Marta Sánchez

The Marta Sánchez Quintet is a New York City-based creative jazz quintet led by pianist/composer Sánchez. Born in Madrid, Sánchez was a growing presence on the Spanish jazz scene -- and indeed internationally through touring that took her elsewhere in Europe as well as South and Central America -- when she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2011 to study at New York University, where she earned a master's degree in jazz piano performance. Sánchez had previous experience fronting ensembles in Spain and had two albums as a leader to her credit, 2007's Lunas, Soles y Elefantes and 2011's La Espiral Amarilla, both on the Basque Country jazz label Errabal. With her base of operations now in N.Y.C., she decided to form a new five-piece group, and sought out sympathetic musicians who were born in farflung locales but called New York home. Having first played with Sánchez on a Central American tour in 2012, Australia-born double bassist Sam Anning and California-born drummer Jason Burger had an established rapport with the pianist, and were natural rhythm-section choices for the quintet; also joining the group were France-born tenor saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh (who had lived in New York since 1995) and Cuba-born alto saxophonist Román Filiú (whom Sánchez had met in Spain). This lineup proved well-suited to the pianist's conception, ably navigating the contrapuntal aspects of her charts and melding a global perspective with a discernable N.Y.C. creative jazz sensibility. With its music inspired by Sánchez's by now extensive international travels as a performing jazz artist, Partenika, her third album as a leader, was recorded with engineer Tom Tedesco at New Jersey's Tedesco Studios in May 2014. Mixed and mastered in Madrid by José Luis Crespo, Partenika was released by the Barcelona-based Fresh Sound New Talent label in April 2015. The quintet underwent a lineup change, with Rick Rosato featured on bass and Daniel Dor on drums, for Danza Imposible, recorded at Brooklyn's Big Orange Sheep studio in March 2017 and released by Fresh Sound New Talent in December of that year.
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