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The son of Puerto Rican parents, thirty-eight-year old trumpeter Ray Vega
grew up in the South Bronx. One of his first purchases was an album by
Freddie Hubbard, and his early working experience as a musician is rooted
in some of the hottest salsa bands on the planet. The man who has played with
the likes of Ray Barretto, Mongo Santamaria and has been lead trumpeter with
Tito Puente for the last six years, is unarguably a staple in the Latin Jazz diet.
A dedicated student of Jazz since his teenage years, Vega has played alongside
Dizzy Gillespie with Mongo, and on Joe Henderson’s Grammy Award-winning
big band recording. His second recording for Concord Records, Boperation
(CCD-4867-2), is a tribute to a dozen great jazz trumpeters: Freddie Hubbard,
Kenny Dorham, Fats Navarro, Dizzy Gillespie, Eddie Henderson, Clifford
Brown, Miles Davis, Woody Shaw, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Donald Byrd and Lee Morgan. Ray has taken
the quintessential compositions of legendary trumpet players and added a distinctive Latin feel to each,
creating a hybrid that embraces a number of delectable rhythms from Cuba, Africa and Puerto Rico as
well as the sophisticated harmonies of jazz. Throughout the recording, Ray lives up to his eminent reputation
as a trumpeter known for both his Latin and jazz chops, a scholar of Latin rhythms and a great horn
improviser.
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