Welcome. I greatly appreciate your presence here and hope you find all you’re looking for easily. Your comments and/or questions are also more than welcome.

We’ve got a lot going on, both performing and recording. Of particular interest is the Filosofía Caribeña project, made possible by the East Bay Community Foundation, private donations from dozens of generous donors, the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture (NALAC), and the Ford Foundation. The first compositions of this commission will premiere at the Eastside Cultural Center in Oakland on Aug 21 and 22, 2010, performed by the John Santos Sextet with special guests, spoken word artists Kamau Daaood from Los Angeles, and Rico Pabón from Oakland. The compositions are inspired by, and reflect pan-Caribbean philosophy in regard to the ancestors, human rights, liberty, love, and resistance to colonial mentality. Filosofía will be a work-in-progress for the next year and a half or so.

We are in post-production with two recording projects:

The new John Santos Sextet recording will be called Filosofía Caribeña, and is slated for a Spring, 2011 release on Machete Records.  As always, we have some nice surprises on this one and some new directions as well. To date, we have super special guest appearances on the new CD by none other than the divine Colombian Diva, Claudia Gomez, Cuban genius singer, arranger, guitarist extraordinaire, Pável Urkiza, Los Angeles based Puerto Rican percussion master, Joey Deleón, and Bay Area percussion monster, Javier Navarrette. The Sextet’s stellar steady line up is Saul Sierra on bass, Dr. John Calloway on flute and piano, Melecio Magdaluyo on saxes, Marco Diaz on piano and trumpet, and David Flores on drumset. I’m quite fortunate to count on these exceptional artists as regular members of my group. We all feel blessed at the wonderful, continued opportunity to contribute to the evolving field of Jazz Latino and its related forms.

The new John Santos & The Coro Folklórico Kindembo CD, La Esperanza, will be released this fall to follow up our last two GRAMMY-nominated CDs, Para Ellos (2004) and La Guerra No (2008). Among the distinguished guests on this new effort are legendary musicians from New York, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the San Francisco Bay Area, including tresero Nelson Gonzalez, percussionists Little Johnny Rivero, Jose Clausell, Anthony Carrillo, Roberto Borrell, Sandy Perez, Jesus Diaz, Harold Muñíz, Chris Walker, and Javier Navarrette, vocalists Lázaro Galarraga, Fito Reinoso, Willie Ludwig, Jose Luis Gomez, Orlando Torriente, trombonists Jimmy Bosch and Raul Navarrette, pianist Elio Villafranca, bassists Luques Curtis and Eddie Resto, and tresero Camilo Landau, in addition to the wonderful coro consisting of Ismael Rodriguez, Reynalda Nuñez, Barbara Valladares, Carol Steele, Elena Pinderhughes, and Iluminado Maldonado.

With the 2009 passing of two dear friends and colleagues, Ron Stallings (1946-2009), and Marlon Mayorga (1968-2009), both of whom were fierce soldiers in the fields of social justice, community service, and the arts, we re-commit ourselves to the ongoing international struggles for peace and justice and add our voices to the collective movement against those who destroy our communities and the environment. Your continued support means the world to us. Much health and many blessings to you and yours.

1000 thanx for your support!

Looking forward . . . John