Jazz

Ajijic guitarist to be on JaliscoTV and radio

Juan Castañón is a musician’s musician who constantly expands the boundaries of his art and the world of jazz.

Patrick O’Heffernan (Ajijic) .- Celebrated Ajijic jazz guitarist Juan Castañón will be featured on jaliscotv.com next week after a taping of his performance at Guadalajara’s Chango Vudú Club. Sara Valenzuela of JaliscoRadio.com interviewed Castañón and his band members live at the club’s bar before the performance. A packed house was on hand for the interviews and the music with patrons serving as a live audience for the cameras and the radio interview.

Castañón is well-known to residents of Ajijic and Chapala for his jazz band Acasia, but he played the Chango Vudú Wednesday night with the experimental jazz trio D/zazter.  The same band played the next night in Ajijic at the La Mezcalaria bar on Colon near the Malecon.  JaliscoTV.com brought in a full three-camera crew with a mobile editing bay to tape both the music and the interview with Sara Valenzuela. The tape will be edited into a program for broadcast next week (check jaliscotv.com for time and date).  He will also appear this Friday on the Ajijic-based radio program Music Sin Fronteras.

Juan Castañón is a musician’s musician who constantly expands the boundaries of his art and the world of jazz.  A superb guitarist, he also plays the sarod, has studied at the Monterrey School of Music, the Universitá della Musica di Roma Italy and participated in numerous courses and workshops on improvisation with prominent artists such as Michael Godard, Reggie Workman, and Stomu Takeishi, among others. His list of collaborations in Mexico and Italy is long and varied and ranges from free jazz to traditional Jarocho (music from Veracruz), to experimental and electronic music.  His projects include guitar and percussion improvisation in DEMUSE, Radical Freejazz with Classical Music of North India, and electronic and circuit-bending sound art and the Electricity Noise Experiment.  D/zazter is an experimental project with Itzam Cano and Gabriel Lauber.