Introducing Pianist, Composer Jorge Luis Pacheco

Jorge Luis Pacheco is one of the leading pianists of the new generation of jazz in Cuba. He was a First Prize Winner of the International Contest for Young Jazz Musicians (Jojazz 2007). He is a Pianist, percussionist, composer and musical director. He studied piano and percussion at the music school Alejandro García Caturla, later graduated as a percussionist in the conservatory Amadeo Roldán, and worked as a professor at the conservatory Guillermo Thomas.

In October 2010, Pacheco performed as a guest pianist Lincoln Jazz Band Center in New York who runs the world-renowned trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s visit to Cuba. He has participated in concerts and festivals in Cuba, Germany, Spain, Italy, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Mexico and the USA.

He has shared the stage with musicians such as Chucho Valdés, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Lenny White as well as with Dave Weckl and Richie Goods, Bobby Carcassés, Leo Brouwer, Javier Zalba, Horacio “El Negro” Hernández, Giovanni Hidalgo, Armando Gola, Orlando Sánchez, Pablo Milanés, Haydée Milanés, Guido López Gavilan, Harold López-Nussa, Amadito Valdés, Teté Caturla (these two are past members of the Buena Vista Social Club), Alexander Abreu, Issac Delgado, Miguel Zenón, Stanley Clark, Arturo O’ Farrill, Robert Sund, Rolando Luna and others. In 2011, he toured the United States for the first time with Soneros De Verdad in the midst of which he performed in New York as a special guest of the famous musician Arturo O’ Farrill and his Jazz Band at Birdland.

In 2010, Pacheco recorded his album called Pacheco’s Blues in the Abdala Studios along with his quartet with Chucho Valdés and producer Joaquín Betancourt as advisors. Beatriz Márquez, a famous Cuban singer also recorded a duet called Silencio with Jorge Luis Pacheco. Pacheco has composed works for solo piano, saxophone, piano, cello, classical and popular percussion, string orchestra, jazz quartet, and symphony orchestras.

In February 2013, Pacheco won the Best Jazz Project Award in Cuba.The same year he received the Best Video clip Award in the Cubadisco Festival 2013 in the jazz category for the song Negrita Mia which he wrote and recorded in his album Pacheco’s  Blues.

_{YouTube Video – Jorge Luis Pacheco: Negrita Mía}

In 2014, Jorge Luis Pacheco traveled to the United States for an exchange with the music department at the Towson University in Maryland.  He also performed at the Cab Calloway school of music at the request of Cab Calloway’s daughter Cabella Calloway as well as the Blue Note Jazz Festival in New York.

In July 2014 Pacheco won the Audience Award and the Second Jury Award at the International Jazz Piano Competition Montreux in Switzerland. In October of 2014, Pacheco performed at the Apollo Theater in a star studded event with greats such as Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones at the request of the Jazz foundation of America. He also performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington with his quartet and solo piano as well as Snug Harbor in New Orleans.

In April, 2015, Pacheco toured the United States including a sold out debut at Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has also performed several times at Piano Night in the House of Blues in New Orleans solo as well as with his band. In November, 2015 Vanity Fair Magazine names Jorge Luis Pacheco among the most renowned young musicians at that time in an article titled The Jazz Youth-Quake: Others on the Upswing by Michael Katsobashvili.

In December, 2015 Pacheco performed duo piano with his sister Marialy Pacheco at the 30th annual International Havana Jazz Festival. In 2017 Pacheco won the best solo and performance award in the  jazz contest “Made in New York” in New York City with one of his on compositions.

On February 10, 2018 Pacheco performed a Premiere Concert of his most recent work. A Symphony for Jazz Quartet and Symphonic Orchestra at the National Theater of Cuba where, with the Hall totally sold, Pacheco showed the public a range of different sounds that were from the most classic, performed by the Symphonic Orchestra, to the most contemporary by the Jazz Quartet and where both joined to achieve a balance between both musical worlds. 

In December 2020 Pacheco recorded a new album titled The Lockdown Album where he searches  new ways to expand his horizon as a pianist and as a composer. Since classical music has played an important role throughout his career, he decided to bring both worlds together, integrating to his jazz compositions works from Chopin and Beethoven, navigating between these two worlds he loves and mixing the sounds of traditional and modern jazz with his Cuban roots.

Discography

Pacheco’s Blues [Producciones Colibri 2013 – Quartet]
Hermanos Pacheco [EGREM 2016 – Jorge Luis Pacheco and Marialy Pacheco – Live DVD]
Andino [Jorge Luis Pacheco y Javier Zalba Duo – Producciones Colibri 2018]
Con el Pache Me Voy [Independent 2018 – Quartet]
Mi Otro Yo [EGREM 2019 – Singing album with string orchestra]
The Lockdown Album [Ropeadope – Recorded in 2020 – Released in 2022]

_{YouTube Video – Jorge Luis Pacheco: Take the A train}