Trumpet icon Arturo Sandoval and his band perform his composition “Caprichosos De La Habana” during his concert on December 19, 2025, part of the SFJAZZ 2025-26 Season and broadcast on Fridays Live.

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About this concert:
A 10-time GRAMMY winner, Arturo Sandoval is simply the greatest living Cuban trumpet player and a legend of Latin jazz. He presents a celebratory evening of holiday classics in his own inimitable style.

Over his momentous career, Sandoval has forged his own bold synthesis of bebop and Cuban styles, playing a central role in revolutionizing Cuban music as founding member of Irakere, one of the most innovative and influential Afro-Cuban bands of all time.

His hero Dizzy Gillespie helped spread the trumpeter’s reputation by showcasing his stratospheric technique and soulful melodic sense in the United Nations Orchestra, and it was during a 1990 tour with the bebop legend that Sandoval defected to the U.S. to finally escape the oppression of Castro’s government.

His life was the subject of HBO’s 2000 biographical film For Love or Country starring Andy García in the title role.

Sandoval has recorded over 30 albums as a leader and worked with a legion of artists ranging from Tito Puente and Paquito D’Rivera to Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. In 2013, President Obama awarded Sandoval the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his lifetime of cultural contributions, and in 2024 he was made a Kennedy Center Honoree.

PERSONNEL:

Arturo Sandoval: trumpet
Michael Tucker: tenor saxophone
William Brahm: guitar
Lisandro Pidre: piano
Luca Alemanno: bass
Daniel Feldman: drums
Samuel Torres: percussion