Bobby Sanabria

Bobby Sanabria - drummer, percussionist, composer, arranger, recording artist, producer, educator and multiple Grammy nominee - has performed with a veritable Who's Who in the world of jazz and Latin music, as well as with his own critically acclaimed ensembles. His diverse recording and performing experience includes work with such legendary figures as Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Paquito D'Rivera, Charles McPherson, Mongo Santamar�-a, Ray Barretto, Marco Rizo, Arturo Sandoval, Chico O'Farrill, Candido, Francisco Aguabella, Larry Harlow, Henry Threadgill, and the Godfather of Afro-Cuban Jazz, Mario Bauzá.

Bobby, the son of Puerto Rican parents, was born and raised in the “Fort Apache” section of New York City's South Bronx. Inspired and encouraged by Maestro Tito Puente, another fellow New York-born Puerto Rican, Bobby “got serious” and attended Boston's Berklee College of Music from 1975 to 1979, obtaining a Bachelor of Music degree and receiving their prestigious Faculty Association Award for his work as an instrumentalist. Since his graduation, Bobby has become a leader in the Afro-Cuban, Brasilian and jazz fields as both a drummer and percussionist, and is recognized as one of the most articulate musician-scholars of la tradición living today.

He has been featured on numerous Grammy-nominated albums, including The Mambo Kings and other movie soundtracks, as well as numerous television and radio work. Mr. Sanabria was the drummer with the legendary “Father of the Afro-Cuban Jazz movement”, Mario Bauzá's Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra. With them he recorded three CD's (two of which were Grammy-nominated) which are considered to be definitive works of the Afro-Cuban big-band jazz tradition. Mr. Sanabria was also featured with the orchestra in two PBS documentaries about Bauzá and also appeared on the Bill Cosby show performing with the orchestra. He also appeared and performed prominently in a PBS documentary on the life of Mongo Santamaria and on camera in the CBS television movie, Rivkin: Bounty Hunter.

In 1993 Mr. Sanabria and his octet Ascensión released ¡NYC Aché! on Flying Fish Records (now available on Rounder Records). It received worldwide acclaim and garnered four and half stars in Down Beat magazine, as well as receiving a nomination for Best Record of the Year by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors (NAIRD). In June 2000 Bobby released Afro-Cuban Dream... Live & In Clave!!! on the Arabesque label. Recorded live at Birdland in New York City, it features Bobby powering a big band of twenty all-stars. Critically acclaimed worldwide, it has been hailed by both the jazz and Latin music cognoscenti as a masterpiece, and was nominated for a mainstream Grammy as the Best Latin Jazz Album of 2001. Afro-Cuban Dream...Live & In Clave!!! was also nominated for the Jazz Journalists Association 2001 Award for the Best Afro-Cuban Jazz Album of the Year.

His next recording, ¡Quarteto Aché!, released in 2002, on the ZOHO label, documented Bobby's virtuosity in a small group setting and was hailed a “classic” by Modern Drummer magazine and critically acclaimed by the New York Times. It was also nominated for Best Latin Jazz recording of 2003 by the Jazz Journalists Association.

Mr. Sanabria has been the recipient of many awards, including an NEA grant as a jazz performer, various Meet the Composer awards, and the INTAR Off-Broadway Composer award and the Mid-Atlantic Foundation Arts Connect Grant three times. In 2003 he was presented with an “Outstanding Achievement Award” by Ivan Acosta, head of Latin Jazz USA, in recognition of Bobby's extraordinary creative contribution to Latin jazz. He also received a second Grammy nomination in 2003 for, 50 Years of Mambo - A Tribute to Damaso Perez Prado. Mr. Sanabria co-produced the nationally broadcast documentary, THE PALLADIUM - Where Mambo Was King, for the BRAVO network which received the award for Best Documentary for a Cable TV in 2003.

Mr. Sanabria was voted “Percussionist of the Year” for 2005 by the readers of DRUM! Magazine, a worldwide publication devoted to drums and percussion. His three part video instructional series, Getting Started on Congas, originally released by DCI way back in 1995, now available through Alfred Music, set an industry standard by which all other instructional percussion videos must be judged by.

He recently was co-producer and featured in another TV documentary produced by City Lore in NYC entitled, From MAMBO TO HIP HOP �” A South Bronx Tale which has been broadcast on PBS and has won the ALMA award for Best Made for TV Documentary in 2007. Mr. Sanabria was a consultant in the Smithsonian's historic four year traveling exhibit, Latin Jazz: La Combinación Perfecta and also featured in two of the exhibits short films.

Bobby has been featured as a guest conductor/soloist with the National All Star Jazz Orchestra of Calgary, Canada, The Nova Scotia All Star Jazz Big Band, the World Premiere of Marco Rizo's Suite De Las Americas at the Mann Center in Philadelphia and most recently the Amsterdam Conservertoire Jazz Orchestra at the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2006.

In 2006 Mr. Sanabria was inducted into the Bronx Walk of Fame having a permanent street named after him on the Bronx's famed Grand Concourse in recognition for his contributions to music and the arts. Recognized by the Bronx Borough President as the highest honor a Bronxite can achieve, he joins other illustrious Bronx notables such as Stanley Kubrick, Colin Powell, Robert Klein, Rita Moreno, Diahann Carroll, Ray Barretto, and Eddie Palmieri, to name a few.

Mr. Sanabria has written numerous articles in nationally read publications including NY Latino, Highlights In Percussion, The NY Post, Modern Drummer, the Descarga Newsletter, Allegro, and most recently TRAPS magazine. He has been featured as a subject in DRUM!, The Beat, RHYTHM - World Music & Culture, Drums On the Web, Modern Drummer, Descarga, The NY Post, Jazz Times, All About Jazz.com, The NY Times and currently a major feature piece in the July, 2007 issue of Downbeat magazine.

In addition to being Co-Chair of the International Association of Jazz Education's (IAJE) Afro-Cuban Jazz Resource Team, Mr. Sanabria is rounding out his 14th year as an Associate Professor at the New School University's Jazz & Contemporary Music Program and has also been Professor at Manhattan School of Music since 1999. He is a member of NARAS, LARAS, AF of M, BMI, SAG and the Universal Jazz Coalition. Mr. Sanabria proudly endorses TAMA drums, Sabian cymbals, Latin Percussion Inc., Remo drum heads, Vic Firth sticks and mallets and Factory Metal percussion.

Bobby and his Quarteto Aché recently toured Armenia this past June being personally invited by the U.S. Embassy to represent the United States in a a series of concerts. Headlining in the final event, The Cascade Jazz festival in Yerevan, Armenia's capitol, the group received a thunderous ovation from the estimated 8,0000 person audience which was broadcast throughout the country. In a pre-concert press conference (part of which can be seen on you tubes) when asked what jazz represented, Bobby simply stated, “Freedom.” His group has the unique distinction and honor of being the first ensemble ever to perform Latino oriented jazz in this country and spread clave consciousness in a unique master class that he held at the Yerevan Conservetory. If this weren't enough, the ensemble performed a private concert for Armenia's Heads of State, and President Robert Khachaturian who stated that, “ I simply love jazz! Its spirit of improvisation in a collective democracy is the inspiration for my vision for Armenia.”