Sanchez to blend Latin, jazz, soul at Lied

Poncho Sanchez (foreground) and his band
Poncho Sanchez (foreground) and his band

For more than three decades, Grammy Award-winning percussionist Poncho Sanchez has stirred up a fiery stew of straight-ahead jazz, gritty soul music and infectious melodies. Sanchez and his nine-piece band will create a kaleidoscopic swirl of Latin and South American music at the Lied Center for Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 15.

Tickets, starting at $28 for adults, are available at http://www.liedcenter.org, at the Lied Center Box Office, 301 N. 12th St., or by phone at 402-472-4747. UNL students can obtain tickets at a 50 percent discount via UNL Marketplace.

Born in Laredo, Texas, in 1951 to a large Mexican-American family, Sanchez grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, where he was raised on an unusual cross section of sounds that included jazz, Latin jazz and American soul. By his teen years, his musical consciousness had been solidified by the likes of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaria, Wilson Pickett and James Brown. Along the way, he taught himself to play guitar, flute, drums and timbales, but eventually settled on the congas.

After working his way around the Los Angeles club scene for several years, he landed a permanent spot in Tjader's band in 1975. He remained with Tjader until the bandleader's death in 1982. Sanchez's influences are numerous, but among the more prominent figures that inform his music are two of the primary architects of Latin jazz -- conga drummer and composer Chano Pozo and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.

— Carrie Christensen, Lied Center for Performing Arts