Rodrigo Recabarren, Pablo Menares, Yago Vazquez
Biography Rodrigo Recabarren, Pablo Menares, Yago Vazquez
Rodrigo Recabarren, Pablo Menares, Yago Vazquez
Since the 1990s, the New York jazz scene has come to exemplify the city's reputation as a haven for immigrants. Bassist Pablo Menares, drummer Rodrigo Recabarren, and pianist Yago Vazquez arrived in the late 2000s as part of that movement. Menares and Recabarren from the Chilean capital of Santiago, Vazquez from the Galicia region in northern Spain. The three quickly found solace in sharing their passion for the jazz idiom with one another in their shared native language. This friendship led to the formation of the trio and the release of their debut album, Desde La Lluvia (2017), winning the Martin Codax Music Award 2018 for Best Jazz Artist.
Hailing from Chile, (Recabarren and Menares) and Galicia, Spain (Vazquez) these young artists embed a wealth of cultural experiences to their musical dexterity. Paying tribute to the music of their childhoods, the trio utilizes a variety of folkloric musical traditions into an album that like many within Pan-Latin Jazz, hybridizes various cultural attributes into compositions that reflect the complexities of our modern world. Fearless, comfortable with a variety of genres and styles of music, a deep trust and confidence binds their collective musical ambitions.
Migrating to New York City in 2009, Recabarren and Menares quickly found themselves in similar social circles as students and artists navigating the magnetic pulse of the Jazz capital of the US. Soon they bumped into Vazquez and began sharing a collective passion for “futbol,” food, family, and the burgeoning dynamic of how well they collaborated together.
Recabarren quickly discovered that his bass and piano playing companions had a very unique way of communicating musically. “It's kind of like telepathy,” Recabarren describes, adding “they just accept each other. It's just like a conversation with a good group of friends and a bottle of wine.” For the trio, Familia is an expression of shared mutual experiences but also the curiosity required to explore how personal identity shapes the music they wish to explore. As Recabarren sees it, “there are few things more important than identity. I moved to the states to learn about US folklore and in the process I found myself.”
