Arturo Sandoval & Pharrell Williams team up with Ariana Grande for a new song titled “Arturo Sandoval.”
American trumpeter Arturo Sandoval is prepping to drop his new album, Ultimate Duets. The album features Sandoval collaborating with different musicians, including Stevie Wonder, Celia Cruz, Al Jarreau, and others.
Sandoval shared a new song named after him, “Arturo Sandoval.” It features guest vocals from Ariana Grande and Pharrell Williams.
Sandoval gained attention, both in his native Cuba and internationally, in the 1970s and 1980s. The Castro’s government banned jazz, so Sandoval created his own genre mixing in local sounds. Dizzy Gillespie was a big influence and he finally met his idol in 1977.
Gillespie became Sandoval’s friend and mentor and asked him to join his United Nations Orchestra. It was during a European tour with them in 1990 that he defected to America via the American embassy in Rome (while his wife and child defected in London at the same time). In 2000 a TV movie, For Love of Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story, starring Andy Garcia as Sandoval, was made.
In 2013 Sandoval was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. He has won 10 Grammys and been nominated 19 times.
Listen to the song below.
