Paulo Stagnaro

April 27th, 2007

Boston's Berklee College of Music is proud to bring the high-powered Latin ensemble Díle to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Conservatory Project. This group of student all-stars will perform on Thursday, May 24, in the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater, at 6:00 p.m. The performance is free and open to the public.

Díle—ten pieces, including a full horn section, percussionists, vocals, and violin—creates a deep, soulful, and infectious vibe that brings honor to the artistic tradition of the dance band. The group is led by violinist Juan P. Chavez, whose talents are reflected in the musical passion and ability of every member of the group, which includes Down Beat Award winners, Berklee Presidential Scholars, and full scholarship recipients.

Performing a repertoire that runs from classic '70s New York salsa to contemporary Cuban timba to popular Dominican merengue, from Tito Puente and Celia Cruz to Elvis Crespo and many more, Díle (pronounced DEE-leh, meaning "tell him/her") features some of Berklee College of Music's finest young musicians. Hailing from five nations and three continents, the members were drawn together at Berklee by the Latin music they love.

Spreading their Latin groove beyond the concert hall, Díle's Kennedy Center performance will be webcast worldwide, at kennedy-center.org/millennium. Both XM Radio and Voice of America Television have also invited Díle to tape broadcasts for them while in the nation's capital.

Though just a few years old, Díle has played many of Massachusetts' major music and dance venues, and has also been fortunate enough to perform nationally, already listing New York, California, and Texas on their dance card. All these performances have helped build a large and loyal fan base: in 2006 they broke attendance records at SalsaBoston.com's annual summer festival.

- Berklee Press

October 29, 2007

For the first time, Berklee College of Music students have been invited to perform at the annual Latin Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and Trustees Award ceremony on Wednesday, November 7, in Las Vegas, Nevada. An eight-piece student group, under the direction of Berklee professors Oscar Stagnaro and Bernardo Hernandez, will perform a musical tribute to this year's honorees. Alberto Cortez, Lucho Gatica, Olga Guillot, Los Tigres del Norte, Os Paralamas do Sucesso and Chavela Vargas will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. João Araújo, Leopoldo Federico, and Fernando Hernández, who will be honored with the Trustees Award.

The unique opportunity to perform at this prestigious event has been more than a year in the making, and involved close collaboration between students and faculty at the college. Last year, students Javier Samayoa and Daniel Diaz, leaders of the Latin American Music and Business Club, approached Professor Peter Alhadeff, secretary of the Association of Latin Faculty, to help them attend the 2006 Latin Grammy Awards. Within hours of contacting Luis Dousdebes, chief financial officer of the Latin Recording Academy, the student club was invited to the ceremony.

"The academy recognized that Berklee has students from many Latin American countries that will be future leaders in the industry," Alhadeff said. The connection was auspicious: the students gained a valuable learning and networking experience, and the Latin Recording Academy acquired two dozen new members from among Berklee's large and diverse Latin student population.

This year, the club was again invited to attend the Latin Grammy Awards, but Dousdebes went one huge step further, asking Alhadeff to provide a student band for the Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony. The Berklee band will perform a medley of each of the honoree's music on stage just prior to the recipient's acceptance. Stagnaro, professor of bass, and Hernandez, assistant professor of contemporary writing and production, were tapped by Alhadeff to recruit the group. They hand-picked some of the most talented musicians and arrangers at the college to handle the demands of quickly learning several compositions by nine different artists in a wide variety of styles, including tango, salsa, boleros, Latin rock, and regional Mexican rancheras. "It's an incredible learning experience for the students. It is very challenging music," Alhadeff said.

The band is composed of students from Latin America and other countries around the world, and includes violinists Ariadna Rodriguez Cima, from Spain; and Mayrene Alexandra Morel Caraballo, from the Dominican Republic; flutist, saxophonist, and pianist Enrique K. Trinidad, from Puerto Rico; cellist Yi-Ting Yang, from Taiwan; guitarist Lourenco Bittencourt Rebetez, from Brazil; percussionist Paulo Stagnaro, from Peru; bassist Andres Rotmistrovsky, from Argentina; and violist Dae Hee Kim, from South Korea. Arrangers for the project included Hernandez, and students Rotmistrovsky, Juan Andres Ospina, Tomas Altamirano, and Jose Sigona Garcia - Berklee Press

July 17, 2007 11:45:31 AM

As usual, there was too much to see in a week that included venerable avant-gardist Burton Greene at one end of the spectrum and crossover darling Diana Krall at the other. Here are three other shows that provided good listening.
At Ryles on Saturday July 7, saxophonist Tim Mayer fronted 5LMN2, an outfit that had its inception at Wally’s in 1993 and has been around in one form or another ever since. The 5LMN2 agenda has been Afro-Latin jazz or standard jazz played in Latin arrangements. (The name, if you read it in Spanish, comes out as “five elements.”) In the middle set of three at Ryles, the band mixed it up with Cedar Walton’s “Bolivia,” Monk’s “Evidence,” Joe Henderson’s “Serenity” and “Inner Urge,” and Puerto Rican composer Pedro Flores’s standard “Obsesión.”

