3/27/26:<br>Simon, Simon, Simon
The Simon Brothers are legendary in this town. They live elsewhere today. But they got together in 2024 to record Marlon’s fantastic album On Different Paths which they have consented to reprise here live in Philly just for us.
Michael Simon is the youngest, born like his brothers in Punta Cardón, Venezuela. He began taking trumpet lessons at 13. Hearing the Cuban group Irakere live in 1990 prompted his study at the Ignacio Cervantes music school in Havana. Next came trumpet, composition and arranging studies at the Rotterdam Conservatory.
With his home base in the Netherlands, Michael’s resumé has included work with the likes of Paquito D’Rivera, David Murray, James Carter, Lester Bowie, Larry Harlow, and Toumani Diabaté.
As a composer, he emphasizes strong melodies, rich harmonic movement, and layered rhythmic grooves, often treating jazz as a platform to fuse Caribbean, Latin, and Asian elements without losing each style’s character.
At age ten Edward Simon moved alone to the United States to study at the Philadelphia Performing Arts School, later continuing classical piano at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and jazz piano at the Manhattan School of Music in New York.
He’s been a pivotal member of the SFJAZZ Collective since 2009, receiving more than 20 composer commissions, in addition to his critically acclaimed suites commissioned by Chamber Music America (CMA), Venezuelan Suite (2005), Sorrows and Triumphs (2010) and House of Numbers (2010), for Ensemble Venezuela, Afinidad — his quartet with Scott Colley and Brian Blade, co-led with David Binney and featuring Gretchen Parlato, Adam Rogers and Rogerio Boccato — and Afinidad with Imani Winds, respectively.
Marlon Simon is a jazz drummer, percussionist, composer, and educator who immigrated to the United States in 1987 to study jazz, later working in Philadelphia, New York, and now based near Houston, Texas.
He leads the group Marlon Simon and The Nagual Spirits, where he showcases his distinctive approach to Latin jazz and broader contemporary jazz; albums include “The Music of Marlon Simon,” “Rumba a la Patato,” “Live in La Paz, Bolivia,” and “In Case You Missed It.”
Over nearly four decades he has performed with notable Latin and jazz artists such as Hilton Ruiz, the Fort Apache Band, Chucho Valdés, Dave Valentin, and Bobby Watson, spanning straight‑ahead swing, Afro‑Cuban, and progressive jazz contexts.
Marlon’s outstanding On Different Paths brings the Simon brothers together on the recording and again here @exuberance. It is Marlon’s most ambitious work to date, fusing Latin jazz, classical elements, and modern jazz into a large‑scale, almost symphonic project.
The album is released on Truth Revolution Records and is Marlon’s seventh recording as a leader (and fifth with The Nagual Spirits). With a singular goal: to create contemporary Latin jazz that integrates classical music structures, jazz improvisation, and Afro‑Caribbean and Latin American rhythms.
“On Different Paths” is the culmination of a path he has been on since earlier Nagual Spirits albums, pushing further into hybrid territory where Venezuelan, Afro‑Caribbean, classical, and jazz elements are treated as equal partners.
Joining the brothers:
Alex Norris, trumpet
Louis Fouché, tenor/soprano saxes
Mike Boone, bass
Carlos Maldonado, congas/percussion
This is music I want to hear. I have no doubt that our 85 seats will be filled by folks who share my desire.