Pop Talk by George Varga

Anyone who thinks Cuban-born trumpet great Arturo Sandoval's dramatic life story is worthy of being made into a movie is absolutely correct — and a decade too late.

"There is a movie about me that HBO made in 2000. Andy Garcia played me, and Charles Dutton played Dizzy," said Sandoval, who rose to international fame in the 1990s as a protege of his hero, jazz trumpet icon Dizzy Gillespie.

"Andy really paid attention and observed the way I talk and move. During the shooting for the film, I was there all the time, and we spent a good amount of time together."

Sandoval, who recently moved from Florida to Los Angeles with his wife, is perhaps the only living Cuban-American jazz artist who has been the subject of a feature film.

That movie, "For Love of Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story," co-starred David Paymer, Gloria Estefan and Mia Maestro. It did a reasonably sound job of chronicling his transformation from one of Cuba's top classical music trumpeters to an artistically frustrated standout in the small island nation's then largely covert jazz scene.

His unwavering love for his wife of 36 years, Marianela — who used to work loyally for the Castro regime that Sandoval despises to this day — was so great that he passed up his first opportunity to defect. He remained in Cuba for another decade, even though it meant keeping his greatest musical passion largely under wraps. His personal sacrifice lends the film a greater sense of gravitas.

"Unfortunately, I wasn't free to play jazz as much as I wanted because the government called jazz 'the music of the imperialists,'_" Sandoval, a native of Artemis, Cuba, said bitterly.

"When you improvise in jazz, you're speaking out of your heart and on the spot. It's not something you premeditate. You're really speaking freely, and that's the most beautiful thing — that you can say what you feel without thinking about what somebody else thinks or what kind of implications there may be. Unfortunately, in Cuba there's a totalitarian regime, and you have to be very careful what you say."

A graduate of the Cuban National School of the Arts in Havana, Sandoval was already among his country's leading young orchestral musicians when he was introduced to jazz by a trumpet-playing journalist friend.

"One day he asked me: 'Have you ever heard any jazz music?' I said, 'No, what is that?' He said, 'Come with me,' and he played me a record by Charlie Parker and Dizzy. That was it, that was my initiation," Sandoval said.

"I thought, 'Wow, that's the music. I want to learn to play like that.' I've been trying to learn ever since. And I never missed Willis Conover's show on Voice of America, which I heard on shortwave radio in Cuba. I listened to that program, 'Music USA,' every single day. That was my only way to become aware of what was going on in jazz and to learn and listen to different bands."

Sandoval and Gillespie first met in Havana in 1977, when the bebop trumpet king visited Cuba during a jazz cruise he was headlining. Sandoval spent the better part of a day driving Gillespie around the Cuban capital, but never mentioned that he, too, played trumpet. Gillespie understandably did a double take that night when he spotted Sandoval blowing up a storm at a Havana jam session.

Thus began a close friendship that would irrevocably change the Cuban trumpeter's life.

"We connected so well, and I was very fortunate to have a wonderful friendship with Dizzy," he said.

"I played with him for many years and learned so many things from him. He was such a big inspiration. He was unbelievable."

It was with Gillespie's help that, in 1990, Sandoval finally was able to defect with his wife and the younger of his two sons. They did so after seeking asylum at the United States embassy in Rome during a European tour with Gillespie's United Nations Orchestra.

That all-star ensemble included jazz sax legend James Moody and Paquito D'Rivera, the galvanizing Cuban alto saxophonist who had played with Sandoval in the Havana-based band Irakere and defected nearly 10 years before the powerhouse trumpeter. Their tour with Gillespie was documented on the Grammy Award-winning 1989 album "Live at the Royal Festival Hall, London."

"Arturo is a hell of a player," Moody said. "In Cuba, whatever you're going to do, you study it all day, every day. He knows his instrument, boy. And he plays piano, too, and he sings, because he likes Nat 'King' Cole."

Moody gleefully recounted a subsequent Gillespie-led concert tour, during which he and Sandoval both began fasting at the same time. The ebullient saxophonist continued his fast for several weeks, while Sandoval ended his after just two days.

"What happened is that, during our concert on the second night of the fast, Arturo tried to hit a high note and almost fainted. If he'd gone one more day without eating, he might not have made it. I just drank water. I did that because I was young and dumb. When I got back home, my wife, Linda, looked at me, and said: 'Where is my husband?'"

Sandoval laughed heartily when reminded of his abortive fast.

A featured soloist with symphony orchestras around the world and a crowd-pleasing bandleader, the mustachioed trumpeter has recorded with dozens of jazz luminaries, as well as with everyone from B.B. King and Frank Sinatra to Rod Stewart and reggae singer Beenie Man. Due out May 11 on Concord records, Sandoval's next album, "Time For Love," features him backed by both a jazz trio and a full orchestra as he puts his distinctive instrumental stamp on classics from the Great American Songbook and chestnuts by everyone from fabled French composer Maurice Ravel to Argentinian nuevo tango king Astor Piazzolla. Such diversity notwithstanding, he is quick to champion his two favorite genres.

"I try to do as much I can for jazz and classical music," Sandoval said.

"With an orchestra, sometimes I improvise the cadenza; the rest I play as straight as I can. In jazz we can play the same tune over and over, and it will always be different. Classical music has different values and you can't change the tune. Your contribution is the quality of your sound, your interpretation and the feeling you put in your playing.

"I don't want to have a sticker on my forehead that says: 'I'm a Latino.' I don't want to have to stick to Latino music. That's the last thing I want."

Sandoval and his wife moved five months ago to Los Angeles from Miami, where he was a tenured music professor at Florida International University. Their relocation to Southern California was inspired by his desire to do more feature-film scoring — his past credits include the action film "Knockout" and the documentary "Sacred Waters" — although he will continue to tour with his band, which features younger musicians from Cuba, Spain and the United States.

"I'd like to be remembered as a guy who loved music, a music lover," Sandoval said.

Really? Not as a borders-leaping trumpeter capable of bravura instrumental feats?

"No. No way," he said. "What for?"

To find out more about George Varga and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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