Turiya Mareya Canadian Tour

Latin Jazz Pianist Turiya Mareya Launches a New Weekly Jam Session at Hermann’s

Latin jazz pianist Turiya Mareya, who hails from Mexico but has spent a good chunk of time in Toronto, Vancouver, and Victoria, is on a mission to bring, as she puts it, “a new community” to Hermann’s Jazz Club in Victoria.

Mareya, who first came to Canada in 2005 in search of another female Latin jazz pianist (Vancouver’s Kathy Kidd, who, unbeknownst to Mareya, had passed away five years earlier), found instead a whole country that has embraced her. “Victoria and Canada have been so good to me and I just wanted to give back to the city,” she says.

Giving back means creating a gift that will keep on giving in the form of an established worldbeat and Latin jazz jam session every Sunday night that Mareya hopes will draw younger players and a more ethnically diverse audience into the club and get them interested in jazz.

“It’s a fantastic venue,” she says of Hermann’s, noting that club owner Hermann Nieweler is incredibly open to new ideas. “He’s really young at heart,” she notes, adding that he is fully supportive of the sessions that begin Sunday, May 3 at 8pm.

Mareya thinks a lot of younger people who might otherwise come to the club are intimidated by the seriousness and complexity of mainstream jazz. “A lot of kids would like to get into jazz, would like to improvise, but they feel intimidated because they don’t know the tunes.” To counter this, she plans to set up a descarga (a Latin jam session) each night, that is far less formal than a traditional jam, and won’t require that players already know certain standards.

Players will find a rhythm section already in place that will create the jazz equivalent of hip hop “beats”, something Mareya points out young people really understand. “The youth can relate to this because they are all into hip hop…actually we’re going to be setting up beats with live musicians,” adding that the kids (largely university students) can then come and try improvising to these rhythms.

Mareya, who has a lot of respect for traditional jam sessions such as the one that has been run by Tom Vickery for years, says the descarga produces “more of a body music” that emphasizes danceable rhythms that are as important in world music as melody and harmony are in mainstream jazz. As such, it’s less intellectual and more approachable for people unfamiliar with the jazz idiom.

At the same time she emphasizes, “we’re going to play the tunes,” specifically standards like Night in Tunisia and others that can be performed in a Latin jazz format.

Mareya, who organized the recent Latin Jazz Festival at Hermann’s that featured Canadian jazz great Jane Bunnett and did an earlier show back in the winter with Adonis Puentes, also plans to draw more attention to local women players by including a women’s showcase. “I really think it’s so important that women’s voices are heard, and I really love empowering women and giving them an opportunity on an equal basis.”

During May and June, each evening will open with a set by one of these players, followed by the open jam session. The event has attracted some powerful performers including Maureen Washington, Louise Rose and Anna Lyman who will appear in May along with other performers.

Mareya says that her main goals are to “enlarge our palate in Victoria” and “build community,” although she does confess to a certain selfish motivation as well in that she really wants to enjoy her last two months in Victoria before she heads off on a major tour of Israel, Egypt, and Europe before returning to Mexico for a time.

Fortunately for the local jazz scene, she does plan to return to Victoria next year and guitarist David Harding will continue organizing the descargas while she is away.

Check out the Hermann’s calendar at www.hermannsjazz.com for more information. As well, you can learn more about Turiya Mareya and hear some of her music at http://www.myspace.com/mareya

– Rick Gibbs

© 2009 Rick Gibbs and Island Jazz


Turiya Mareya Live at Herman’s


Latin Sizzle
Posted By: Rick Gibbs Monday Magazine 01/07/2009 8:00 AM

Pianist Turiya Mareya melts what’s left of the snow

The way Mexican jazz pianist Turiya Mareya tells the story, Victoria saxophonist Noah Becker wasn’t too keen to play with her when she first tried to hire him for a gig last year. “He was so mean and awful and just gave me the freeze,” says Mareya, laughing. Later, when she telephoned him to try again, the reason for the cold reception emerged: he thought she was a singer. Learning that she was a pianist, Becker suddenly warmed up. “Ever since then he’s been my best friend . . . I guess he just doesn’t like singers,” she says, with obvious delight and affection.

