Documentary: Armando Manzanero & Paquito D’Rivera

This documentary presents the historic encounter between Armando Manzanero, composer and exceptional musician, and jazz legend Paquito D’Rivera.

In 2014, Paquito de Rivera, Cuban jazz legend received an unusual visitor in his New Jersey house, the mexican composer, and exceptional musician, Armando Manzanero. This documentary, “Paquito & Manzanero. Crónica de un encuentro histórico (Paquito & Manzanero. Chronicle of a Historic Encounter)” captures this historic meeting which led to the creation of a collaborative album: Paquito D’Rivera Plays the Music of Armando Manzanero.

This album perfectly blends jazz with bolero, in a truly one-of-a-kind clash of two worlds bound together by the love for music. And the story behind its creation is as inspiring as the recording itself.

The recording took place in Daniel Freiberg's studio in New York, with an excellent selection of jazz musicians: Paquito D'Rivera on saxophone and clarinet, Diego Urcola on trumpet and trombone, Alex Brown on piano, Carlos Henriquez on double bass, Antonio Sánchez on drums, and Ariel Lud on bandoneon. The arrangements were made by Alex Brown and Eugenio Elías, except for Contigo aprendí, which was arranged by Diego Urcola.

Most of the songs are instrumental and Manzanero only sang in four of them. As D’Rivera explains, this was intentional for a simple reason: “(…) as they say in the movies, he makes a cameo, because we wanted it to be a jazz album, it doesn't even have percussions; it's not a Latin jazz album, but a jazz album about the music of Manzanero”.

This documentary premiered in TV UNAM during the first anniversary of Manzanero’s death.

Production Company TV UNAM
Director Iván Trujillo Bolio
Musical style Jazz and Bolero