artist info

Now in the middle of a towering career as founder & leader of the Spanish Harlem Orchestra (25 years), musical director for Rubén Blades, and pianist, arranger and producer for some of the biggest names in Contemporary Latin music, four-time Grammy winner Oscar Hernández turns to his working quintet Alma Libre to present their 4th CD with 40 of his competitions, entitled, No Words Needed (5/24/2025, Ovation Records).

"The celebrated composer, pianist and director of the award-winning Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Oscar Hernández has another incarnation and it's called Alma Libre, a smaller group that he sometimes calls together to play his high-spirited and energetic - and sometimes moody and elegiac - music. As with everything he composes (and performs), this repertoire is pure gold; a series of highly imaginative compositions with soaring melodies, vivid harmonies grounded in the earthy dynamism of Afro-Caribbean rhythms that we have come to love as Latin Jazz today. And while Mr Hernández is a musician rooted in the tradition of this music, he also worships at the altar of originality, firm in the belief that the inner dynamic of tradition is always to innovate." – Latin Jazz Network, Editors Pick, Raul da Gama

Oscar Hernández is the leader of the world-renowned Spanish Harlem Orchestra. With their ten CD's to date (now releasing their 10th CD Nov. 17, 2025, Salsa Navidad), Oscar and SHO, as they are commonly known, were nominated for a Grammy on their first CD Un Gran Dia En El Barrio, won the Grammy for their second CD release, Across 110th Street" and nominated for their third CD United We Swing, and winning yet another Grammy with their 4th CD Viva La Tradición" and won their 3rd Grammy with Anniversary in 2019. Oscar was the music producer as well as pianist/arranger on all CD's. Since the band's inception in the year 2001, Spanish Harlem Orchestra is generally considered one of the best Salsa & Latin-Jazz Orchestras today and one of the finest music ensembles in the world.

Seattle-based trumpeter, composer, and producer Thomas Marriott is a force for jazz on the west coast. He's paid dues beside jazz elders such as Maynard Ferguson, Roy McCurdy, Julian Priester, Ernie Watts, Roger Humphries, Mike Clark and Stix Hooper, and has been called on by contemporary standard-bearers like Joe Locke, Orrin Evans, Steve Wilson, and Charlie Hunter.

A chameleon of musical styles, Marriott's horn has been in-demand with bands like the Grammy-Award winning Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Captain Black Big Band, Ivan Neville's Dumpstafunk, hip-hop pioneer Deltron 3030, and vocalists Kurt Elling, Ernestine Anderson, Michael Feinstein and Rosemary Clooney.

His own albums, 14 in all, have reached number one on the jazz radio airplay charts, earned 4 1/2 stars in Downbeat, and have been featured on NPR. Thomas Marriott has been featured in the New York Times, has won 9 Golden Ear Awards, the Carmine Caruso Trumpet Competition, is the youngest inductee into the Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame, spent more than 20 seasons as a soloist with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra and is founder of Seattle Jazz Fellowship, a non-profit arts organization dedicated to promoting jazz music and jazz culture in Seattle. In 2024 he was named a "Jazz Hero" by the Jazz Journalists Association.