Andrea Motis Quintet in San Diego

Barcelona-based trumpet star Andrea Motis makes her San Diego area premiere with her Quintet at the Athenaeum.

The series Jazz @ the Athenaeum concludes on Sunday, July 29, with an area premiere by the Barcelona-based Andrea Motis Quintet, featuring Motis on trumpet and voice, Joan Chamorro on bass and sax, Ignasi Terraza on piano, Josep Traver on guitar, and Esteve Pi on drums.

After recording six acclaimed albums with Joan Chamorro, Andrea Motis made her solo debut in 2017 on Impulse! Records with Emotional Dance. Even though Motis is only 23 years old, she displays a mature musicality beyond her years. That is because she began playing the trumpet at age 7; three years later she began studying jazz at the Municipal School of Music of Sant Andreu under Chamorro, who soon after recruited her for his band while she was still a teenager. While at the school, she was also a member of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band (a YouTube favorite) for nine years, playing with such acclaimed straight-ahead and swing musicians as trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, saxophonist Jesse Davis, and former San Diego clarinetist Bobby Gordon, among others.

The Guardian called Motis “a newcomer unselfconsciously wearing star quality like a halo,” adding “Motis has the kind of pearly, barely exhaled voice, paced with canny improv swerves and casual timing, from which jazz celebs are made.”