Miami Film Fest ’25: Becoming Vera

Taylor Swift gets a lot of publicity, but for teen girls, it is Latin Jazz that truly sustains their souls. At least, such is the case for 18-year-old Vera, who undeniably represents her generation. Her age is critically important. After turning eighteen, she aged out of Miami’s foster care system, so she now must fend for herself. However, she is not completely alone. She has two meat-headed friends and more importantly, she has her music in director-screenwriter Sergio Vizuete’s Becoming Vera, which screens during the 2025 Miami Film Festival.

Having shared several foster homes with Daniel, they stayed together platonically after they aged-out together. Jake is the newcomer, who met them through their former social worker, Ariel. He is not supposed to help them anymore, but he tries to find them temp work on the sly.

Since she has a strong work ethic, Vera is the most employable of the three, especially as a house and office painter. Her next gig happens to be the new studio sleazy music producer Hector is renovating. He is trying to build Ellen’s career, but he immediately recognizes how Vera’s noodling improved on the tune they are trying to record. Soon, he dangles the promise of a big break in front of her, in exchange for her free arranging work.

Of course, viewers know an exploiter when they see Hector. Despite often living rough, Vera is not so worldly and her confidence is fragile. Yet, Jake, the new guy, who maybe has something more in mind than platonic friendship, constantly offers Vera the encouragement she never had before.

Frankly, Becoming Vera depicts two groups of young people who are almost completely unrepresented in the media: aspiring jazz musicians and foster care survivors who aged-out. Vizuete treats his young characters with great sensitivity and honesty. There is no denying they make a lot of bad decisions, but they clearly do not have a lot of good choices available to them.

It is also cool to see Vera’s passion for Latin Jazz. The music Pancho Burgos-Goizueta composed for Vera and Ellen, whose piano performances were doubled by Lincoln R. Gonzalez and Anika Vila, respectively, are appropriately rhythmically complex and sophisticated. Unfortunately, Vizuete did not have faith in his characters’ music for the incidental soundtrack, using rather colorless, ambient cues instead.

Great Performances: Roots of Latin Jazz

Clearly, things are looking up, because Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra is back at Birdland and Bobby Sanabria is touring again, including with his Multiverse big band. If you do not understand why that is such a good thing, Sheila E. (the daughter of legendary Latin Jazz percussionist Pete Escovedo), will explain it to you, with the help of Tony Succar and Dr. Pablo Gil, who launched the Raices Jazz Orchestra to celebrate Latin Jazz’s global sources. Their survey of Latin Jazz national hotspots doubles as a companion film to Raices’ debut release when Roots of Latin Jazz airs this Friday, as part of the current season of Great Performances on PBS.

Go ahead, turn up the volume and don’t worry about your neighbors, because they are sure to enjoy the percussion and brass that feature so prominently in the Raices’ arrangements. Their kick-off performance of Herbie Hancock’s “Eye of the Hurricane,” in tribute of the Havana-New York axis of Dizzy Gillespie’s Cubop band is a perfect example.

Brazil exported some of the biggest Latin Jazz crossover hits, but instead of bossa nova, Succar and Gil explore samba rhythms and berimbau instrumentation on Jorge Ben Jor’s “Mas Que Nada” (widely popularized by Sergio Mendes), with vocalist Anaadi. Call it loungey or an ear worm, but the song still gets in your head—and Gil’s tenor solo is legit.

Next, they are off to Peru, spotlighting the cajon percussion box on “Feste Fuego” and the Andean Quena flute on “Peru Lando,” which also features some swinging trumpet and trombone solos. These are richly textured and energetic performances, but the tempos of the program mostly rage from fast to furious. That is why the more relaxed West African-flavored “Invocation” is a nice change of pace. It also boasts Richard Bona’s ultra-cool vocals and bass.

Perhaps the high point comes from Spain, where Succar, Gil, and company collaborate with flamenco musicians on “Midnight in Spain.” It is soulful and also fun to watch the stomping choreography-percussion.

BCBC: Poncho Sanchez Live

According to Latin Jazz legend Poncho Sanchez, Saturday night’s concert was the first time he could recall playing in Brooklyn. He would receive the Cultural Leadership Award from Brooklyn College’s Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts (BCBC) at their 2010 Fiesta Caliente Gala shortly thereafter—a nice gig to make his borough debut.

“Just a little bit of soul,” Sanchez exhorted during the BCBC concert opener, a rendition of “One Mint Julep,” Ray Charles’s jazz instrumental hit. Indeed, Sanchez has always been a master of hot, rhythmic Latin Jazz with a funky kick, in the Willie Bobo tradition. For his latest CD, Psychedelic Blues, he even enlisted a guitarist deliberately recalling the special sound guitarist Sonny Terry brought to the Bobo band. Though Sanchez still tours with his regular working group (led by music director-pianist David Torres, sans guitar), the Psychedelic tunes are still well within their power zone, including the Bobo medley, “I Don’t Know/Fried Neck Bones and Some Home Fries/Spanish Grease,” which proved to be one of the biggest crowd pleasers last night.

