Dalton — Not even a cactus? That’s right. Natalia Bernal comes from a place in Chile so arid it lacks even cacti. The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on Earth, and it is where Natalia spent years listening to the hotel elevator music that got her interested in jazz. (I am not making this up. She explains everything in the interview below.) Natalia and her band will launch her new album “En Diablada” on Saturday, November 30, 7:30 p.m., at Dalton’s Stationery Factory.
One of a new wave of Latin American jazz musicians who fuse Latin roots and world influences, Natalia sings originals and standards in Spanish, English, and Portuguese,
Based in New York City since 2008, Natalia has released “La Voz de Tres” with her trio, Bernal/Eckroth/Ennis, and recorded several projects with musicians, including Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez, and has performed with Gloria Estefan, Israel “Cachao” Lopez, Ruben Blades, and Paquito D’Rivera.
Natalia has her own way of defining jazz, and it couldn’t be more straightforward. She writes and sings using the musical language she learned as a child in her native Chile—a language she later perfected at Berklee College of Music. Every note of music she produces is rooted in the jazz sound world of her youth.
I had the opportunity this week to speak with Natalia by telephone. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
EDGE
You’re from Chile?
BERNAL
That is correct.
EDGE
And, and in particular, the Atacama Desert.
BERNAL
Where I’m from, you won’t even find a cactus. I grew up in the town of Iquique, which is a fisherman’s town between the Pacific Ocean and the desert. And it’s quite the contrast to where we are right now.
EDGE
And you grew up listening to the music from that region?
BERNAL
Yes. I had a very, very special upbringing because my family’s business was hotels, and I lived in a hotel until I was 15. So, what often happens in hotels is that there’s ambient music. So I heard “elevator music,” as I learned to call it later, everywhere in my life, even in the bathroom. So by the time I was ready to go to college, somebody handed me my first real book, and I realized that my time listening to ambient music had prepared me to know all the American standards.
EDGE
Do you call yourself a jazz musician?
BERNAL
I do. Just like I call myself trilingual. Jazz is the language through which I learned to read and write music. It became the common language with musicians that had interests in learning about all the nuances of Latin American music, all of the intricacies in the subdivisions of six-eight over two against three, and all of that. So, yeah, jazz became, like, Spanish and English and Portuguese to me.
EDGE
So no matter what you write, you call it jazz.
BERNAL
Exactly. Especially because, to me, in my brain, this is very personal. I hope not to offend anybody, but to me, there’s a very fine line between jazz and Brazilian music, which was the beginning language for my introduction to Latin jazz music in the United States. I didn’t particularly blend in with Afro-Caribbean styles, because it was so far from my native culture. But that was what Latin jazz was in the United States.
EDGE
So, should we expect to hear Cuban influences in your music?
BERNAL
Well, that came later. I will be joined by an amazing group of musicians on the 30th, and one of them is Mike Eckroth, the pianist I have been working with for 17 years. Mike is a professor at Miami University, and he has a Ph.D. from NYU in Cuban music. And he will be performing some of his Afro-Caribbean repertoire with me. So the sound of Cuban music will be there. There’s actually a little surprise duet that we’ve been working on, an Arsenio Rodriguez tune.
EDGE
What’s your native language?
BERNAL
Spanish.
EDGE
Is your following Hispanic? Or are they mainly jazzers?
BERNAL
Both. Someone looking for home and identity can enjoy my music if they like improvisation and creation on the spot.
EDGE
Let’s talk about the songs you will perform at the Stationery Factory.
BERNAL
I think the songs are quite cinematic. They tell a story, and very often I’ve been told they should be used in film. Some of them actually have been. There are two songs we will perform that have been used in independent films.
EDGE
And do those films relate to your home country?
BERNAL
Yes. One of them was a documentary film about sheep herders brought from Patagonia to the flats of Idaho. It depicted that vast expanse and that loneliness and contemplation and strength of character.
EDGE
Can you talk more about what we can expect to hear at the Stationery Factory?
BERNAL
My secret weapon is the band. Mark Walker, who was my teacher at Berklee, is Paquito D’Rivera’s drummer. I have learned so much from him, because Paquito has always defined himself as a pan-American jazz musician. I have always felt at home with this basic lineup of percussion—with people who understand the intricacies of the different claves of the southern part of the Americas. So I think what you can expect at the Stationery Factory is music in styles portrayed true to form. So when I say, “This is Andean jazz,” it’s because we are really digging deep into all the subdivisions that are in that world. Same thing with South American styles.
EDGE
How much of your set will be original material?
BERNAL
It will be half. And the range of styles will go from the folkloric style of Uruguay, my mom’s country, to huayno, the original Andean form that I’m using.
EDGE
And the other half will be standards?
BERNAL
Jazz standards and Latin American standards. There will be music from Cuba, from Argentina, and from Brazil.
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Hear Natalia Bernal and band launch her new album “En Diablada” on Saturday, November 30, 7:30 p.m., at the Stationery Factory, 63 Flansburg Ave. Dalton, MA 01226. More information and tickets are available here.
