Grammy Award For Best Latin Jazz Album Presented To Windsor Native

WINDSOR, CT — The physical distance between the greater Hartford area and New York City is only about 125 miles, but the musical journey on which pianist/composer Zaccai Curtis embarked nearly a quarter-century ago, from Windsor to the Big Apple, brought him forward light years in the entertainment industry, and culminated Sunday night another 3,000 miles away.

At the 67th annual Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, Curtis captured the Best Latin Jazz Album honor for his highly-acclaimed album, Cubop Lives! Released in May 2024, the retro-style tribute to outstanding performers of the Afro-Cuban genre, such as Jackie McLean, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, moved to the top of the chart Aug. 19 and remained there for four weeks.

Curtis, who turned 43 on Christmas Day, assembled a superb lineup of jazz musicians to record the album, including Willie Martinez III on timbales, Camilo Molina on congas/pandero, and Reinaldo De Jesus on bongos/chekere/guiro. Last, but certainly not least, was the bass player: Luques Curtis, Zaccai's younger brother.

Two songs on the recording are original; the rest are covers, "but each one of those arrangements are done very differently than anyone else has done in the past," Curtis said in a news release upon the album's debut.

He studied at McLean's Artists Collective school in Hartford and the New England Conservatory before moving to New York City in 2005. In addition to writing and performing his own music, he has regularly recorded and performed with some of the best jazz players in the country. He and his brother created the record label TRRcollective (Truth Revolution Records), a collective of musicians that produce their own music and release it together.

Curtis is a professor at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford, as well as the University of Rhode Island and Western Connecticut State University. He has authored two books intended to aid students in their jazz and Latin jazz education.

His brother, two years younger, studied at the Greater Hartford Academy of Performing Arts and Artists Collective, earning a full scholarship to the Berklee College Of Music in Boston. As a sideman, he has participated in over 100 recordings, and toured worldwide with top-notch performers.