With his silver beard and white taped fingers looking claw like from a distance, the burly, energetic Sanchez cut a bear-like figure from a distance Saturday night. Periodically, Sanchez also got out from behind his congas to front the band with his surprisingly smooth vocals, including the “I Don’t Know” portion of the Bobo tribute and the rollicking concert closer “Raise Your Hand,” courtesy of Stax Soul. He is still a dynamic conguero though, displaying the fleet hands that first brought him to prominence as a member of Cal Tjader’s band.

Sanchez’s regular working group (who can all be heard on Psychedelic) is a great mid-sized ensemble with a big sound. George Ortiz provided strong rhythmic accompaniment on the timbales and made the most of his high energy feature spot in “Do It.” Ron Blake might have been an audience favorite, taking several solos ranging well into the higher registers (though not quite Dizzy or Arturo Sandoval territory), yet maintaining an eloquent articulation. Javier Vergara doubled on multiple reeds, but displayed a particularly pleasing tone on alto, cutting through the roiling band yet still sounding warm and inviting.

Even in a concert hall setting, Sanchez and his musicians easily established a strong rapport with the audience, often joking with the rowdier patrons. In fact, bassist David Barda and trombonist-arranger Francisco Torres were probably just as vocal as Sanchez himself. Definitely, the Sanchez band has a real old school entertain-the-people work ethic.

Indeed, this is fun music that anyone can relate to. Mixing salsa tunes with jazz standards-turned Latin standards, like Coltrane’s “Afro Blue,” showcasing Joey De Leon’s dynamic percussion, Sanchez kept the hall moving and grooving nicely. Some more assertive souls even started dancing in the aisles, even though the hall is not optimal for audience participation.

Still, BCBC is a seriously good deal to hear an artist of Sanchez’s caliber in a two-set concert, as opposed to one set in a Manhattan club at probably two to three times the cost. Upcoming BCBC jazz related shows include the big band music revue In the Mood, and performances by the Brooklyn College Big Band featuring Fred Ho’s Afro-Asian Ensemble and the United States Air Force Band of Liberty. A great live band, Poncho Sanchez in concert is definitely a recommended listening experience, as is Psychedelic Blues, now available from Concord Records, Sanchez’s labels for twenty four releases going back to 1982’s Sonando.

Cultural Survival

Cultural Survival
By David Sánchez
Concord Picante

In a sense, jazz artists are in constant dialogue with their musical ancestors. In the case of David Sánchez’s new CD, Cultural Survival, inspiration from familial and historical sources dovetailed serendipitously, particularly on the cornerstone track: “La Leyenda del Cañaveral.” The resulting album is a searching session of hard to classify music, combining many influences into its musical melting pot.

Though Sánchez employs Latin rhythm and percussion throughout Survival, the overall session often has more of a hard-bop vibe, prominently featuring Sánchez’s heavy Coltrane-influenced tenor. Aside from two guest appearances by Danilo Perez and one from Robert Rodriguez, Lage Lund’s guitar provides Sánchez’s chordal foil in his pianoless group. This gives the musical a funky undercurrent, further contributing to the slipperiness of its genre classification.

Survival opens with “Coast to Coast,” benefiting from the presence of Lund’s guitar in the easy grooving introduction, before Sánchez delivers a surprisingly explorative solo. Perez joins the combo for “Manto Azul,” but blends with Lund quite effectively. The one standard of the session is Thelonious Monk’s “Monk’s Mood,” interpreted with respectful tenderness by Sánchez. Survival is richly textured throughout, but the concluding originals carry the greatest gravitas.

“The Forgotten Ones” is a mournful dedication to New Orleanians, featuring a ghostly melody and a passionate solo. Despite being the briefest track, it says a great deal. (It seems like the inclusion of a New Orleans dedication is becoming increasingly common on jazz releases, like Metheny’s recent Day Trip, but if the music is inspired as well as simply well-intentioned, as on Survival, than so much the better.)

The concluding “La Leyenda del Cañaveral” is an extended composition about the African diasporic experience in the Caribbean, sparked by his sister Margarita’s poem “Molasses.” It was performed live with poetic recitations at Zankel Hall, but on this recorded version, the vocal elements consist exclusively of opening and closing chants. It is a dramatic tour-de-force, evolving from one exciting sound to another. An early vamp motif emerges from the chanted prologue, segueing into thoughtful solos from Lund and Sánchez, moving through passages of turbulence and reflection, then reconciling back into the vamp, given a funkier hue from Rodgriuez’s shift to the Rhodes.

Sánchez dedicated Survival to the recently departed Mario Rivera and Cachao, again making an explicit connection between the work of the present and the legacy of those who came before. It is a worthy musical statement that rewards repeated listening.