CHILL JAZZ SEBASTIÁN
JORDÁN QUINTET

Initially a trained horn player, he soon switched to the saxophone, studying the basics with the legendary altoist Carmelo Bustos and then completed his training as a modern tenor player with Marcos Aldana. His career as an improviser and soloist reached its height in the early 2000s, when he established a close musical relationship with trumpeter Sebastián Jordán. With him, Moya brought back the figure of the old jazz tandems of trumpet and tenor, which had been somewhat lost at the time.

That year he joined the Ensemble Quintessence as first tenor, and in 2006 he joined the group Pulso as soloist and composer, recording the album Litio (2008) along with Vera, Quevedo and Baeza. After a stay in New York, where he was a student of saxophonist Dave Liebman, Moya decided to return to expand his quartet to an acoustic quintet, with Quevedo himself on piano, and thus develop a work centred on the broad dimensions of contemporary composition: Infinito (2009). Contrasting with that proposal, Moya described a return to the roots of club jazz and the essence of live improvisation, trying out the classical quartet format, together with the American pianist Joel Holmes and the rhythm section of Eduardo Peña (double bass) and Félix Lecaros (drums). Recorded live at the Thelonious club, their album was called Espacio Elástico (2011)

After a five-year break from his compositional and leadership work, Moya returned to organise another creative quartet in a classical format. This time he recruited a non-Chilean pianist for the session of the album Paréntesis (2016), which he would premiere once again at an edition of the Providencia Jazz Festival, as he had done a decade earlier. Moya brought together the Argentine Leo Genovese and completed the rhythm section with Rodrigo Espinoza (double bass) and Félix Lecaros (drums). At the same time, he began a recording session of selected standards for the Vértigo label, which he would release each year with Maxi Flynn (double bass) and Carlos Cortés (drums) in the five volumes of Standards Sessions, now in the format inspired by the piano-less trio of Sonny Rollins, one of his main heroes

Bachelor of Arts with a major in Music Theory, he is a professor specialising in Music Theory at the Faculty of Arts at Universidad de Chile and Master of Music mention in Piano Jazz at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Munich, Germany. His productions Vieja Escuela (2016), Forastero (2018), Far Away (2019), Mixture (2020) and Dadinirt (2021) stand out. He is the author of the book Manual para el Aprendizaje de la Clave Americana and co-author of Solfeos Latinoamericanos. He currently teaches piano at the Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano and Universidad Alberto Hurtado.

He has been one of the strongest and most active double bass players in contemporary jazz since the second half of the 2000s, when he began his series of activities with pianist Moncho Romero’s trio. His voluminous and deep sound appeared on a dozen jazz albums, while expanding his musical frontiers by joining Natalia Contesse’s Latin American music ensemble, which gave him a musical presence in front of new audiences. In a landscape of regular double bass accompanists, Espinoza made his debut as a composer and leader in 2018 with the album Siete Flores Negras. In the period from the 2000s to 2010, Espinoza multiplied in a series of jazz projects that set the pace of the circuit, playing in trios, quartets, quintets and ensembles, and recording albums representative of the era: Pataphysics (2010) with guitarist Sebastián Prado’s quintet; El Valle del Tiempo (2012) with pianist Mario Feito’s trio; Ocho Chino (2013) with clarinettist Mauricio Barraza’s quintet; Música del Eterno Retorno (2013) by guitarist Armando Ulloa’s quartet; Shah Mat (2014) by guitarist Diego Riedemann’s quartet; Begs the Question (2014) by vibraphonist Diego Urbano’s quartet; Trapecista (2015) by trumpeter Sebastián Jordán’s quintet; Paréntesis (2016) by tenor player Agustín Moya’s quartet, Hombre al Sur (2016) by guitarist Raimundo Santander’s small orchestra; Félix Lecaros Standards Trío (2022) by drummer Félix Lecaros, and Ciclos (2022), by pianist Camilo Aliaga.

