The Nicko Guerrero Trio performed a set of Colombian-inspired jazz and original compositions at the Medford Jazz Fest 2026.
[Terry Carter]: ladies and gentlemen, Nico Guerrero Trio.
[9ncl8u0PCp0_SPEAKER_03]: Hello. All right. Buenas tardes. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for coming today. Thank you so much to Jonathan Fagan, West Fork Community Center, and all the people that is making this possible. So happy to be here. We're going to have fun. This first song is called Bacatá. Bacatá is the indigenous name of Bogotá. Bogotá is the capital of Colombia, where I come from. And when I composed this song that belongs to my album that actually is releasing next week called Purabulla,
When I composed this song, I was thinking about this chaotic city, but also its beauty. So all the dynamics and all the texture that I wanted to have implied in this song was kind of like this chaos, like the traffic when you go to New York, or even like here, Boston, this kind of chaotic, and then put in there, but also its beauty, when it's like a big city cosmopolitan with all the people that live there, and all the things that make this a great city.
The next song that we're gonna play is called Fandango de Luna. And then Fandango de Luna is based on a rhythm called Fandango de Lengua. That I call Fandango de Lengua as the Colombian blues. Because it's the root of most of the Colombian and traditional Colombian music we have down there. So this song tells a story about the moon and the sun while they're dancing in the skies of this small town that we're referring at the introduction is called San Basilio Palenque. So I hope you enjoy.
Keeping with this journey, I've been really interested in researching about my roots and the Colombian music. And then when I was doing this field trips or like work where I based my research for the album, I had the opportunity to stay with one of the people from the community down there who hosts me for like 10 days in a hammock in his backyard. So I composed this song just because I was so grateful that I met him and then he allowed me to do my research and more like we just shared time like as a family. So this next song is called Ambrosio.
All right, so that was What You Needed by the great Thelonious Monk. I just did like this fandango, the lengua groove. This next song is called El Viajero, that means the traveler. All right, thank you so much. This last song is called Ritual. It's a song that portrays one of the rituals that the San Basilio de Palenque community has when someone dies, so it's like a death ritual, and it's very spiritual, so I wanted to portray this. Now, I just wanna say thank you again to all the people that make this possible, of course, all of you that are here. This last song is called Matato, and then it tells a story about a fish that got into a fight with a bull, And then the fish won the fight and he kills the bull. So the name of this song is Matato. Thank you so much again for coming here.
Samuel Serra on Vibes, Greg Loveman on bass. Thank you so much for being here.
[Terry Carter]: Nico, why don't you introduce the members of the band once again?
[9ncl8u0PCp0_SPEAKER_03]: We have Maestro Samuel Serra on Vibes from Italy. We have from New England, Maestro Greg Loveman on bass.
[Terry Carter]: All right, and from Bogota, Colombia, Nico Guerrero. All right, thank you very much. Okay, so we're in the midst of a changeover. You will next be hearing from the Berklee Institute of Global Jazz, and we're excited. Again, they've been a partner pretty much since the inception of the Jazz Festival here in West Virginia.