Becker can be forgiven for his false assumption, since female Latin jazz pianists are a rare breed. So rare, in fact, that the Tijuana-based Mareya first came to Canada in 2005 to find another one-Vancouver’s Kathy Kidd-who, unbeknownst to her, had died five years earlier. She did manage to meet Kidd’s husband, who connected her with other Canadian players, and she ended up living here for a time, working out of Toronto and Vancouver with a number of top Cuban musicians.

Mareya eventually returned to Mexico, and in the past year has been playing various festivals and jazz venues throughout the country, but she’s back on the Island for two months (she first came here about 18 months ago “on a whim”) and is looking forward to kicking off 2009 with a gig at Hermann’s, featuring not only Becker on saxophone but also Humberto Mendoza on congas, Sean Drabitt on bass and special guest Adonis Puentes on vocals and percussion.

She’s particularly pleased to be sharing the stage with Puentes and is delighted by his recent success in Los Angeles, where he has been appearing with his own band and the Los Angeles Latin Jazz All Stars. “I’m really proud of him-he’s just done great,” says Mareya, who has fond memories of playing here with the whole Puentes family.

Becker, who got his Cuban music chops working with Adonis and his brother Alexis (now performing as Alex Cuba), clearly thinks very highly of Mareya. “She’s a very spiritual, very focused musician . . . very much involved in Cuban music,” he says. “That’s her interest, that’s her dedication, so her music is specifically written with those kinds of musicians in mind.”

The Hermann’s gig will feature a lot of that original writing and will be “really Latin,” according to Mareya, because they won’t have a jazz drummer backing them as originally planned. But for those of us still thawing out after our recent Siberian holiday, that’s a good thing. In fact, turn it up-that Latin heat can’t come soon enough.

—————–
Turiya Mareya Latin Jazz Ensemble
(with special guest Adonis Puentes)
8:30 pm Friday, January 9
Hermann’s Jazz Club, 753 View
Tickets $10 • 250-388-9166

Sunday, May 17th, 2009
8:00 PM to 11:00 PM


WorldBeat Jam Session and Women’s Showcase



In May 2009 Hermann’s Jazz Club will begin an ongoing Sunday night WorldBeat Jam Session In May and June the first hour of every Sunday will be a Women’s Jazz Showcase hosted by Pianist Turiya Mareya featuring some of of Victoria’s Women Jazz artists,including vocalists and instrumentalists, performing in the WorldBeat and Latin Jazz genres.

Cost $10 (Jam Session Participants Free)

This provides an opportunity for the Youth and world music communities of Victoria to have an opportunity to experience playing with a Latin band as well as experimenting with African and world music influences.

Jazz has been influenced greatly by the cultures of Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean all reflecting the African diaspora. Jazz has been one of the major sources of global unity and there is a continuous exciting fusion of world cultures keeping the music alive and constantly growing.

Adonis Puentes Band featuring Gilberto Moreaux and Turiya Mareya

Adonis Puentes is a key personality in the ever expanding Latin music scene. He opens up the marvelous world of Cuban music to his audiences the second they hear his rich voice.
Adonis has shared stages with illustrious Latin music legends like Celia Cruz, Oscar De Leon, Juan De Marcos and The Afro Cuban All Stars, Orlando Valle ‘Maraca,’ Cuban Timba All Stars, Pianist Hilario Duran, Jane Bunnett and Pancho Quinto.

Gilberto, or “Gilbertónn,” has performed as a drummer/timbaleros with nearly every major group in Cuba in virtually every musical genre: from straight ahead jazz to traditional Cuban styles; from funk to rock, to Latin fusion. He is best known internationally for the “funk-in-clave” style of Afro-Cuban ‘Salsa’ known as Timba.

Pianist Turiya Mareya has performed internationally in Festivals and Venues in Canada, Europe, Mexico and the US. Her Compositions and playing reflects her deep love of Cuban music.