NÉSTOR TORRES AND KAUNAS BIG BAND
(Puerto Rico/USA – Lithuania)
Kaunas Big Band (principal conductor Tomas Botyrius) has never missed a single Birštonas Jazz Festival and has been presenting original programmes with interesting soloists here since 1980. This time, at the invitation of the ensemble, Néstor Torres, a Puerto Rican flutist, winner of the Latin Grammy Award, is visiting Lithuania for the first time.
The tandem will present the guest’s latest album, Dominican Suite, celebrating the people, culture and music of the country he cherishes.
Néstor Torres started playing the drums at the age of five and took up the flute at the age of twelve. His father, Néstor Ramon, a pioneer of Latin jazz in Puerto Rico playing piano, Hammond organ and vibraphone, guided him into music. In addition, the elder Torres’ aunt was the legendary Latin American singer, Ruth Fernandez.
As a teenager, young Néstor moved with his family from Puerto Rico to New York, where he continued his flute studies at the Mannes School of Music and played with the hottest Latin bands of the time in New York dance clubs. Soon he was collaborating with such celebrated musicians as Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, Larry Harlow and Hector Lavoe.
He even dropped out of school to tour and went on to study at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. By the age of 23, Néstor had already released four solo albums.
The flute player’s career took a major turn when he moved to Miami to follow the Cuban music group Hansel & Raul, with whom he toured and recorded three albums. But it was as a solo artist that he shone, unexpectedly landing a gig at the Miami Beach Festival. Soon after, he was invited to appear on a popular TV show and toured Japan with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.
A cruel stroke of fate, which almost took his life in a collision during the Celebrity Boat Race, did not stop Torres. On the contrary, his career picked up after the disaster, with four more albums, appearance in a documentary about the legendary Cuban double bassist and composer Israel López Valdés “Cachao”, collaboration with Gloria Estefan in her album and siding her at the Grammys, and garnering a Latin Grammy in the Pop Instrumental Album category for his CD This Side of Paradise in 2001.
To date, Torres has released 18 albums and received five Grammy nominations, including four in the Latin genre. His music has been described as an exotic blend of different styles, immersing the listener in American, Brazilian and Afro-Cuban jazz. He has also released a classical album paying tribute to the great Puerto Rican composer Rafael Hernandez.
In addition to the aforementioned masters, he has collaborated with Kenny Loggins, Dave Matthews, Paquito D’Rivera and Arturo Sandoval, as well as The New World, Cleveland and Singapore symphony orchestras.
The flutist says his mission is to use music to spread humanistic values and optimism. Torres has dedicated a number of his compositions to the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet. The flute virtuoso travels the world and interacts with important personalities not only as a distinguished artist but also as an ambassador of culture and peace. He also has an honorary doctorate from Barry University in Miami and Carlos Albizu University.
Kaunas Big Band has been in existence since 1991 and for more than 30 years it has been the flagship of jazz culture in Kaunas and Lithuania, a witness, participant and organiser of significant jazz events in Lithuania. Without this band it would be hard to imagine the annual Lithuanian jazz festivals Kaunas Jazz, Birštonas Jazz, Klaipėda Castle Jazz Festival, Šiauliai Big Band Festival.
Kaunas Big Band has brought up many generations of jazz instrumentalists and vocalists. It has performed with almost all the most famous Lithuanian jazz masters, many celebrities of popular music, as well as the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, was partnered by the artists of other genres.
The Big Band has become a symbol of the living jazz school and has represented Lithuanian jazz in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Poland, the Netherlands, Latvia, Russia, Belarus and Estonia.
It has introduced many foreign coryphées to the Lithuanian audience, including Finnish jazz composers Eero Koivistoinen and Jukka Linkola, Swedish trumpeter Lasse Lindgren and multi-instrumentalist Gunhild Carling, American jazz composer Frank Mantooth, trumpeter Randy Brecker, trombonist Jiggs Whigham, saxophonist and composer Bob Mintzer, German organist Barbara Dennerlein, French accordionist Richard Galliano, Spanish percussionist Jorge Perez, Norwegian clarinet virtuoso Felix Peikli, Estonian jazz star Sofia Rubina and Mexican vibraphonist Victor Mendoza.
In recent years, Kaunas Big Band delivered original programmes with vocalist Nadine Axisa (Malta), kantele virtuoso Ida Elina (Finland), saxophonist Hermine Deurloo, pianist Peter Beets (The Netherlands) and Danish violinist Line Kruse.
For 18 years, until his death, the collective was led by its founder Romualdas Grabštas (1943–2009). His work was continued for some time by Skirmantas Sasnauskas, Tomas Botyrius and Petras Tadaras. The leadership of trombonist, composer and arranger Jievaras Jasinskis, which lasted from 2018 to 2022, was particularly productive and greatly expanded the Big Band’s repertoire of original Lithuanian music. The saxophonist Tomas Botyrius took over from Jasinskis as the principal conductor.
