The Latin jazz summit that Harvard University hosts today aims to do more than simply quench thirsty ears and move restless feet. For Harvard Jazz Bands director Tom Everett and his guests, percussionist Bobby Sanabria and trumpeter Brian Lynch , the afternoon seminar and evening concert are a chance to show the range and richness of a musical tradition that goes well beyond just fancy conga patterns and horn licks.
The lineup is particularly suited to the purpose.
Sanabria, a proud Bronx native and a stalwart on the New York scene, may be the most ardent defender of the Latin jazz legacy active today. Lynch, meanwhile, is as versed a Latin performer as he is a straight-ahead player. His credentials include stints with Horace Silver and Art Blakey ; his newest album, released this year, is a smoking collaboration with piano great Eddie Palmieri .
Everett, who has convened more than a few jazz gatherings in his 35 years with the Harvard band, picked his guests to show his students -- and the public -- both the roots of the Afro-Cuban sound and its intertwining with the history of mainstream jazz.
"Our students hear Latin-inspired jazz but have few opportunities to really see where the roots of the music come from," Everett says. "One reason Bobby Sanabria is coming is that he has worked with people who were there at the beginning of Afro-Cuban jazz.
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That list includes such dignitaries as Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Dizzy Gillespie -- who led the integration of "Latin" music into bebop-era jazz -- and the man considered Afro-Cuban jazz's founder, Mario Bauza , who died in 1993. All are part of a legacy that Sanabria considers misunderstood. He has made it his mission to preserve and propagate it in settings from classrooms to television documentaries.
"The biggest misconception is that we are just a footnote in jazz," Sanabria says. "This is one of the great streams of American music. It wasn't born in Africa or Cuba.
It was born in 1939 in New York with Machito and Mario Bauza, at the Park Palace Ballroom at 110th Street and Fifth Avenue."
A major contribution is the clave -- the five-note rhythm pattern, with variations in spacing, that came from Afro-Caribbean music and found its way to New Orleans and all the way to some R B and rock. Sanabria's presentation, "Clave -- A Rhythmic Journey From Africa to the New World," aims to connect the dots.
Trumpeter Lynch, meanwhile, traveled in the other direction, finding himself drawn to Latin music after realizing its similarities to jazz.
"If there was an epiphany, it was when I started playing in salsa groups in college," he says. "I heard so much of the jazz influence in the arrangements, and in the solo style of the horn players.
It always felt like jazz and Latin music belonged together. As Dizzy Gillespie used to say, they're two rooms in the same house."
From their respective vantage points, both Sanabria and Lynch worry that Latin jazz is unfairly stereotyped as hip-swaying music suited mainly, or only, for dancing.
"There are different styles," Sanabria says. "It's not all loud and brassy. There's a really profound, powerful rhythmic style, but also a lot of styles that deal with passions in a very introspective way, like the bolero.
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Lynch, meanwhile, warns against pitting Latin against mainstream jazz in a false opposition of rhythm versus melody.
"The stereotype is that Latin jazz equals party music," he says. "But as a horn player, I'm hearing complicated melodic lines that go with those rhythms.
"You don't want to put the baby out with the bathwater and dissuade people from having fun. It is music you can dance to. It's more a matter of making sure you don't lean on that.
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Today, Latin jazz is changing with the rise of new Latino communities -- Colombians, Mexicans, Ecuadorans, and others alongside the traditional Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Dominican base. The music is internationalized, with ever broader rhythmic and stylistic input.
But at the same time, Sanabria says, something important is slowly being lost.
"What's happening now is we're starting to get a pan-Latino influence in New York City, which is very vibrant," he says. "Unfortunately the hard-core Afro - Cuban base is waning, because the club scene has diminished considerably."
When he's not advocating mandatory jazz education or funding for cultural programs on radio and television, Sanabria is making the most of his teaching opportunities, as the Harvard jazz band discovered during rehearsals several weeks ago.
"He came with instructional elements, a wonderful handout of terms and techniques," says Everett. "But we had four pieces to work on, and he spent almost the entire time on one piece. He's a perfectionist.
He represents the music with such incredible pride and passion, and he expects it to be played at a certain level."
After all, Sanabria takes his role seriously not just as a jazz educator but as an advocate for a tradition that, in his view, risks never earning its due.
"I've sort of been thrust into that position out of necessity," Sanabria says.
"And I'm more than happy to do it.
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