por Antonio Mejías-Rentas
Paquito D’Rivera
DOUBLE NOMINEES: Two Caribbean jazz instrumentalists are up for Grammy Awards in non-Latin categories this year.
Cuban saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera is up for separate awards in composition and classical categories for recordings with his Paquito D’Rivera Quintet. Borat in Syracuse is up for Best Instrumental Composition; it is a track from Jazz-Class, which competes for the Best Classical Crossover Album.
A past Grammy winner, D’Rivera is also metioned for his contribution to another album nominated in the classical crossover category: Yo-Yo Ma & Friends: Songs of Joy and Peace.
Puerto Rican saxophone player Miguel Zenón earned nominations in two jazz categories for his album Esta Plena. The track Villa Palmeras is up in the Best Improvized Jazz Solo category, while the album is nominated in the Best Latin Jazz category.
Other nominees for Best Latin Jazz Album where Chambo Corniel with Things I Wanted to Do,” Geoffrey Keezer with Áurea, Claudio Roditi with “Brazilian X 4” and the father-and-son team of Bebo Valdés and Chucho Valdés with Juntos para siempre.
Two other Latino musicians were nominated in classical categories. Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez is nominated for Best Classical Vocal Performance for Bel Canto Spectacular and Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra is up for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for his Missa Latina ‘Pro Pace’.
Nominees in the seven Latin music categories included several winners at last month’s Latin Grammy Awards, including Puerto Rican duo Calle 13, Mexican ranchera superstar Vicente Fernández, Cuban songstress Omara Portuonpordo and Nicaraguan salsero Luis Enrique.
Grammy nominees were announced last month in Los Angeles, where the awards will be given in January.
In other music award news, bachata superstar group Aventura has seven nominations for the Premio Lo Nuestro announced this month by Univisión. The network has opened public voting on its website through December and will hand out awards in February.
ONE LINER: Sin nombre, Cary Fukunaga’s fi lm about Central America immigrants making a dangerous trek to the United States, has been nominated in the Best Film category for the Spirit awards…Hispanic Link.
