January 24: Afro Peruvian Jazz Concert In Washington DC

Speaking of Peruvian jazz, we got this tip from our friend Carlos over at Peruanista (Spanish) and Carlos @ DC (English), regarding Gabriel Alegria's Afro Peruvian Sextet performing at a benefit concert in Washington DC on January 24.

This event has the added bonus of being a fundraiser for earthquake victims in Peru, as well as to showcase the group's new CD, Nuevo Mundo.

Gabriel Alegria's Afro Peruvian Sextet

Gabriel Alegría is a Peruvian trumpeter and composer who has developed a unique form of world jazz which combines his distinctive approach to the jazz trumpet with the rich heritage of Afro Peruvian music.

Alegría's Afro Peruvian Sextet features saxophonist Laurandrea Leguía; acoustic guitarist Yuri Juárez; bassist Ramon De Bruyn; drummer Hugo Alcázar; and, master percussionist Freddy Huevito Lobatón, who plays two traditional Afro-Peruvian instruments: the box drum, cajón, and the quijada, made from a jaw bone.


Their compositions add spectacular passages of zapateo, Afro Peruvian step dancing, to each performance.

Their upcoming DC concert will showcase music from Alegria's forthcoming CD, Nuevo Mundo. All proceeds will be allocated to the post-earthquake reconstruction efforts in Southern Peru.

Specifically, proceeds will target the purchase and delivery of construction materials to homes in El Carmen, a predominant Afro Peruvian district in the town of Chincha, south of Lima, which has spawned important Afro Peruvian musical artists, and which was greatly affected by the the recent earthquake.

A native of Lima, Gabriel Alegría is the founder and artistic director of Jazz Peru International, the premier jazz arts and cultural exchange organization in Peru, as well as the producer of the annual Festival Internacional Jazz Perú. Alegría was recently named Associate Director of the Jazz Studies Program at New York University.

Website: Gabriel Alegría
Music Video: Gabriel Alegría Afro Peruvian Jazz Sextet
When? Thursday, January 24, 2008, 9:30 p.m.
Where? Busboys and Poets, 2021 14th Street NW, DC
Cost? $20/$15 students with ID
More info? Carlos Quiroz @ 202-491-4672 or @ qc.carlos@gmail.com


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TAGS: Peru, Peruvian, food, cooking, cuisine, cocina, comida, gastronomía, peruana

On The Blogs: Peruvian Jazz And Arroz Con Pato @ The Kitchen Diary

Peruvian food seems to be everywhere these days. This is the first of a new feature here at Peru Food in which I will comment and link to what other bloggers are writing and posting about Peruvian food.

Photo: The Kitchen Diary

At The Kitchen Diary, a Toronto-based blogger writes about his Friday night: listening to Peruvian jazz and having great Peruvian food at Toronto's Drake Hotel. On the menu? Arroz con pato, beer braised duck and rice, Peruvian-style.

At first, the author has some qualms about eating duck, but by the meal's end he's thinking, "the duck ... was so good that I might have to change my stance on this".

Not only are there great pictures of his multi-course meal, he also includes the recipe (!) for the arroz con pato. The post is well worth a read, and is directly linked here.

In an e-mail to Peru Food, he writes, "we have a growing South American population, which brings great music, beautiful women and excellent food to Toronto. All good things." Hear, hear!

The Peruvian tasting menu will continue at the Drake Hotel through January 22.



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TAGS: Peru, Peruvian, food, cooking, cuisine, cocina, comida, gastronomía, peruana

Just 473? Celebrating Lima's Founding

In 1535, on a sunny austral summer day, January 6, Francisco Pizarro and his men arrived in a fertile valley along the arid Peruvian desert. This rich agricultural valley was watered by a river the natives called Rimac, meaning the 'river that speaks', because of the sound of the water traversing across the boulders in the riverbed.

Within twelve days, on January 18, 1535, just 473 years ago today, Pizarro decided to construct a Spanish city within one of the more densely populated areas of the region. This is now the colonial center of historic Lima.

He placed his palace on the grounds of the house of the local leader, Taulichusco, the last indigenous lord of Lima. He constructed a Cathedral atop an indigenous temple, and laid out a checkerboard system of streets, although keeping some vestiges of the ancient pre-Conquest routes, including the one reaching the Rimac temple, now the Plaza Italia, and the route leading to the most important religious complex in the region, Pachacámac.

A map showing Pizarro's city overlaid on the original indigenous site.
Source: El Comercio

For much of its 473 years, Lima remained a small, albeit very wealthy, city which remained within the confines of Pizarro's original city plan. It was the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, the seat of Spanish power for all of western South America. After Peruvian Independence, it remained the most important city within the newly-formed Republic, a financial and academic center for the new country.

Lima in 1750 by French cartographer Jacques-Nicolas Bellin

It was only in the 1950s and 60s that Lima really began to expand beyond its original boundaries, and that growth spiraled in the 1980s and 90s as increasing number of migrants from other parts of Peru moved to Lima.

Today, Lima is a booming metropolis of 8 million people, with all of the hope, dynamism, and challenges facing a major city in a developing country like Peru. The dry desert of coastal Peru is not what many would consider the ideal site for constructing such an urban area, but from the desert, the city has grown.

To celebrate Lima and all its complexity, its good and its bad, its wealth and its poverty, its beauty and its despair, I am posting a photo I took a couple of years ago, of an indigenous procession in the heart of colonial Lima.

In many ways, history has come full circle. The economic growth Lima is experiencing in 2008 is no longer driven solely by the traditional elite forces, but also by the sons and daughters of those migrants from Peru's provinces who through sheer drive and determination are changing not only Lima's complexion, but its destiny.

Happy Birthday, my beautiful Lima!


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