By Coral Gables Gazette staff
There are concerts designed for concert halls, and there are concerts designed for a warm South Florida night beneath a canopy of palms, with a drink in hand and a lawn stretching toward an outdoor stage. Tropical Jazz Night at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden is unmistakably the second kind, and Cuban trombonist Julio Montalvo is exactly the right musician for it.
Julio Montalvo and New Latin Jazz
Montalvo has spent more than two decades building what he calls New Latin Jazz, a style that draws on the foundational rhythms of Son, Mambo, and Timba while opening them to the improvisational language of contemporary jazz.
The label only begins to describe the precision of his sound.
These are not generic Latin influences folded loosely into jazz arrangements. Son carries the syncopated elegance of eastern Cuba. Mambo brings the orchestral propulsion that once defined Havana dance halls. Timba delivers the muscular energy that emerged from post-revolutionary Cuban popular music. Montalvo threads those traditions together with elements of funk and soul, creating music that feels rooted in history while remaining rhythmically alive and immediate.
The trombone carries much of that melodic weight, an uncommon role for the instrument in jazz settings. In Montalvo’s hands, it becomes warm, expansive, and deeply physical, capable of lyrical precision and explosive release.
That sensibility has made him one of Cuba’s most accomplished contemporary trombonists. Since launching his solo project in 1998, he has performed at major festivals across Europe and Latin America, including the Istanbul Jazz Festival and Jazz Plaza in Havana. He has shared stages with Pat Metheny and Oscar D’León, and earned a Grammy Award for co-producing and co-arranging A Night at the Theatre Royal with Spanish singer David Bisbal.
In 2013, he expanded his work with the creation of the Julio Montalvo Big Band, a 20-piece orchestra dedicated to original compositions and tributes to the golden age of Afro-Cuban music. The ensemble appearing at Fairchild will be a smaller configuration, better suited to the conversational intimacy of an outdoor garden performance.
Why Fairchild is the right setting
It is a setting unusually well matched to this music.
Founded in 1938, Fairchild’s 83-acre botanical landscape offers a concert environment few South Florida venues can replicate. As daylight fades across its tropical collections, music moves through open air rather than enclosed walls, changing with the atmosphere around it.
That transition from dusk to darkness has become part of the appeal of Tropical Jazz Night, an event designed as much for movement and social energy as for concentrated listening.
The Garden has long refined this blend of cultural programming and natural setting through signature events including its Chocolate, Mango, and Orchid festivals. Tropical Jazz Night fits naturally within that tradition.
In a city shaped by Caribbean and Latin American rhythms, Montalvo’s performance promises less a formal concert than an evening tuned to South Florida’s natural tempo — music made for open air, movement, and the slow arrival of night.
The evening at a glance
The evening begins with gates opening at 7 p.m., followed by a live percussion performance from 7:15 to 7:45 p.m. Montalvo and his band perform two sets, from 8 to 9 p.m. and again from 9:30 to 10:30 p.m., separated by a percussion interlude.
General admission tickets are $35.95 for adults and $18.95 for children ages 3 to 11. Garden members pay $30.95. Premium options include reserved seating for two, lounge seating for five, gourmet picnic baskets prepared by Black Elephant, and cocktail flight packages.
Lawn chairs and picnic blankets are welcome for general admission guests, and food and beverages will be available throughout the evening.
Tropical Jazz Night runs Saturday, May 30, from 7 to 10:30 p.m. at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, 10901 Old Cutler Road. Tickets and registration information are available through Fairchild’s website.
