Juan Cruz Urquiza was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on April 13, 1965. He studied at the Catholic Argentine University (1983-1985) and Berklee College of Music (1991-1993) where he earned degrees in music. He has studied trumpet with Wilfredo Cardozo, Roberto Fernandez, Américo Belloto and Lou Mucci, and he has studied harmony and improvisation with American Saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi.
Juan has performed with Arnie Lawrence, Paquito D’Rivera, Chucho Valdes (At Colon Theater with the Buenos Aires Philarmonic Orchestra), Johnny Coles, Mike Longo, Marc Copland, Claudio Roditi, Conrad Herwing, Osvaldo Fattoruso, and with top Argentine jazz artists Luis Salinas, Javier Malosetti, Horacio Larumbe, Jorge Navarro, B. López Furst, R. Fernández, and Mono Fontana.
He has recorded with Guillermo Klein’s “The Big Van” and “Los Guachos” (Bill McHenry, Chris Cheek, Miguel Zenon, Taylor Haskins, Sandro Tomasi, Ben Monder, Richard Nant, Jeff Ballard and Fernando Huergo), Conrad Herwing, Quinteto Urbano, the Mariano Otero Orchestra, Javier Malosetti, and with the Arida Conta Group (Tom Harrell, David Kikosky and Donny McCaslin among others). He has received the following awards: Berklee College of Music Award in Argentina (1989), Boston Jazz Society Achievement (1992), Clark Terry Award (1993), Trumpet Player of the Year (La Nación Newspaper 2000/2002/2004/2008), Clarin Shows Awards 2003 as Jazz Revelation, and Clarin Shows Awards 2008 as Top Jazz Artist. Since 1994 Juan has been living in Argentina performing with the top jazz groups of the country. He also an esteemed professional recording musician who has played with Deep Purple, Sui Generis, Caetano Veloso, Lalo Shifrin, Fito Paez, Joaquin Sabina, Divididos, Andres Calamaro, Armando Manzanero, Mariano Mores, Olga Guillot, Pedro Aznar, Miguel Cantilo, Los Redonditos de Ricota, Diego Torres, Silvina Garre, Jaf, Sandra Mihanovich, Ruben Rada, Los Pericos, Los Piojos, Illya Kuryay and the Valderramas. He was invited by Portuguese piano player Bernardo Sasseti to participate in the project “Mundos” with Jordy Rossy, Perico Sambeat and Javier Colina where they performed a concert in Lisbon City and cut a record on Verve Label. At this time he was also a player for the Paquito D’Rivera quintet which performed at the Punta de Este Jazz Festival, Uruguay. In 1997 he was invited to participate at the V International Jazz festival in Chile, performing with James Moody, Ivan Lins, and others. In 1999 he started the “”Quinteto Urbano”” group which performs without stops throughout the year. By the end of the year the group released their first CD which received great review in The Journalist. In 2001, he recorded the second CD release from “Quinteto Urbano” by Aqua Records and he performed at the 7 Lakes Jazz Festival. By 2003 “Quinteto Urbano” recorded their third CD on Fresh Sound Records in Barcelona, and also performed at the Terrassa Jazz Festival with artists such as Branford Marsalis, Wayne Shorter, and Brad Meldhau. “Quinteto Urbano” performed their third CD release party at Colon Theater in Buenos Aires for almost 3,000 people. In 2005 Juan started a new project with Mariano Otero, Pipi Piazzola and Miguel Tarzia which recorded for EMI in 2007. Also during that year Juan teamed with Spanish pianist Chano Dominguez and performed in Mexico, France and Spain. In 2009, Juan was featured with vocalist Ligia Piro on her album entitled “Strange Fruit.” Starting in 1999, Juan Cruz Urquiza is a trumpet instructor at the School of Contemporary Music, a Berklee College of Music branch in Argentina.
plays PMT-700 [Discountinued]
