CHRISTOPHER SÁNCHEZ

LATIN JAZZ MEETS OPERA

Zoho ZM Records

For Christopher Sánchez, “Latin Jazz Meets Opera” is a very personal, creative endeavor. This album tells the story of Christopher’s life through music. Both jazz, Dominican culture, and opera have shaped his identity.  Once the Sánchez family resettled in New York City, they brought with them a life rooted in Caribbean culture. Christopher soon incorporated his love of music with American jazz and Latin jazz music, along with voice. Christopher announced he wanted to be a singer as a child. Along that path, he discovered opera.

Opening with the popular “Sway” song, his baritone voice floats through the song lyrics, soft as billowing clouds blowing across a clear sky. He tone sounds warm and believable on this song.  He grew up hearing it in Spanish. Emotionally, Sánchez shows how migration moves music, as surely as it moves people.

Once his love of music extended to the opera, Sánchez became immersed in operatic storytelling and classical training. Somehow, Christopher Sánchez began to hear opera incorporated into his beloved Caribbean pulse. For him, the tough strains of Latin jazz held it all together, like a Caribbean gumbo.

When he sings familiar jazz tunes and American classics like “Unforgettable” and “The Shadow of Your Smile” his operatic tones color the familiarity and warmth of the songs.  One of the trademarks of a wonderful singer is their ability to make the lyrics believable during their presentation. It’s important to sell the song. The crossover from classical music to jazz is a giant step.  In jazz, the emotional value of the singer is more important than the power-projected vocal training of opera. The challenge is for Sánchez to comfortably blend jazz and Classical opera together.

The important factor in jazz is the freedom and ability to improvise. The training to be a classical singer affirms the importance of technique above all, and reading the music note for note. They do not encourage straying from the way a score is written. There is no room for freedom and improvisation. For me, that’s what’s missing in the Sánchez interpretation of American jazz tunes.

I don’t think Christopher Sánchez has mastered the ability to sing with freedom and emotion.  He is a well-trained singer, but not a jazz singer.  However, when he sings his cultural music in Spanish, like “Un Retoño De Santiago,” he sounds smooth and more comfortable. On “Bachata Rosa, he serenades this love song to the world, singing about his love for the Dominican Republic. Throwing in operatic songs, like “The Flower Duet” seems out of place in this project. Then again, the title of this album is “Latin Jazz Meets Opera.”

Christopher’s Latin roots shine when he sings songs buried deep in his cultural ancestry. He also shares a satin smooth vocal on “The Christmas Song,” although he sings the wrong lyrics at the top of the song, (second verse) which was both surprising and disappointing.

THE CHRISTOPHER SÁNCHZ BAND: Christopher Sánchez, baritone vocals; Jazmine Saunders, soprano vocals; Carlos Mena, upright bass; Keisel Jimenez, timbales; Edgar Martinez Ochoa, congas/bongo/percussion; Dayramir González, piano; Giovanni Siveroni, trumpet; Xito Lowell, trombone; Monica Davis & Yesu Woo, violins; Angela Pickett, viola; Laura Metcalf, violoncello.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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