Carlos Cortés trained with percussion master Mario Baeza, and drum master Ricardo Ruiz. Simultaneously, he studied Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music with maestros Sidney da Silva, José Izquierdo and David Ortega.

As an instrumentalist he has played and recorded with outstanding musicians of the Chilean and international jazz scene: Aaron Parks, Greg Osby, Drew Gress, Stu Mindeman, Maria Creuza, Hernán Jacinto, Cristián Galvez, Sebastián Jordán, Jorge Díaz, Cristián Cuturrufo, Agustín Moya, Ensemble Quintessense and Francesca Ancarola.

In the popular sphere, he is currently drummer for Ana Tijoux and Nano Stern. In the pedagogical field he took part in the first percussion seminar organised by the Academia Musical de Extensión, as well teaching private lessons.

Carlos is an exclusive artist of Bosphorus Cymbals and Grech Drumdealer.

Sebastián Jordán is the most prominent trumpet player in Chilean jazz, having established himself as a soloist in the 2000s. He graduated with a rank of excellence from the orchestras Irazú (1997) and Los Andes Big Band (1998), becoming an exemplar in regards to this instrument from his generation, establishing his own discourse with a deep and lyrical tone, through his projects as a soloist-leader and his multiple participations as a sideman in the contemporary scene. Thus, he became the successor of Cristián Cuturrufo in the trumpet timeline of Chilean jazz.

After his time in both big bands, the first oriented towards Afro-Cuban jazz and the second linked to swing, Jordán ended up making a name for himself on the 2000s music scene. Initially trained by the learned trumpeter Cristián Muñoz, he soon passed into the hands of experienced jazzmen, where he acquired the language that would later make him a star. He recorded the album Chile Jazz (1998) with pianist Moncho Romero, and in 2000 he joined Roberto Lecaros and his hard bop quintet project La Tropa. In this band he developed a hard bop side obtained from his primary mentor, Clifford Brown, and he also met the man who would become his soul mate in jazz, the tenor player Agustín Moya. Together they would continue to follow the path, performing as an indissoluble duo for recordings by bassist Pablo Lecaros, singer Ammy Amorette, and guitarists Nicolás Vera and Roberto Dañobeitía. In 2002, Jordán extended his work towards funk and groove music, integrating the brass sections of bands such as the popular Chancho en Piedra and Alüzinati. Yet he kept his particular bop style unchanged; the same one that led him to play with Claudia Acuña’s band during her 2004 visit to the Teatro Municipal, in 2005 in the contemporary jazz project Ensamble Quintessence as first trumpet and in 2006 to tour Sweden with double bassist René Sandoval’s quintet (which later recorded his compositions Perro Hambriento, New Friends or Intermission).

Back in Chile, he explored his compositional side and led his first solo project, a pianoless chamber jazz trio with double bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Andy Baeza. That trio was combined with a powerful Blue Note roots quintet that Jordán put together with Agustín Moya (tenor), Lautaro Quevedo (piano), Menares himself (double bass) and Félix Lecaros (drums). With them he recorded his first album, Afluencia (2009).  A year later, Jordán went a step further in his leadership proposal by rescuing the rhythm section of that album and leading a second trio without piano to record Cobre (2010), a work that was released by the label he co-founded that year: Discos Pendientes.

His participation continued immediately with recordings for this label: Happy Blues (2011, with Nicolás Vera and Sebastián González) and Interstelar Trío (2013, with Roberto Dañobeitía and Eduardo Peña).

In 2014 he embarked on a journey that would be decisive in his new creative approach. In New York he immersed himself in the poetics, aesthetics and music of the classic clubs and new spaces, listening to the live performances of some of the great names of that time: Jeff Tain Watts, Christian McBride, Brad Mehldau and Wynton Marsalis. Upon his return, and inspired by this experience, he took up the idea of the Blue Note quintet format, and together with Agustín Moya (tenor sax), Sebastián Castro (piano), Rodrigo Espinoza (double bass) and Carlos Cortés (drums), he recorded his album Trapecista (2015).