Sandoval Proves to Be a Jack of All Trades

If Arturo Sandoval were paid by the note, or by the amount of energy he expends in a performance, he’d be a rich man. He not only drives his trumpet with astounding speed and stratospheric range, but he does so in the context of a presentation style that proceeds at an almost breathless pace.

On Friday night at Founders Hall in the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Sandoval and his quintet started in high gear with a new original composition. “It’s called,” he said, with a sly grin, “ ‘2000,’ ” then proceeded to signal in the millennium with a rapid-fire improvisation, pouring out notes, scouring the trumpet from top to bottom. Other pieces--”Rhythm of Our World” was one--were similarly virtuosic.

But technical expertise, despite Sandoval’s extraordinary skills, only represented one element in the arsenal of musical talents he offered an overflow crowd.

Before the first tune was over, he had picked up a pair of drum sticks and attacked the set of timbales at his side, playing with the skill and articulateness of a professional percussionist. A few moments later, he was filling in bass lines and melodic accents on a synthesizer keyboard.

And, in a particularly impressive showcase performance, he moved to the piano to play a number that managed to blend rhapsodic flourishes with brisk, McCoy Tyner-like chording and floating bebop lines. As with his drumming, Sandoval’s piano performance was at a high professional level. If he ever gets bored with the trumpet, he has a waiting career as a jazz pianist.

And that still wasn’t the end of it. Stepping to the microphone as a singer, he offered a surprisingly sweet, laid-back rendering of “When I Fall in Love.” Finally, in what was the most astonishing and entertaining segment of his program, he dug into an impressive display of improvised scat singing. Sandoval’s remarkable vocal range and control allowed him to produce startlingly far-reaching lines--comparable to Bobby McFerrin’s double and triple octave leaps. And the embouchure control demanded by his trumpet playing permitted him to execute amazingly rapid, instrumental-like vocal lines. The jazz woods may not be filled with many authentic competitors, but, by almost any estimation, Sandoval is the best jazz scat singer in the world, his instrumentalist’s sense of line, harmony and swing unsurpassed.

A U.S. citizen since December 1998, Sandoval, 50, used his many talents in a fashion that was entertaining without demeaning its creativity.

That attractive combination of qualities has characterized his work--which ranges from classical to jazz--as a performer and educator (yet another of his activities) since his arrival in the United States a decade ago.

It’s no wonder that an HBO biography, reportedly starring Andy Garcia, is in the works, and one suspects that his enthusiastic Foundation Room audience will be among the first to tune in to see the completed production.