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Delbert Anderson’s Mission: Putting ‘Native Sound Back Into Jazz’ Delbert Anderson’s Mission: Putting ‘Native Sound Back Into Jazz’
(14 days later)
FARMINGTON, N.M. — To drive the high desert roads of northern New Mexico is to navigate mountain passes, red rock mesas and dry river washes, and to spot the hogans, hamlets and sheep herds of the vast and remote Navajo nation.FARMINGTON, N.M. — To drive the high desert roads of northern New Mexico is to navigate mountain passes, red rock mesas and dry river washes, and to spot the hogans, hamlets and sheep herds of the vast and remote Navajo nation.
Fiddling with the dial on the car radio during my time there usually generates only static. Except one day came the sound of a silken and soulful trumpet, as a station played a haunting ballad, “Narbona,” with unmistakable Navajo phrasing.Fiddling with the dial on the car radio during my time there usually generates only static. Except one day came the sound of a silken and soulful trumpet, as a station played a haunting ballad, “Narbona,” with unmistakable Navajo phrasing.
The song was the handiwork of the Delbert Anderson Trio, and it felt as if it had arisen from the folds of this land.The song was the handiwork of the Delbert Anderson Trio, and it felt as if it had arisen from the folds of this land.
Delbert Anderson, 36, is a Navajo jazz musician, and he and his bandmates live in Farmington, a city of 46,000 perched just east of the reservation where he was born, which is the size of the Republic of Ireland. The trio’s drummer, Nick Lucero, 39, half Peruvian Quechua and half Spanish, grew up on a ranch in Colorado. Its bassist, Michael McCluhan, a tall, bearded, 55-year-old Anglo, was a former competitive swimmer who wandered in and never left.Delbert Anderson, 36, is a Navajo jazz musician, and he and his bandmates live in Farmington, a city of 46,000 perched just east of the reservation where he was born, which is the size of the Republic of Ireland. The trio’s drummer, Nick Lucero, 39, half Peruvian Quechua and half Spanish, grew up on a ranch in Colorado. Its bassist, Michael McCluhan, a tall, bearded, 55-year-old Anglo, was a former competitive swimmer who wandered in and never left.
A musician’s life is a tumbleweed journey in this land. The trio faces long drives to gigs and airports, snaking between peaks and across prairies that are home to elk, mountain lion and coyote. “It’s a flaky and weird little town,” Anderson said in an interview last fall at their studio in downtown Farmington, and chuckled. “The upside is we can afford to be jazz musicians.”
After playing county fairs, arts centers and bars, and splitting earnings so meager their wives stared at them plaintively, Anderson and his bandmates appear poised for something bigger.