Recorded remotely in 2020, Arturo O’Farrill and the mighty Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra defied disease, hatred, fear, and the loss of their livelihoods to deliver Virtual Birdland.
Talking about the ‘project’, Arturo O’Farrill said: “The commitment and love each musician brought came through and the band realised the sacred mission of playing music we love, with those we love, for people we love… Love is the only currency that matters.”
Recorded globally in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Paris, Madrid, and throughout the United States in a time of global crisis and during a year of continued horror at racist policing and inhumane income disparities, Virtual Birdland, is realised as O’Farrill walked away with the Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album for his last album Four Questions.
Born in Mexico City, to Lupe Valero and Chico O’ Farrill on June 22, 1960, Arturo’s mother Lupe was a singer from Mexico, and his father Chico was a jazz trumpeter and composer originally from Havana.
The family lived in Mexico until 1965, when they moved to New York City.
Inspired at an early age by Bud Powell and Chick Corea, Arturo graduated from LaGuardia High School for Music and Art and went on to study at the Manhattan School of Music, the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College.
Unlike his father, whose music was undeniably Afro-Cuban in nature, Arturo casts a wider net, capturing sounds from throughout Latin America.
Arturo won his first Grammy at the 51st awards for Song For Chico, and other Grammy successes include: Final Night at Birdland (Best Instrumental Performance, 2014), The Offense Of The Drum (Best Latin Jazz Album, 2014) and Three Revolutions (Best Instrumental, 2017).
Virtual Birdland is, as Arturo acknowledges, “beautiful human beings making beautiful music”, and will no doubt attract yet more accolades.

TRACKS
Gulab Jamon
Pouvoir
Desert
Nightfall
Ana Mashoof
Samba for Carmen
Alafia
En La Oscuridad
Cimarron
Para Los Rumberos