Grammy-winning composer, bandleader, and pianist Arturo O'Farrill has fulfilled what he calls 'a lifelong dream' with his signing to Blue Note Records and the release of his Blue Note debut '...dreaming in lions...'. The album finds O'Farrill leading a colorful 10-piece assemblage he calls The Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble, a scaled-down edition of his renowned Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. The program encompasses two inspired multi-movement suites that O'Farrill has conceived in collaboration with the Cuban Malpaso Dance Company: 'Despedida,' a meditation on farewells, and 'Dreaming in Lions,' inspired by Ernest Hemingway's novella 'The Old Man and the Sea'. For O'Farrill, suites afford the space to convey extended narratives and cinematic ideas, a broadness of scope and intent that interests him most as a composer.
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