Blues for Tete & Bebo — 12 October, Park Güell (Barcelona)

Jazz

The festival gives Tete Montoliu its Gold Medal posthumously, with Andrea Motis and Paquito D’Rivera guesting

The Festival Jazz Barcelona puts on “Blues for Tete & Bebo” on Monday 12 October at seven in the evening at Park Güell, where it has never brought a concert before. Entry is free and capacity limited: you get in with an invitation, and holders of the park card are emailed a link to register and reserve a seat.

Playing are Los Fumeros — Lucia Fumero on piano and vocals and her father, Horacio Fumero, on double bass — and the Cucurucho Valdés trio with Javier Colina on double bass and Inor Sotolongo on percussion. Andrea Motis, voice and trumpet, and Paquito D’Rivera, alto sax and clarinet, are special guests. Horacio Fumero was the bassist in Tete Montoliu’s trio, with drummer Peer Wyboris; at Park Güell the piano beside him will be his daughter’s. Cucurucho Valdés is Bebo’s grandson and Chucho’s nephew, and Colina played with both pianists.

Two Gold Medals are handed over at the concert. Montoliu’s is posthumous and his daughter, Núria Montoliu, collects it; the second, which the festival gives exceptionally, goes to the Sant Andreu Jazz Band. The first medal in the series went to Bebo Valdés himself, in 2008, and since then it has gone to Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis, Michel Camilo and Chucho Valdés, among others.

Montoliu played the festival’s first edition, in 1966. This is the fifty-eighth and runs from 18 April to 23 December, inside a commemorative triennium for the sixtieth anniversary that ends in 2028.

Text by Aina Torrents