Trumpet player brings Afro-Peruvian jazz to Bloomington

Acoustic sounds, scraping, tap dancing and percussion fused with the contemporary sounds of horns are what trumpet player and music educator Gabriel Alegria and his Afro-Peruvian Jazz Sextet bring to music lovers around the world. \nAlegria and his band will hold a workshop and concert at IU as part of their once-a-year U.S. tour, which they’ve been doing for several years. The workshop will be held at 5 p.m. today at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, 416 N. Indiana Ave. Attendees can bring their own instruments because the band teaches the basics of Afro-Peruvian music.\nThe band will then hold a concert at 8 p.m. in the Rose Firebay Theater in the John Waldron Arts Center, 122 S. Walnut St. Both events are free to the public and are sponsored by the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology.\nAssociate professor Javier Leon teaches South American performance and culture for the ethnomusicology department. He said he and his students anticipate an informative workshop and an exciting concert.\n“They put on a really good show,” he said. “It’s representative to contemporary pop music (in Peru). It’s definitely right up our alley.”\nPeter Ermey, an ethnomusicology graduate student, said in an e-mail that the concert will give students a chance to experience some of the most rhythmically complex music in the world.\n“It has a sound that is quite distinctive from the Latin genres that most people here in the U.S. know about,” he said. \nAlegria was born in Lima, Peru, in 1970, and quickly became one of the most well-known jazz musicians in his country, according to his Web site, www.gabrielalegria.com. He earned a doctorate in jazz studies from the University of Southern California and now teaches jazz classes at New York University. He and his sextet toured the world, introducing listeners to his self-formed style of music, which consists of both old and new sounds. \nThe band consists of Alegria, percussionist and tap dancer Freddie Lobaton, saxophone player Laura Andrea Leguia, guitarist Yuri Juarez, drummer Hugo Alcazar and bass player Ramon de Bruyn.\nAfro-Peruvian music originated during the slave trade in the 1500s. With a mixture of Spanish and West African styles, this genre of music consists of acoustic sounds along with many forms of percussion. Alegria takes these Afro-Peruvian sounds and fuses them with horns to add a contemporary jazz feel to a traditional style.\nThe ethnomusicology department will sponsor another Afro-Peruvian workshop at 6 p.m. Friday at Foster Quad. Leon highly recommends jazz lovers come to the show, as it will satisfy their tastes as well as offer something else.\n“(Alegria) is trying to develop a new style of jazz,” he said. “It’s an introduction to a different style.”