Amanda Martinez: Recuerdo @ Koerner Hall – TD Toronto Jazz Festival

One of the great new voices in Spanish language Latin music” (World Music Central),  Amanda Martinez is releasing her highly anticipated new album, Recuerdo, with a joyful feel-good concert at beautiful Koerner Hall. This special evening features special guests Rebecca Hennesy, Aviva Chernick, Donne Roberts, Waleed Abdulhamid, and Jorge Lopez, along with Amanda Martinez’s incomparable band of 20 years: Kevin Laliberté on guitar, Birston on bass; Rosendo “Chendy” Leon on percussion; Alexander Brown on trumpet and violinist Osvaldo Rodriguez. 

Produced by Amanda Martinez’s longtime guitarist Kevin Laliberté and co-produced by her husband, bassist Drew Birston, Recuerdo is a daring departure that incorporates elements of world fusion, Cuban rhythms and an injection of English pop that is her most adventurous album to date. It is dedicated to the memory of her father Gustavo, who bicycled to Toronto from Mexico in 1956 and from whom she says “I got my love of music.”

Amanda Martinez has sold out Ottawa’s National Arts Centre and Toronto’s Koerner Hall and Winter Garden Theatres. She has performed internationally including the Dubai International Jazz Festival (with Jesse Cook), at 2010’s FIFA World Cup Festivities in South Africa and the Pan-American Games in Guadalajara and at New York City’s highly esteemed Blue Note Jazz Club.