Delbert Anderson
Delbert Anderson is a trumpet artist, composer and educator. Anderson’s art projects preserve his Diné culture through music, landscapes, storytelling and history. Anderson is a cultural ambassador supporting art organizations using Diné knowledge and wisdom. Anderson is a graduate of the 2021 Emerging Leaders of Color program from WESTAF and currently is an honorary board member for Northwest New Mexico Arts Council, president of the San Juan Jazz Society and serves as a New Mexico Arts Commissioner. In 2023, Anderson also provided cultural case studies for the Lewis Prize for Music and USArtists International Program with Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. Anderson also serves on the Advancing Indigenous Performance (AIP) Committee at Western Arts Alliance and is a graduate of AIP’s 2019 Native Launchpad Program. Anderson has been an APAP member since 2019 and has participated in APAP classes, affinity groups, pitch sessions and currently serves on the APAP Conference Committee. Anderson is also a recipient of APAP’s ArtsForward grant and has been featured on The New York Times, JazzTimes, NPR, Grammy.com, TEDx and PBS.
Works on Tour
Delbert Anderson Quartet
Delbert Anderson Quartet is led by Navajo(Diné) Jazz Trumpeter and Composer, Delbert Anderson. He is both a leader and innovator in today's contemporary Jazz scene and a Diné culture bearer. His work brings forth traditional Diné songs once sung Diné social circles called "spinning songs," and captures their voice in the language of jazz and funk. With support of powerhouse Jazz players, Anderson builds safe havens for Diné melodies to converse with various styles and pathways for expression. In all their forms, compositions are guided by the time-immemorial Diné principles of Hózhó-harmony, beauty and balance with self, other and nature and K'é or kinship. Anderson connects across genre and culture, all the while, remaining steadfast in a signature sound that is as strong as the centuries of traditions it was built upon. “By mining traditional Navajo “spinning songs'' of love, healing and courtship, and marrying them to jazz and funk lines, Anderson and his trio have taken a place at the forefront of a vibrant Native American jazz scene.” - Michael Powell, New York Times. In connection with their work as performers, The Delbert Anderson Quartet extends their desire to create cross-cultural safe spaces through outreach, education and wellness workshops that encourage personal expression and community cohesion.
Quartet Bios
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D'DAT Suite
D'Dat Suite features three Delbert Anderson Compositions fusing Diné spinning songs and modern Jazz language arranged for Orchestra, Concert Band and Wind Symphony by contemporary Native American composer, Frankland Piland. The Suite is made up of three movements, "Narbona," "Attention" and "Iron Horse Gallu," that together celebrate the stories, sounds, and musical landscape of the Southwest while connecting Native Jazz Fusion jazz with the power and strength of a full symphony.
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D'DAT Suite
Naat'áanii is a musical and visual exploration of the cultural ideologies between the traditional Diné values and modern western values from an arts perspective. Naat'áanii is a young Navajo who finds himself growing up in a family split between the traditional and the contemporary. He falls in love with a traditional woman and grows up confused between artistically expressing himself through the urban dance he loves and the traditional dance his family loves. This conflict leads to him turning his back on his reservation life and searching for what he perceives as adventure and dance in the biggest city in the world, New York. In New York he meets a dance mentor, falls in love again with both dance and a fellow dancer and then loses it all to an equalizer of both city and reservation youth – drug abuse. What he loses when he loses it “all” he gains in understanding of himself and the world around him. He eventually finds his way back home with a much better understanding and love for his land and most importantly: himself.
NAAT'AÁNII-A Musical
Spirit Coalescent
The Spirit Coalescent is a multi-discipline exploration of the arts community. A visceral combination of artistic elements. Painting. Photography. Music. Dance and Poetry-The Spirit Coalescent touches the senses for a performance experience that is unforgettable.