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Pacific Mambo Orchestra hits their stride, comes to Aspen

Courtesy Pacific Mambo Orchestra

The Pacific Mambo Orchestra’s Music is a large ensemble. Trumpets, congas, pianos and make up the nearly two dozen players. The complex rhythms of Latin jazz weave in and out of soaring horns, polyrhythms in tow.

And what you’d usually hear in the streets and clubs of Miami has found a home on the left coast - in San Francisco. But years after starting the group, Steffen Kuehn, trumpet player and one of the leaders of the group, says they are just now starting to see the fruits of their labor.

"Right now I think everything’s tapered off. People realize that we are the same people, we just have an award now.”

A Grammy Award. They came home from the 2014 ceremony with some hardware despite going up against some pop royalty, including Marc Anthony, the top-selling tropical salsa artist of all time.

 

Steffen says they realized that they made it when they had to start getting credit cards, bank accounts, and hiring a crew for show production to come with the band on tour. Now rather than feeling pressure to make it, the pressure is on them to figure out what’s next and how to make sure that the band never leaves their fans disappointed.

 

“There’s a certain amount of pressure to always deliver. Now there’s an expectancy. People ask ‘what’s next? Where are you going next?’ There’s an ongoing request and inquiry.”

 

For Kuehn, being a part of the series was a dream of his. He says it was exciting for him to find out that they would be playing there.

 

“I’ve been wanting to play the Jazz Festival for ages. We’re really, really thrilled to be there.”

 

Pacific Mambo Orchestra’s Music is a blend of multiple genres. Like jazz in broader terms, latin music is able to pull from its history and create a sound that very much belongs to each ensemble that plays it.

 

But this isn’t all about making it up as you go. When writing music for the group, Steffen says he sometimes has to think about if a player can actually play the piece live, outside of the studio environment — especially when brass players have to make sure they don’t wear out their chops.

“I just heard screaming trumpets so I had to call the lead trumpet player and ask him about that. ‘Can you play that on a gig? We can play that in the studio where we have an option to record several takes of a piece.’”

 

This weekend, Steffen will find out if his players can stand up to the scores he’s written.

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