It ended up being a short interview, but the part that stuck with me the most was at the very end. “One night, the DJ announced, ‘Tomorrow I’m going to interview John Coltrane at 11am.’ It was during the week, but I had to hear this interview, so the next day I woke up and started coughingand told my mother that I didn’t feel good, so I didn’t have to go to school that day. “When I was in high school, I would lay in bed listening to Los Angeles’ jazz radio station,” he says. The music, as warm as the comfort food that it references, was inspired by another of the young Sanchez’s brushes with his idol. “Yam’mote,” meanwhile, coins a new hybrid term combining two cultures’ words for the same food: yams and camote. The bustling title tune is a lively encapsulation of the saxophonist’s adventurous spirit, highlighted by DeLeon’s rollicking timbale solo. In collaboration with Torres, Sanchez also penned two brand-new pieces inspired by Coltrane.

Trane’s Delight features a buoyant Latin spin on “Liberia,” from 1964’s Coltrane’s Sound the classic “Blue Train” rendered as a cha-cha-chá and a rumba twist on the immortal “Giant Steps,” that perennial proving ground for jazz musicians, its challenge not only embraced by Sanchez’s virtuosic collaborators but taken at a breakneck pace that leaves no room for trepidation. The wonder with which Sanchez first heard Coltrane’s singular voice is still present more than a half-century later in his vibrant reimagining of the saxophonist’s compositions. I listened to that record daily for years. I put that record on, and that first track, ‘Out of This World,’ kicked in and I was blown away. I used to have a little space in my mother’s garage with my record player and my drums and congas. “I played a couple little gigs around town and saved up the money, so it was the first album I ever bought by myself. “I had eyeballed this record for about a month, looking at it with not enough money to buy it,” Sanchez recalls. At its heart, though, Trane’s Delight provides a direct link from the 67-year old conguero to his 11-year old self, staring in the window of his local record store at the entrancing, blue-tinged cover of the 1962 album Coltrane. The 11-track album features three classic Coltrane compositions and a pair of new compositions written in honor of the sax master, alongside a host of original pieces and classic favorites chosen to represent Sanchez’s wide spectrum of influences. The album features the conguero’s longtime band, featuring trombonist and musical director Francisco Torres, trumpet and flugelhorn master Ron Blake, saxophonist Robert Hardt, pianist Andy Langham, bassists Rene Camacho and Ross Schodek, and percussionists Joey DeLeon and Giancarlo Anderson. Trane’s Delight also continues Sanchez’s remarkable 37-year relationship with Concord, a rich legacy that has now yielded 27 albums.

I’ve recorded tributes to a lot of my heroes in life – Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, Cal Tjader – so I thought it was definitely time to do a tribute to the great John Coltrane.” “I’ve always loved John Coltrane,” Sanchez says, “ever since I was a kid and first learned about jazz. On his latest album Trane’s Delight, Sanchez pays tribute to the late jazz legend with Latin-tinged reimaginings of Coltrane classics as well as new pieces composed in honor of the tenor titan. But Sanchez’s influences are numerous, and Coltrane looms large in Sanchez’s pantheon alongside those pioneers. Throughout his career Sanchez has held aloft the torch lit by such Latin Jazz innovators as Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente and Cal Tjader, embraced by each of those icons and entrusted to carry forward the traditions of Latin Jazz. Due out Septemvia Concord Picante, Trane’s Delight is a love letter from one musical pioneer to another, as the Latin Jazz legend pays homage to one of his earliest and most indelible influences. On his first new album in seven years, GRAMMY Award-winning conguero Poncho Sanchez celebrates the life and music of the iconic saxophonist John Coltrane.

Poncho sanchez