The music of John Santos is a rarified treasure that is unlikely to go viral online, and that’s by intent and design.
The Oakland percussionist, bandleader, educator and activist celebrates the release of a powerful new album, titled “Horizontes,” with his Sextet and some of his other musical friends at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on Feb. 1. The concert also marks the 40th year of Santos’ label, Machete Records.
At the center of the Bay Area’s Latin jazz scene since the 1970s, Santos has earned the esteem of colleagues from Cuba and Puerto Rico to New York City and Washington, D.C. His reputation and creative connections span the globe, but the only way to experience his new music is in concert or via download or CD purchase from his website (johnsantosofficial.com).
Declining to put recordings by the sextet or his previous Machete Ensemble on Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music or YouTube, he prefers to maintain as much control of his catalog as possible. It’s a rocky, time-intensive and resource-straining path, but bitter experience has led him to feel it’s the only way.
“There are albums I produced and gave to a label,” he said, mentioning Green Linnet, Cubop/Ubiquity and most recently Smithsonian Folkways, which released his 2020 recording “The Art of Descarga.”
“The Smithsonian was the only one that wasn’t a disaster,” he said. “The rest were a terrible experience and it’s resulted in us taking on all those responsibilities.”
Economics make up only part of the picture. Santos has never shied away from advocating for the causes he supports. Running Machete Records provides an unfettered vehicle for “putting out our own music, however radical we want,” he said. “We haven’t had that censorship or pressure that can come with a label, who wouldn’t want us covering certain songs or being critical of social conditions.”
Last October he premiered his first orchestral work, “Un Levantamiento (An Uprising)” with the Oakland Symphony at the Paramount Theatre. Commissioned by Living Jazz as part of an evening celebrating the organization’s 40th birthday, he composed a suite based on traditional Puerto Rican forms dedicated “to the resilience of Puerto Ricans who’ve resisted colonial oppression for over 500 years,” Santos said.
Similarly motivated, “Horizontes” delivers a series of thrilling performances created as a plea for peace in Gaza, while also celebrating the power of love and solidarity in the face of war and oppression around the world.
Like the album, Saturday’s concert features the John Santos Sextet and a magnificent cast of special guests, including violinist Anthony Blea, vocalist Christelle Durandy, and 80-year-old Cuban timbales great Orestes Vilató, best known for his work in the pioneering salsa band Fania All-Stars as well as a 10-year run with Santana.
Charlie Gurke, a baritone saxophone specialist who also plays tenor and alto, is the youngest member of the sextet and latest to join. Santos met him in the late 1990s when he was a student at Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, where Gurke studied with the sextet’s former saxophonist, Melecio Magdaluyo.
Establishing himself on the Bay Area Latin jazz scene in the aughts, Gurke often performed with the sextet’s rhythm section of Diaz, Sierra, and Flores, who suggested Gurke as a replacement when Magdaluyo moved out of the area.
“John called and said, ‘I’ve got this gig in September in Monterey,’ so my first show with the sextet was the Monterey Jazz Festival in 2018,” said Gurke, a baritone sax specialist who also plays tenor and alto. “He
Immersing himself in Santos’s musical world has deepened Gurke’s immersion in an expansive Latin jazz concept specific to the Bay Area, “which is much more fluidly multicultural,” Gurke said. “Playing with John means really understanding the Afro-Caribbean tradition and not being too focused on recreating it, but mixing and blending with other forms.”
Running his own label has also meant that Santos can focus on recording artists who are under-exposed at home or abroad, like in his 2014 album “Siempre Clásico” featuring Cuban bolero master Ernesto Oviedo.
“I love the fact that there are a long list of elders whose work we documented,” Santos said. “We make this bridge between future generations and these elders who opened the road for us, who were so generous to sing, teach, and play with us. For me that’s the deep part of the legacy.”
Santos’s bridge to the future is also embodied by his 17-year-old son Marcel Joao Santos, who’ll be joining the band for a couple of “Horizontes” pieces on piano and keyboards, including the samba-powered “Tonada Azul y Verde.” Rather than serving as a platform for improvisation it’s fully notated, “so I’m throwing out the challenge to Joao, and he’s embraced it,” Santos said with more than a hint of pride.
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
JOHN SANTOS SEXTET & FRIENDS
When: 8 p.m. Feb. 1
Where: Freight & Salvage Coffee House, 2020 Addison St., Berkeley
Tickets: $44-$49; www.thefreight.org