Mardi Gras music comes to Beaver Creek this week

Beaver Creek Village and the Vilar Performing Arts Center have a stellar Mardi Gras celebration on tap. Alfredo Rodriguez and Pedrito Martinez; A Celebration of The Meters: Dumpstaphunk, George Porter Jr. and Cyril Neville; and The Revivalists perform at the Vilar Feb. 4-7, respectively, with $11 hurricane drink specials. Meanwhile, Alpine & Antlers patio offers $1.50 oysters and $5 beers from 2:30-4:30 p.m., and on Feb. 5 and 7, Beaver Creek Village hosts a unique Mardi Gras-themed pop-up après with music by the d’Lovelies and themed activations from 3-5 p.m., including beads. On Feb. 6, live music plays from 2-4 p.m. in the village.

It all kicks off at the Vilar Center with Havana-born, Grammy-nominated artists Alfredo Rodriguez and Pedrito Martinez. There, the stage transforms into a club-like venue, with audiences sitting at reserved high tops right next to the musicians and general-admission audiences filling the theater’s seats.

“The audience affects our music on so many different levels,” Rodriguez said. “The music we create comes from spontaneous situations, from improvisation and from being right at the moment. When we laugh, when we dance, that energy that we create in the room all together is very important to me as an artist. So when the audience is close, that only increases. You feel a very different energy. I personally like it.”

Though they grew up in the same city, Rodriguez and Martinez stem from different backgrounds: Rodriguez’s dad was a very famous Cuban musician who played in theaters and stadiums and was not formally trained, but Rodriguez himself attended classical conservatories from an early age, so he learned from the best of both worlds: the streets and the schools. Meanwhile, Martinez learned his craft on the streets.

“I came from the folkloric side, and Alfredo came from the classical side,” Martinez said. “You put those things together, and you come out with an extraordinary and different sound.” 

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The two met in Switzerland in 2011 at the Montreux Jazz Festival. There, Rodriguez invited Martinez to record two songs on the album he was currently working on, “The Invasion Parade,” released in 2012. Since then, they have toured the world as a duo.

“That was it. We had a great chemistry,” Rodriguez said. “It was very easy to work with each other in so many aspects. After that, we have just been trying to find a justification to keep going and to keep creating music — being on the stage together, as well as recording new music. … I learned a long time ago that music doesn’t come from music — it comes from many other things that we live on a daily basis, and for me, it’s very important to discover and to create music with people that have a positive outreach for humanity, for everything in general.”

The Montreux Jazz Festival also changed Rodriguez’s life in another way: In 2006, around age 21, he met Quincy Jones.

“That moment changed my life in so many ways,” he said, talking about how he worked with him for more than 15 years. “He was my mentor, my producer and, basically, my family. The first thing that he told me is just be truthful to your soul, to your roots… to be comfortable with yourself as a musician and a human being. That’s why he is, in my opinion, one of the most legendary musicians of all time because he had a big capacity of trying to make the best out of you and your personal situation. He did not try to change you as a musician or a human being, and I carry that forever.”

While most people place Rodriquez in the jazz genre because he fell in love with the form as a kid and it influences much of his music, he considers himself an improvisor.

“When it comes to anything in general, we basically are improvising. We do that with our life every day that we wake up. We might have a schedule of something we plan to do every day, but at the end, we have to improvise, we have to adapt to situations, positive and negative,” he said. “My Cuban blood is always present when it comes to my music, but I was trained classically by great Cuban-Russian (teachers) that introduced me to all the great classical composers at a very early age.”

Furthermore, living in the United States for the last 17 years and traveling the world collaborating with other musicians has steered his music in a more global direction.

“So, it’s hard to consider myself as (just) a Cuban pianist or jazz musician,” he said. “I just always say that I play music. When something sounds good to me and I enjoy what I’m playing, that’s more than enough for me.”

He views New Orleans music as closely related to Cuban, based on their strong African roots.

“Every time I go to New Orleans, I do really feel like I’m back in Cuba — the vibe, the people, the energy — there is something very similar that we have. And all the musicians, the way that they express through music, it feels very similar,” he said. “That’s the power of music: When you mix people who come from different backgrounds and different ways of learning and they can connect together to one of the most powerful languages, which in my humble opinion is music.”

The evening at the Vilar Center comprises music that touches their hearts, he said, including both originals and cover tunes. For instance, Jones produced Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and encouraged Rodriguez to deliver his own version, based on Cuban rhythms. That led to other covers featuring Cuban, Caribbean and Latin American beats, from “Final Countdown” by the group Europe to the Eagle’s “Hotel California.”

In fact, he just released his latest album, “¡Take Cover!” last month, based on fan demand and a variety of covers that went viral on social media, so the duo will perform some of those, in addition to improvising.

“We never know what’s going to happen,” he said. “We are very flexible, and we are going to see what happens there.”