ARGENTINIAN JAZZ IN NEW YORK
by Julio Santillán with Marta Gómez, Fernando Huergo, Nuno Antunes, Yulia Musayelyan

Argentinian folklore guitarist and composer Julio Santillán has for some time lead a successful septet and trio Los Changos in his adopted home in New York City. Argentinian Jazz in New York is a one-night live recording from the Blue Note jazz club in 2006, featuring the Latin Music Grammy-nominated vocalist Marta Gómez. Argentinian Jazz in New York was recorded live at the Blue Note in New York City, July 16th 2006. Julio Santillán describes the experience: ...After a couple of years living in New York a dream came true: I was offered to play at the Blue Note. They had found out that the Argentinian independence date was July 9th and they wanted to book my septet for that reason. I accepted right away but shortly after, I became aware that the final game for the 2006 soccer world cup was schedule for the same date. Argentina had a great team and I thought we had a good chance to win the cup. I could not see the possibility of missing that game. Even though the championship had not even started, I called the Blue Note and told them I had to cancel. This is totally unacceptable for most people: nobody would ever turn down an opportunity to play at the Blue Note, the most prestigious jazz club in the world. Musicians strive for years and years to get a chance and I was canceling for a stupid soccer game! It got even worse when I try to explain the booking agent why I was canceling. She thought I was mad. Because of some strange pity to my insanity or for a miraculous reason she offered me to play the following week. Argentina did very well. But we lost at the quarter-finals to Germany, the host team. I was so sad I needed to do something. I thought the best to get back was to make some German composer play some Argentinian folk dance. So I took the prelude from Johann Sebastian Bach's cello suite no.1 and made it into a chacarera. On July 9th I watched Italy beating France at the final and the following week we finished the concert at the Blue Note with Preludio Albiceleste.

More info: http://argentinian.bluemusicgroup.com