Luis Gasca played and recorded with Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Count Basie, Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, Janis Joplin (including Woodstock), Santana (3rd and 4th album), Van Morrison (Tupelo Honey), Grateful Dead (Ace), Jefferson Starship, Herbie Hancock, Stanley Clarke, Hubert Laws and others.

On Nov. 21 he will be playing a tribute to Count Basie, Santana, Tito Puente along with Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra. He will be joined by SpyBoyz, Gabriel Hernandez All Star Cuban Orchestra, Maria, JK O'Donnel, Johnny Favorite and others. Watch for more information in San Miguel Events (www.sanmiguelevents.com)

Trumpeter Luis Gasca has been inspiring awe with brilliant music for over fifty years. He has worked with and known the greats. He was one of the few friends that Dr. John (Mac Rebennack, who some claim was a Senegalese prince, and a medicinal and spiritual healer) turned to during a low point in his life, before his comeback with Makin’ Whoopee- part of the sound track for Sleepless in Seattle.

Luis Gasca is a live wire. Legend is he’s had his share of almost clichéd bad boy behavior, along with Jazz Fest gospel tent-like redemption, and atonement. He is thriving and inspired. And his energy level may be speeding up rather than slowing down.

“It's the thirst and hunger for music that compels me,” he shared. “I’ll never lose that.”

Luis was raised in Houston, along with four brothers and one sister. He did not come from a musical family. His parents were hard workers; they prepared and sold tamales for Mexican Independence Day Fiestas. Luis recalls climbing a chicken wire fence where his parents sold tamales, because he heard music. Trumpets. He saw two rotund performers with gleaming trumpets lifted to their lips, and people swirling and twirling to the polka. He was mesmerized by the spiraling movements of dancers, but mostly by the sound. He was seduced by the evocative music. It was a defining moment.

At 15, he was playing well enough to get gigs in Houston. He got his professional start at 16 in Beto Villa's Tex-Mex polka band. He was very, very hip. He graduated to playing with Isidro Lopez and then Little Joe y La Familia, working on the groundbreaking “Para La Gente” album, which was famous for the Chicano anthem “Las Nubes.”

By 17, he’d been discovered through a contest in Down Beat magazine, and at 18 he found himself in New York City playing every weekend with the best, while attending Berklee School of Music in Boston during the week, on a scholarship.

He was living in Acapulco at 21, playing the clubs, when his Momma called and told him “Uncle Sam wants you.” The next thing he knew he was in Ft. Polk, Louisiana.

After serving in the military he played music in Japan. “Long live the geishas” he chuckled in his inimitable style. Upon his return he lived in Oahu, playing trumpet in Waikiki, before the streets were even paved.

I asked when he first knew he had a rare gift. “When I was playing with Perez Prado, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White. You don’t have many songs that are instrumental and big hits. There was no vocalist, just trumpet solos.”

Luis speaks about the trumpet in a reverent tone. ”It’s a very demanding instrument…more demanding than any woman. And I’ll never quit learning it,” he continued. He acknowledges his perfectionism.

I got that at an early age: Never let anything slide. I have a hunger and a thirst for music. That love for something, that is the impetus to make you never never quit, to make you give it your all. That love cannot be taught. One has to love the music and the knowledge. I’m 100 % joyous playing music with other masters.

He played Woodstock with Janis Joplin, pioneered Chicano rock with Beto Villa and Little Joe Hernandez, befriended César Chávez and stretched the boundaries of Latin jazz with albums “Little Giant Collage” and “For Those Who Chant.”

He didn’t want to be a West coast trumpet player, or a Big Easy trumpet player. He listened to and emulated New York City trumpet players. Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Clark Terry, Lee Morgan, Blue Mitchell and Freddie Hubbard. The greats. “And sax player Cannonball Adderley, and John Coltrane” he added.

“It was 1959 in New York City and I was there playing music; it’s a window of time we’ll never see again. You can’t go back. My time in New York was well…I don’t want to blow my horn too much… but I recorded and toured with the great American institution of the time, Count Basie.

“He was one of a kind. We were commissioned after a peer review; not hired, not told what to do. And when I received my commission to play with Count Basie and 17 others, also commissioned and mostly black, what we created exuded a beautiful, magical spirit. Count never said a word…he didn’t tell us what to do. You had 18 musicians operating as if we were one organism; that’s how One O’Clock Jump was created. Just like that; the knowing without saying a word.”

He referred to Count Basie as the kid from Red Bank (New Jersey.) “The world could be crashing down around him and he’d be sitting at the piano going ‘plink plink’ just as calm as he could be, deep into the music. Playing with him was like having climbed Mt. Everest and reaching the pinnacle. No one came close to being the leader that Basie was.

“As a matter of fact, the music we’ll be playing here on November 21st is from Frank Sinatra and Count Basie’s performances, in Las Vegas. Quincy Jones and Nelson Riddle were the arrangers for Live at the Sands. It was the first time Sinatra played with a black orchestra.

“I have the music. I got it from the Sinatra Foundation. They sell CD’s and even spaghetti sauce to keep the music available and alive. I procured the music we’ll be performing through this foundation, and I decided the only thing to do- the right thing, the obvious thing- was to play this great music with some modern day greats.

“I do it for me and I do it to help- there are so many people in need right here and so many important issues to bring attention to, and help.

“We’ll play Fly Me to the Moon, New York New York, Don’t Worry about Me, Get Me to the Church on Time, and My Way. Don Costa was the arranger for that. I went to Norway with Costa, Flip Wilson, and Burl Ives. We performed for the King of Norway and took the Norwegian line back, the S. S. Norway.

“I’m creating a tribute. I believe in this and so I didn’t have any problem putting myself, my money and my energy on the line. This thing is too big not to do. I’ve put together transportation, housing, rehearsals plus, I’m the music director. We have imported people to play who are top gun. I get to perform some of the best songs ever written and to play with a 17 piece orchestra of fantastic musicians from different locales in Mexico.

“What I enjoyed in New York, playing and touring in that window of time, the 60’s, has been gone for a long, long time. But I must continue to do what I believe in and bring this gift of music, our own time in a bottle, to the people, today. New York was so gorgeous and magical then; I’m as excited as I can be to bring it to life, here in San Miguel de Allende. I am personally very grateful to have the opportunity to play trumpet with these fine performers, playing such excellent music, and being able to contribute to those in need.

“I thank all the people who support these projects. There are so many individuals, children, teens, adults, who are hurting and need our help. We are doing this fund raiser/musical re-creation at the time of Thanksgiving because that’s what we are doing; we are giving thanks. Casita Linda, Feed the Hungry, the Biblioteca are all performing services that help so many people. I support Save the Planet, too; water is a problem we have to address here and globally.

“We did a show recently made possible by Dos Buhos bodega, the Two Owls, which is 6 km outside of SMA, toward Queretaro. The owner was kind enough to donate over 200 bottles of wine for the wine tasting/food paring, and we raised money playing music and entertaining folks who came out, like I hope you do on Nov. 21st at the Real de Minos Hotel at 7:00 p.m. Music. Dining. Dancing.

“We are supporting great causes and we hope you will be transported by the remarkable music, right here in San Miguel de Allende, MX.

“I want to add that Denise Perrier is coming from San Francisco; she just performed at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in Lincoln Center, in New York. She is a cross between Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald with overtones of Dinah Washington who sang What a Difference a Day Makes.

read more about Denise Perrier