The Monk expert Steve Lacy once described all of Monk’s tunes as dances, so it was no surprise to see the band make the most of the displaced accents of “Evidence” with the 3-2 clave beat. Pianist Marcello Casagrandi emphasized rhythmic chording throughout the set, and he was so inventive in his change-ups that for a brief moment in his “Bolivia” solo he even threw off the otherwise imperturbable rhythm team of drummer Pablo Peña and conguero Paolo Stagnaro (son of Boston bassist Oscar). In the first couple of tunes, the details of Mayer’s tenor playing got buried in the heavy rhythmic mix (Fernando Huergo played electric bass), so it was good to hear him slice through on alto in “Evidence.” But he really came to the fore on Joe Henderson’s “Inner Urge,” clapping off the clave rhythm until piano came in with a repeating staccato cross-rhythm, then bass, then percussion, then finally tenor. Casagrandi built up to a staccato climax in his solo and then Mayer entered, slower and with lighter percussion underneath him, mixing up his phrasing, alternating short-phrased groupings and arpeggiated runs, reveling in a fat lower register that hadn’t been evident in the first couple of tunes, taking his time. It was beautiful. He was equally relaxed on the slow cha-cha-cha of “Obsesión” and on “Serenity,” which was a light rumba. There was plenty of abstraction in all of these, and plenty of rhythmic hurly-burly, but at their best, the band (who play Wally’s every Thursday night) reminded you why Afro-Latin jazz is so popular: they’re all dances, and the dance beat will draw you in no matter how far out the band take everything else. - The Phoenix

June 29, 2007
Chip Boaz

“Alto saxophonist/clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera presents his album, Funk Tango, under the group name “The Paquito D’Rivera Quintet?.” “Quintet” refers to his working group of trumpeter/valve trombonist Diego Urcola, pianist Alon Yavnai, electric bassist Oscar Stagnaro and drummer Mark Walker. The “?”highlights the group’s flexibility through use of additional musicians or smaller configurations. Guests include percussionist Pernell Saturnino, bandoneonist Hector Del Curto, percussionist Paulo Stagnaro and pianists Ed Simon and Fernando Otero. The assured playing of the core quintet, complimented by these additional musicians, creates a diverse and exciting recording.” - Allaboutjazz.com

March 07, 2006

“Stagnaro's combo took over with jazzily spiced original compositions based on samba, baiao, bossa nova and partindo alto rhythms, among them Jobim's highly regarded ''Triste,'' its long, lyrical lines reflecting the influence of his idol, Villa-Lobos. Three of these selections featured the smoothly controlled alto voice of vocalist Corso, who added a welcome touch of feminine appeal to the all-male ensemble's presentation.
The band's distinctively informal, dance-floor style presentation combined with the repetitious rhythmic and melodic elements of the music, although ear-catching and entertaining, eventually began to wear thin as concert fare. One wanted to get up and move with the music.”

- Cape Cod Times

March 2007
Lenni Coffman

“First on stage was the Paulo Stagnaro Sextet, made up of trumpeter Niv Toar, saxophonist Nir Na’aman, bassist Hogyu Hwang, pianist Carlos Homs, drummer Eric Doob, and percussionist Paulo Stagnaro, The Latin group started off with a few smooth, sultry pieces and finished off with a fiery piece that made listeners feel as if they had just stepped off a plane in Havana.” - The Source

“DEJF: La Timbistica, at the 9:30 Club”
Ted Scheiman
October 6th, 2008

“The future of la musica is assured,” a beaming Jim Byers informed the 9:30 club on Friday night. Byers, the host of WPFW’s “Latin Flavor,” spoke after a stellar performance by La Timbistica, a high-flying salsa outfit also known as the Berklee College of Music Latin Jazz All-Stars. The group alternates between six-piece Latin jazz unit and full-on Salsa band. In both formats, they are astonishing.” - Washington City Paper

“Plenty of beef in '08 lineup”
Mac McDonald Mac About Town
September 20th, 2008

“…this year's Latin jazz contingent, beginning with Orlando "Maraca" Valle's powerhouse ensemble that played late Friday, the Maria Schneider Orchestra, Antonio Sanchez & Migration and the phenomenal La Timbistica (Berklee Latin Jazz All-Stars) that played earlier Friday night…

…the six-piece Berklee Latin Jazz All-Stars from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, kicked the festival into another gear with an incendiary set of Latin jazz. This ensemble is as talented a group as I've heard here in the past several years, especially flutist Enrique "Kalani" Trinidad, who lit up the Garden Stage with his incredible force and technique.”

- Monterey Herald