperative initiative started by a few of the BJU members. We're thrilled to have our very own outlet for creative music. I will keep you posted with that.

Happy holidays everyone!

10.12.07

Well... 6 months without writing about any news is not so good... there has been a lot of stuff going on and busy-ness hasn't allowed much peace of mind to write. Here's a quick summary of what happened and what's coming up.

I spent the summer teaching in Maine (where I kayaked for the first time ever), playing a bunch of gigs, working in home improvements, listening to all kinds of concerts and a lot of flamenco records, practicing a lot of piano, eating lots tomatoes from our organic backyard vegetable garden and getting into Yoga. I also saw The Police at Madison Square Garden on August 1st. A lifetime dream come true.

My new album "Puzzles" is finished and ready to go. It will be published early 2008 by a new independent record label venture that I'm involved in and that I can't really reveal yet.

I also just started teaching at The New School For Jazz And Contemporary Music. After a few years away from academia, I'm really happy to be part of this prestigious jazz program. I'm teaching in the Ear Training department as well as bass private lessons.

I just got back from Ibiza, Spain, where I played a great gig with my Spanish buddies and incredible musicians Abe Rabade, Perico Sambeat, Victor De Diego and Marc Miralta. This was a concert put together by INJUVE, the Spanish government youth institute that organizes a circuit of concerts for young Spanish bands every year. This particular band included musicians from different generations that have participated in this circuits, and they were kind enough to invite me and fly me over there for the weekend. The concert was a blast.

The Alexis Cuadrado Puzzles Quartet will be touring Spain and Portugal in November...final dates will be posted very soon.

Also, there will be an AC Puzzles Quartet appearance at the second Brooklyn Jazz Underground festival at Smalls in January 08.

More news to come soon!

Alexis Cuadrado PODCAST
I am featured in the new podcast of the Brooklyn Jazz Underground. I was interviewed in May 2006 by my fellow BJUer and great friend Alan Ferber.
In this interview I speak about my musical upbringing in Barcelona, as well as my experiences moving and living in New York and about the inception of the BJU. Alan and I also speak in depth about my compositions "One Way Ticket", "El Perro" and "Shuffle". Hope you find it interesting, you can download this podcast clicking here ALEXIS BJU PODCAST

I wrote this article about the BJU for the January issue of the Allaboutjazz magazine. Hope you find it interesting

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=24297