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.

I remain completely humbled and grateful by the 2011 Community Leadership Award bestowed upon me and twelve others (5 adults and 8 high school students) by the San Francisco Foundation. It is an award that means a great deal to me in my efforts to honor the ancestors and community leaders upon whose shoulders we stand. We are equally honored that all the members of our Sextet as well as our newest CD, Filosofía Caribeña, Vol. 1, were nominated by the Latin Jazz Corner for Best of 2011 recognition. Saxophonist Melecio Magdaluyo and I (in the Best Latin Jazz Percussionist category) won the Reader’s Poll in our respective categories.

We’ve been in the studio a great deal recently collaborating with some of the most important artists representing Puerto Rican and Cuban traditions in the US and Cuba including Juan Gutierrez (Los Pleneros de la 21), Alex LaSalle (Alma Moyó), Julia Gutierrez Rivera (Los Pleneros de la 21), Orlando “Maraca” Valle, Hector Lugo (Mixta Criolla), Rico Pabón, Orlando Torriente, Sandra García Rivera, Sandy Pérez (Afro Cuba de Matanzas), Anna Pérez (Los Muñequitos de Matanzas), Luis Cancino (Los Muñequitos de Matanzas), and Jesus Diaz, as well as with legendary Jazz trombonist, Steve Turre. Don’t know if we’ll be able to release anything in 2012 yet due to financial restrictions (big surprise, right?), but we will continue to write, record, collaborate, edit, mix, and produce so that the recordings will be the best we can offer when they do come out

We are still in the midst of the ongoing battle with NARAS (The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) to get them to rescind their horrendous and culturally insensitive decree, unceremoniously handed down in April to eliminate Latin Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Traditional World, Polka, Native American, Hawaiian, Zydeco, Cajun, Traditional Blues, Rhythm & Blues, and many other very important categories from Grammy consideration. Please visit Grammywatch.org for all the relevant background info, a petition to sign, email and snail mail addresses of the heads of NARAS where you can voice your outrage, and letters to and from NARAS. We are calling for an international boycott of the Grammy telecast (Sunday, February 12) and all their advertisers and sponsors. Details of how you can help with that will be forthcoming soon at Grammywatch.org.  With enough constant public pressure we can get them to overturn their ill-advised decision. So please help us go viral and get the word out everywhere. THANK YOU for your support with this important issue.

John Santos & The Coro Folklórico Kindembo’s latest CD, La Esperanza, is out and available on CDbaby.com!!! It is the follow up to our last two GRAMMY-nominated CDs, Para Ellos (2004) and La Guerra No (2008), all on my Machete Records label. La Esperanza received a four star review from DOWNBEAT magazine in June!!!

Filosofía Caribeña Vol. 1, by The John Santos Sextet was released on May 1st in honor of International Worker’s Day and is available on my website and at cdbaby.com. Filosofía was also honored with a rare four and a half star review from DOWNBEAT magazine in June!  As always, we have some nice surprises on this one and some new directions as well. Filosofía has super special guest appearances by none other than jazz royalty, Steve Turre, the divine Colombian Diva, Claudia Gomez, Cuban genius singer, arranger, guitarist extraordinaire, Pável Urkiza, Los Angeles based Puerto Rican percussion master, Joey Deleón, Bay Area percussion monster, Javier Navarrette, and vocal chorus work by Willie Ludwig and Beatríz Godinez Muñíz. 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.

January, 2012 will be the premiere of a new project for me called Uncommon Time, a composing and performing collaboration with master percussionists Kenny Endo (Taiko), and Abhijit Banerjee (tabla). For booking The John Santos Sextet, contact me (machete@earthlink.net). For info and booking Uncommon Time, contact Karen Fischer (karen@pasifika-artists.com).

So, while the economy is in the perpetual dumpster created by the lovely combination of greed and a system that has utterly failed and abandoned it’s citizens, we as most artists, are doing our best to stay afloat and continue creating in an environment that is hostile to say the least. We are eternally grateful for the generosity of those who have reached out and continue to support live music and the arts, providing a lifeline that flies in the face of those who would silence us.

In the names of five dear friends and colleagues, Gregorio “Goyo” Hernandez (1936-2012), Guillermo “Negro” Triana (1940-2011),  Piri Thomas (1928-2011), Eddie Marshall (1938-2011), Ron Stallings (1946-2009), and Marlon Mayorga (1968-2009), all 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. OCCUPY YOR HEART!

1000 thanx!

Looking forward . . . John