Bobby Sanabria
2025 THOMAS SCHROTH MEMORIAL VISITING ARTIST SERIES
Bobby Sanabria
Drummer, Percussionist, Composer, Arranger, Bandleader, Educator
Collaborators: Ambre Emory-Maier, Matt Holm, Bobby Selvaggio, Daniel Diaz Nilsson, Nick Petrella
A graduate of the Berklee College of Music, drummer, percussionist, composer, arranger, documentary film producer, activist, radio host, writer, and multi-Grammy nominated as a leader, Bobby Sanabria is a native Nuyorican son of the South Bronx. His versatility as both a drummer and percussionist from small group to big band has become legendary. He's performed and recorded with every major figure in the history of Latin jazz, jazz, and salsa, with such legends as Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Eddie Palmieri, Paquito D'Rivera, Candido, Charles McPherson, Larry Harlow, Ruben Blades, Celia Cruz, and the Father of Afro-Cuban jazz, Mario Bauzá as his drummer for 9 years touring and recording on his major Grammy nominated albums. He is the leader of Quarteto Aché, Sexteto Ibiano, Ascensión, and his Multiverse Big Band. His big band albums have all been nominated for Grammys for a total of nine, including Afro-Cuban Dream: Live & In Clave!!!, Big Band Urban FolkTales, Multiverse (double Grammy nominated), and West Side Story Reimagined which was awarded the Jazz Journalists Record of the Year Award for 2019 and hailed as a masterpiece by the Wall Street Journal, as well as Kenya Revisited Live!!! and Tito Puente Masterworks Live!!!, with Bobby conducting the Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, including his most recent Grammy nomination for VOX HUMANA with his Multiverse Big Band for the 2024 Grammys. DRUM! Magazine named him Percussionist of the Year (2005); he was named Percussionist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2011 and 2013. He has been named one of the top ten percussionists in the world by the readers and critics of Downbeat magazine for the last 10 years and is a member of Max Roach's legendary percussion ensemble M'BOOM. Mr. Sanabria has composed the music for several award winning, critically acclaimed documentaries - From Mambo to Hip Hip: A South Bronx Tale (2006) where he was also a producer, consultant and on air personality, Some Girls (2017), and La Madrina: The Savage Life of Loraine Padilla (2020). Other documentaries he has been featured in on screen and acted as a consultant, producer are, The Palladium: Where Mambo Was King (2003), Latin Music U.S.A. (2006), We Like It Like That: The Story of Latin Boogaloo (2015), and Let's Get The Rhythm 2016). In 2012 Maestro Sanabria was selected by legendary jazz pianist Herbie Hancock to represent Latin jazz with his Quarteto Ache' as part of the first Annual UNESCO International Day of Jazz at the United Nations
Among his numerous awards include induction into the 2006 Bronx Walk of Fame, the 2018 Jazz Education Network's LeJENS of Latin Jazz Award and being honored by his name being read into the U.S. Congressional Record by Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio in 2008. In 2019 he was named Godfather/Padrino of the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City. He was recently bestowed an Honorary Doctorate by Lehman College in New York. He is on the faculty of New School University (his 28th year), is the Co-Artistic Director of the Bronx Music Heritage Center/Bronx Music Hall, and is the host of the Latin Jazz Cruise on WBGO FM, America's leading jazz station. His lifetime dedication to spreading the history, culture, of jazz and Latin jazz to the general public as a performer, as well as educating a new generation of players, composers, arrangers, has no parallel. His latest critically acclaimed double CD with his Multiverse Big Band, VOX HUMANA, recorded live at Dizzy's, NYC features vocalists Janis Siegel, Antoinette Montague and Jennifer Jade Ledesna and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Latin Jazz recording (2024).
Video:
Website:
Facebook:
Instagram: