Choose artist...
Home   >   Projects   >   Sketches Of Spain
Nicholas Payton

Sketches Of Spain

Press Release

Read press

Artist Details

Read bio

Tour Dates

View

Website

Visit
WPFW's Willard Jenkins speaks w/ Nicholas Payton@2012 Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival
The Pace Report: The Second Coming of Nicholas Payton
1 Concierto De Aranjuez
2 Will O' the Wisp
3 The Pan Piper
4 Saeta
5 Solea
Show all tracks
Hide

Grammy-winning trumpeter Nicholas Payton offers the world a present worthy of his immense skills: a live concert performance of the iconic Miles Davis-Gil Evans collaboration, Sketches of Spain via his BMF Records imprint. Framing Payton's virtuosic playing is a 19-piece ensemble comprised of 15 brass and woodwinds and a harpist drawn from the Sinfonieorchester Basel with conductor Dennis Russell Davies, and Payton's long-time collaborators Vicente Archer on bass, Marcus Gilmore on drums, and Daniel Sadownick on percussion.

Sketches of Spain is Payton's second release on BMF, which launched in February 2013 with #BAM Live at Bohemian Caverns, on which Archer and drummer Lenny White joined Payton playing trumpet and Fender Rhodes piano simultaneously. Here Payton focuses exclusively on the trumpet, which he places to his lips for around 90% of the 40-minute suite. In the process, he reaffirms his stature as a peerless master of his primary instrument. He rises to and transcends not only the physical challenge of functioning throughout the marathon at consistent levels of execution and creativity, but also the conceptual challenge of addressing and refracting into his own argot Davis' indelible declamations from one of the second-largest selling recordings of all time.

"At this point, Miles is my favorite musician, period," Payton says. "I understand his music so intimately that for me it's not even about a style, but conjuring a spirit that at any moment I can call upon to walk through me. I've dealt with the idea of being influenced by this person but I feel I'm in a space where my voice has developed so much that I don't feel haunted by Miles' ghost. I can be free to create and use whatever part of his spirit when it's necessary, and other times magnify certain things that are not necessarily directly related to Miles. "We're now 54 years from that piece, and music has evolved. That gives me a frame of reference that allows me to do things Miles didn't think about doing, because it was a new work then. So I didn't necessarily feel bound by the blueprint. Whatever Sketches of Spain meant to Miles then, I want to be able to take that just as far as my imagination will allow."

  • The evolution of Nicholas Payton / DOWNBEAT Q&A
    Posted At: January 23, 2024 12:00 AM
    “One of the first things I checked out heavily when I got serious about playing music was Weather Report’s Heavy Weather,” Payton says of his early influences.DOWNBEAT's Bill Milkowski writes….There was a time, back in the mid-’90s, when trumpeter Nicholas Payton was being hyped as a Young Lion on the scene. His New Orleans birthplace lent credence to the notion that he might be the next link in the Crescen...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton releases new album: 'Drip' / TheUrbanMusicScene
    Posted At: September 26, 2023 12:00 AM
    As a leading voice in American popular music, the Grammy Award-winning Nicholas Payton is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer, producer, arranger, essayist, and social activist who defies musical and artistic categories. All the while, he honors the tradition of what he terms “postmodern New Orleans music,” as well as the spirit of Black American Music, of which he states, “There are no fields, per ...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton Trio plays npr - tiny desk with incredible stamina
    Posted At: November 2, 2018 12:00 AM

    He should have been exhausted, but instead played the Tiny Desk with incredible stamina, holding a single trumpet note that lasted longer than most people can hold their breath. In the days just before this performance, Nicholas Payton played at the Joy of Jazz Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, then Santiago, Chile and, finally, New York City. A member of his team drove ...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton - Afro-Caribbean Mixtape makes The Norwich Radical: 20 best of 2017
    Posted At: January 7, 2018 12:00 AM

    It's a common cliché that the quality and abundance of political and protest music is directly proportionate to the awfulness of the broader political landscape. The Vietnam War gave us the great American folk singers. The stagnation, unemployment and neoliberalism's cusp of the 1970s bred punk. Thatcher's Britain brought us the motley crew of rebels surrounding Red Wedge. The rapid and destructiv...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton set to make first appearance at Satchmo SummerFest / offBeat Magazine
    Posted At: June 27, 2017 12:00 AM

    Satchmo SummerFest has revealed the lineup for its 17th annual celebration, which is slated to take over the Old U.S. Mint on August 4-6. This year's gathering will find the event returning to its longtime home after a brief move to Jackson Square in 2016. Nicholas Payton, Kermit Ruffins, Hot 8 Brass Band, James Andrews and the Crescent City All-Stars, John Boutte, New Orleans Swamp Donkeys, Wendel...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton's Afro-Caribbean Mixtape deftly skirts the contemporary and the ancient / relix
    Posted At: June 6, 2017 12:00 AM

    Nicholas Payton has never been one to aim low. The multi-instrumentalist and composer decries the word jazz, preferring to call what he creates "postmodern New Orleans music"-he's got a tune on this release called "Jazz Is a Four-Letter Word"-but he has nonetheless been labeled a jazz musician since his emergence, even as he continues to attempt to shed the term. Perhaps it's best to give him the benefit...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton set to headline Atlanta Jazz Festival / ARTSATL
    Posted At: May 25, 2017 12:00 AM

    When Mayor Maynard Jackson founded the Atlanta Jazz Festival in 1978, he wanted to spotlight the city as an international center of the arts and education, and promote an art form that was indigenous to the South. Forty years later, the free outdoor event remains a Memorial Day weekend staple for aficionados, and continues the tradition of drawing world-class talent like Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone and ...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton's Afro Caribbean Mixtape Band headlines Twin Cities WinterJazzFest / Pioneer Press
    Posted At: January 30, 2017 12:00 AM

    Trumpeter and keyboardist Nicholas Payton, who headlined the Twin Cities Winter Jazz Festival on Sunday at the St. Paul Hotel, likes to perform in a variety of contexts. He's led big bands, recorded two-trumpeter duets, collaborated with much older musicians playing jazz standards, and led an electronic fusion hip-hop/jazz band. On Sunday, the New Orleans native led his Afro Caribbean Mixtape Band, a per...
    Bookmark and Share

  • billboard track premiere: Nicholas Payton - 'El Guajiro'
    Posted At: January 27, 2017 12:00 AM

    "I titled this album Afro-Caribbean Mixtape as a way of acknowledging the strong will of African peoples," the singular trumpeter and musical mixologist Nicholas Payton writes of his peregrinating new release. "To explore how these songs and rhythms came from Africa, got funneled through the Caribbean in places like Haiti, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, and traveled to the northernmost part of the Caribbean - Ne...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton set to play Scullers / The Boston Globe
    Posted At: June 23, 2016 12:00 AM

    If there's a constant about Nicholas Payton, it's that he's always evolving. Payton, 42, is best known for playing trumpet, having burst onto the jazz scene a quarter century ago while still a teenager, as his fellow New Orleanian Wynton Marsalis had done a decade earlier. When he performs two sets at Scullers on Saturday, however, Payton will be playing keyboards along with his trumpet - sometimes simul...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton set to play Jazz Showcase / Chicago Tribune
    Posted At: April 5, 2016 12:00 AM

    The first time I heard trumpeter Nicholas Payton, in New Orleans when he was 16 years old, I was surprised to discover that the early buzz about the unusually prodigious musician had been understated. Wynton Marsalis and others had told me of Payton's distinctive gifts on trumpet, as well as Payton's fluency on a range of instruments. But Payton, who made an impressive Chicago debut at the Jazz S...
    Bookmark and Share

  • A Conversation with Nicholas Payton / Wesleyan Argus
    Posted At: September 22, 2015 12:00 AM

    One story underground in a CFA rehearsal hall, a Wesleyan musician slowly rose from his seat and turned to face an attentive crowd of around two dozen onlookers. He lifted his trumpet from its case, but before he could press the curved brass mouthpiece to his lips a voice interjected: It belonged to Nicholas Payton, and he wished to join. All of a sudden, a solo presentation of Wesleya...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton on WWOZ Radio - New Music Spotlight
    Posted At: September 2, 2015 12:00 AM

