Cuban born pianist Elio Villafranca has spent a lifetime observing the space between different worlds. He spent his childhood in the small Piñar de Rio region on the Western coast of Cuba and then jumped into the centralized bustle of Havana. He went through a broad and varied musical education that not only focused on the piano, but also included intensive investigations of the guitar, percussion, and composition. He immersed himself in the complex musical constructions of Havana's academic classical music world, and then struggled to explore jazz and Cuban popular music on his own. He moved from the island life of his childhood into the urban settings of Philadelphia and later, New York. He experienced massive crowds of crazed fans while performing with Cuban artist Carlos Varela, and then transitioned into small intimate crowds in American jazz clubs. As a stateside musician he has worked in traditional Latin jazz settings and free-form exploratory modern jazz groups, both as a performer and composer. In so many ways, Villafranca is a man with a very broad perspective.
AAJ contributor Chip Boaz spoke with Villafranca at length about his beginnings in Cuba, his move to the United States and the challenges of accepting jazz as a more marginalized genre there, and much more.
Check out Elio Villafranca: The Source In Between at AAJ today!
For more information contact All About Jazz.
