The Checkout – Live at Berklee: Gregorio Uribe Big Band

Singer/accordionist Gregorio Uribe leads a 16-piece orchestra that blends Colombian rhythms with big band arrangements. 

March 27, 2015

Presented by New York’s WBGO-FM and Berklee, The Checkout — Live at Berklee brings critically acclaimed alumni back to their alma mater for intimate concerts in the Red Room at Cafe 939, broadcast live on the radio and streamed on the web. The series continues on Wednesday, April 1, with the Gregorio Uribe Big Band, a 16-piece orchestra that blends Colombian rhythms with big band arrangements.

The Checkout — Live at Berklee: Gregorio Uribe Big Band airs live in New York on WBGO 88.3 FM, and will be webcast live in HD video at WBGO’s checkoutjazz.org, where it will also be archived for later viewing. Past Checkout — Live at Berklee featured performers have included Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Melissa Aldana, Katie Thiroux, Warren Wolf, Ingrid Jensen, and Guillermo Klein, among others.

Big band leader/singer/accordionist Gregorio Uribe was born in Colombia, studied at Berklee, and is now based in New York, where he leads the Gregorio Uribe Big Band, a 16-piece orchestra that blends Colombian rhythms with big band arrangements. The band has held a monthly residency at Zinc Bar for four years and has performed at the Kennedy Center, Iridium Jazz Club, and Celebrate Brooklyn Festival, among others. Its debut album—financed by its followers in a successful Kickstarter campaign—presents a collection of songs that is both danceable and sophisticated. Uribe has been an artist-in-residence at Dartmouth College and a commissioned composer for Arturo O'Farrill’s Grammy-winning Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra.

Watch Gregorio Uribe perform live at Berklee:

Listen to Gregorio Uribe Big Band on the Sounds of Berklee podcast.