    Nicholas Payton has a new double album out on his own label, Paytone Records, titled "Letters." In the 26 tracks within, Payton truly runs the gamut from A to Z-- literally, as each track is named after a letter of the alphabet. The talented trumpeter hops instruments on this release, spending significant time on piano, keyboard, and Hammond B-3 organ, as well as the horn. The multi-instrumentalist g...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton and what we mean when we say black music / reverb interview
    Posted At: February 20, 2015 12:00 AM

    It's one thing to devote your life to music. It's another to talk about that experience the way Nicholas Payton does. Unsurprisingly, music surrounded Payton as a child growing up in New Orleans. "Bands would just form on the streets," he said in an interview this week. "I still don't know any other place where that happens." He started playing trumpet when he was four and was performing shows with h...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton plays Detroit Jazz Festival / Amsterdam News review
    Posted At: September 11, 2014 12:00 AM

    Amsterdam News calls Nicholas Payton's Detroit Jazz Festival performance "an unforgettable moment in live jazz." Payton's powerful adaptation of Miles Davis and Gil Evans' Sketches of Spain featured Vicente Archer, Bill Stewart, and the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra conducted by Norah Duncan IV. Payton explains how Miles inspires him. "At this point, Miles is my favorite ...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton has strong words for Black America
    Posted At: August 14, 2014 12:00 AM

    Trumpeter Nicholas Payton has some strong words for "Black America" in light of the recent police shooting of the unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Payton begins his powerful post by saying: "Message to Black America: It's unlikely that the lawmakers or their agents will ever admit when they're guilty of a crime. Just us." READ THE FULL Offbeat.com ARTICLE...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton at 40 - 'Just getting started' / Chicago Tribune feature
    Posted At: April 4, 2014 12:00 AM

    Nearly 25 years ago, I encountered a teenage trumpeter in New Orleans whose obvious gifts were overshadowed only by his enormous potential. The young man became one of the most protean trumpet virtuosos in jazz, and last September Nicholas Payton turned 40, a sobering number for anyone who has been following his career since its early days. READ THE FULL Chicago Tribune ARTICLE...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton: Sketches of Spain / Los Angeles Times review
    Posted At: November 27, 2013 12:00 AM

    You have to be talented and bold to tackle this landmark work by Miles Davis and Gil Evans, and few artists capture both qualities like trumpeter Nicholas Payton on his new CD: Sketches of Spain READ THE Los Angeles Times REVIEW as UNDERRATED.     ...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton: Week in Review
    Posted At: November 22, 2013 12:00 AM

    Nicholas Payton: Week in Review   http://www.pri.org/programs/jazz-after-hours http://www.jazzwithbobparlocha.com/ http://www.pri.org/programs/jazz-after-hours...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton: Sketches of Spain / Audiophile Audition review
    Posted At: November 14, 2013 12:00 AM

    GIL EVANS (Originals & arrangements): Sketches of Spain – Nicholas Payton BMF Records BMF002  (Nicholas Payton, trumpet; Vicente Archer, doublebass; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Daniel Sadownick, percussion; Basel Symphony Orchestra/ Franziskus Theurillat) READ THE Audiophile Audition REVIEW...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Nicholas Payton: Sketches of Spain debuts #26@CMJ-Jazz
    Posted At: November 3, 2013 12:00 AM

    Grammy-winning trumpeter Nicholas Payton offers a live concert performance of the iconic Miles Davis-Gil Evans collaboration, Sketches of Spain via his BMF Records imprint. Framing Payton's virtuosic playing is a 19-piece ensemble comprised of 15 brass and woodwinds and a harpist drawn from the Sinfonieorchester Basel with conductor Dennis Russell Davies, and Payton's long-time collaborators Vice...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Grammy-winner Nicholas Payton releases live concert of: 'Sketches of Spain' on his 'BMF Records' imprint
    Posted At: September 24, 2013 12:00 AM

      Grammy-winning trumpeter Nicholas Payton offers the world a present worthy of his immense skills: a live concert performance of the iconic Miles Davis-Gil Evans collaboration, Sketches of Spain via his BMF Records imprint. Framing Payton's virtuosic playing is a 19-piece ensemble comprised of 15 brass and woodwinds and a harpist drawn from the Sinfonieorchester Basel with conductor Dennis ...
    Bookmark and Share
Go to artist details