AQUILES NAVARRO

Aquiles Navarro is a New York-based trumpeter, composer and DJ of Panamanian heritage. He is also the CEO & Founder of River Down Records, a label that focuses on documenting and expanding the creative sounds and minds of Panamá.

Aquiles derives his sounds from folkloric music, salsa, reggae and everything that were around. This eclectic music background, based on his upbringing in Panama has led him to collaborate with folkloric musicians, dancers, visual artists, actors, poets and really the world around him.

He studied in Panama with tenor player Carlos Garnett and trumpeter Victor “Vitin” Paz. After moving to the US, he received a Bachelor's degree in Jazz Performance at the New England Conservatory, and a Master’s degree from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami where he studied with trumpeter Brian Lynch. 

He considers himself an improviser, coalescing his range of influences into a unified sonic vocabulary that can be incorporated across genre and medium.

This Canadian-Panamanian trumpeter had a hand in two of the most stirring jazz releases of 2020: Heritage of the Invisible II, with drummer Tcheser Holmes, and Who Sent You?, as a member of the group Irreversible Entanglements (also featuring the blistering poet Moor Mother). His playing features glorious improvised fanfares as if announcing the arrival of some cosmic dignitary, as well as repeated melodic themes, providing a brightly lit entry point into jazz’s outer regions. BBT, - The Guardian.

Navarro is a part of the liberation-oriented free jazz collective, Irreversible Entanglements. After their highly acclaimed self-titled debut album on International Anthem, Who Sent You? was released on March 20th 2020, creating a wave amongst the music world giving a voice to the times we are living in.

Navarro also has a duo project with Brooklyn-based drummer Tcheser Holmes. The duo, entitled Heritage of the Invisible, merges each members music and life background through in real time improvisations. Having collaborated for almost a decade, the way in which they blend their rhythms and harmonies has become telepathic in nature. Heritage of the Invisible has two self-released albums, and a third one released on International Anthem “Heritage of the Invisible II” in the fall of 2021, receiving great reviews.

Aquiles is currently on tour with Irreversible Entanglements.

Latest News on Aquiles Navarro

In 2020, Navarro was recognized by a variety of jazz publications. He was nominated for a US Artists Fellowship, a competitive funding award that recognizes the most compelling artists working and living in the United States. His group Irreversible Entanglements was voted as Group of the Year by El Intruso’s Critics’ Poll, a yearly vote of the top international jazz critics and writers, receiving votes and recognition from critics who write in top jazz publications from Norway and Italy to the United States.

Navarro’s 2020 album Heritage of the Invisible II, a collaboration with percussionist Tcheser Holmes, was featured in award-winning jazz outlet Jazziz alongside Grammy-award winning musician John Daversa. Heritage of the Invisible II was also featured as “Album of the Day” on major music-sharing website Bandcamp Daily, whose review called it “a revolutionary LP celebrating Latin and Afro-Caribbean influences through intricate drum and brass arrangements.” The Guardian, a UK-based newspaper with an average of over one million daily readers and over 200 million reader visits a year, ranked Heritage of the Invisible II on their list of “The 10 best global albums of 2020,” calling their music “a mind-cleansing and immersive sound.” Rolling Stone Magazine (with a circulation of 1.46 million) included the duo along with Irreversible Entanglements on their “6 Paths Through Jazz in 2020” list, saying of the album: “The same was true of Heritage of the Invisible II, a bracing and idiosyncratic aural collage of a duo record by Aquiles Navarro and Tcheser Holmes, Irreversible Entanglements’ respective trumpeter and drummer, that sounded like it was beamed directly from its makers’ subconscious.”

The Guardian also included Navarro in their list of “30 New Artists for 2021,” and said of Navarro: “His playing features glorious improvised fanfares as if announcing the arrival of some cosmic dignitary, as well as repeated melodic themes, providing a brightly lit entry point into jazz’s outer regions.” Navarro has also been featured in a six-page spread in Panamanian Newspaper Caras.

Navarro’s jazz group Irreversible Entanglements released a self-titled debut album in 2017, and it achieved widespread recognition, ranking #5 on Stereogum’s list of the “Best Jazz Albums of 2017,” and #16 on The Wire’s list “Top 50 Releases of 2017.” Their song “Fireworks,” off their debut, was listed on NPR’s “The 100 Best Songs Of 2017.” Their second album, Who Sent You (2020) reached #2 on the Billboard Charts for Current Contemporary Jazz Albums, and received a score of 7.9 in their review in widely-respected music publication Pitchfork Magazine. Paste Magazine gave the album a positive review, especially noting Navarro’s playing: “Equally incendiary are the saxophone and trumpet lines from Keir Neuringer and Aquiles Navarro, whose shrill melodies deftly flitter between cacophony and euphony.”

Irreversible Entanglements, as well as Navarro’s music as a duo with Tcheser Holmes, The album also received positive press coverage in jazz magazines across the world, including in the following publications: Rimas e Batidas and Tracker Magazine (Portugal), Jazz à Paris and JACK (France), Tom Tom Rock (Italy), Nowamuzyka and Polifonia (Poland), Jazz Revelations and BBC Sounds (the United Kingdom), Ameba Music (Japan), Point Culture (Belgium), and Oor News (The Netherlands).

Photographer: Bob Sweeney ; Location , Philadelphia

Musician: Aquiles Navarro