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Jazz artist Lucia Sarmiento finally comes into her own
Freshly 30 and coming off a tour with popstar Pitbull, the Peruvian-born entertainer and educator is now back in Minnesota and reflecting on all she’s learned.
MINNEAPOLIS — More than 4,000 miles from where her life began, Lucia Sarmiento has never felt more at home.
“This is where my cats and my bed are; this is where my community is, you know, musicians. I’ve been living here for almost a third of my life.”
Freshly 30 and coming off a year-long tour with international popstar Pitbull, the Peruvian-born saxophonist, guitarist, composer, entertainer and educator is now back in Minnesota and reflecting on all she’s learned.
“I’ve played everything from funk, pop, jazz, to polka, to merengue — just everything,” Sarmiento said. “Now, with everything that I’ve absorbed, I can make my own music and integrate everything.”
She came to the U.S. from her hometown of Lima, Peru to study at the McNally Smith College of Music. A supportive and nurturing art community, coupled with Sarmiento’s raw talent and outright passion to play, allowed her the freedom to follow her instincts to create.
Drawing wide from influences across cultures, Sarmiento and her music continued to evolve. Meshing styles like Afro-Peruvian rhythm with jazz fusion and classical and electric guitar, the marriage of melody culminated in Sarmiento’s forthcoming debut album, which is set to be released sometime this summer.
“This first album, it is literally a mix of, you know, almost 30 years of existing in Latin America, and in the United States, and traveling and soaking it up,” she said.
Beginning in the fever dream of the COVID-19 pandemic, her album is now a palpable reality. But while Sarmiento admits a lot of her life thus far has been lived in a dream, she concedes that dream hasn’t necessarily always been one of her own.
“In 2018, I was fresh out of college and still kind of figuring out what to do with my life and my career. I wrote down my goals,” she said. “I wrote down, ‘In the next five years, I want to go on tour with a very big pop artist,’ and then, three years later, four years later, it happened.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m living my dream.’ And when I was on the road, I actually realized that that wasn’t what I wanted to do; I felt like I was putting all my time and energy into somebody else’s project, or somebody else’s music — somebody else’s dream. I also wanted to create and to do my own thing. [Pitbull] has a vision and it’s his baby. I kind of wanted to do that.”
LISTEN: Escape by Lucia Sarmiento
While Sarmiento said the knowledge she gained on that tour was invaluable, both personally and professionally, a production of that magnitude didn’t come without its challenges. As the only woman in the international superstar’s band, Sarmiento was left to navigate a lot of it on her own.
“I mean, that comes with its advantages, but it also comes with its own set of difficulties — [like] how to handle a lot of social interactions. I had to learn how to stand up for myself,” she said. “[It] definitely has been a thing that I had to get over that I feel like a lot of my male counterparts don’t even think about. They just think about playing music and being happy. As a woman in a male-dominated environment, there’s more things you think about, you know?”
That’s part of the reason why Sarmiento also teaches music lessons via her YouTube channel and various clinics and masterclasses. She said the drive behind her desire to teach is to empower people, particularly women and Spanish speakers,
“I started posting videos in Spanish teaching the saxophone and teaching jazz lessons and music because there was not very much educational content in Spanish. So, I thought, ‘What about all the Latinos?’
“Almost all my private students right now are girls or younger girls, and it’s really cool because I kind of see myself in them. I’m trying to inspire them and help them.”
The lessons also include advice on the business side of things, a topic she says can be taboo for young artists coming up through the trade.
“From experience screwing up and getting screwed over by others, I have learned, and now I have a guideline to how I handle my artistry that is tied together with my livelihood. I’m trying to make this more of an open topic that people talk about, so hopefully, less people will get taken advantage of.”
But at the same time she feels pulled to help others, she’s ready to take her own art to the next level. Sarmiento will lead her band on stage at the popular Twin Cities jazz haunt Crooners Supper Club Thursday night, ready to showcase her three decades of life packaged carefully into her own songs, 10 of them brand new.
“It kind of feels like I’m throwing this very big party for me and my friends,” she said. “I ended up calling three background singers and background horns, and my plan to keep it small…didn’t work.”
And despite playing to tens of thousands of fans nightly over several months with Pitbull, the show at Crooners will be the artist’s first time to headline the bill. She’ll follow that up with a “mini tour” this summer in the Midwest, including another headlining gig on the first night of the Twin Cities Jazz Festival in June.
About to launch herself back out into the grind of being on the road, Sarmiento offers this guidance, applicable in both entertainment and existence:
“Come with an open mind.”
To get your tickets for Sarmiento’s Thursday show at Crooners Supper Club, click here.
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CHANHASSEN, Minn. — Predicted weather conditions have triggered a Red Flag Warning for virtually the entire state of Minnesota Thursday, indicating an extreme danger for wildfires.
The National Weather Service (NWS) says the forecast – extremely low humidity and dewpoints and wind gusts in the neighborhood of 40 mph – will exacerbate already tinder-dry conditions, increasing the likelihood that a wildfire could spark and quickly spread.
Here are the counties impacted, and when Red Flag Warnings will be in effect.
8:00 a.m. through 7:00 p.m. – Northwest Minnesota: Becker, Beltrami, Clay, Clearwater, Grant, Hubbard, Kittson, Lake Of The Woods, Mahnomen, Marshall, Norman, Otter Tail, Pennington, Polk, Red Lake, Roseau, Wadena and Wilkin.
11:00 a.m. through 7:00 p.m. – Central and southern Minnesota: Anoka, Benton, Big Stone, Blue Earth, Brown, Carver, Chippewa, Chisago, Cottonwood, Dakota, Dodge, Douglas, Faribault, Fillmore, Freeborn, Goodhue, Hennepin, Houston, Isanti, Jackson, Kanabec, Kandiyohi, Lac Qui Parle, Le Sueur, Lincoln, Lyon, Martin, McLeod, Meeker, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Mower, Murray, Nicollet, Nobles, Olmsted, Pipestone, Pope, Ramsey, Redwood, Renville, Rice, Rock, Scott, Sherburne, Sibley, Stearns, Steele, Stevens, Swift, Todd, Traverse, Wabasha, Waseca, Washington, Watonwan, Winona, Wright and Yellow Medicine.
12:00 a.m. through 7:00 p.m. – Northeast Minnesota: Aitkin, Carlton, Cass, Crow Wing, Itasca, Koochiching, Pine, and St. Louis.
Additionally a Special Weather Statement has been issued for Cook and Lake counties in northeast Minnesota where wind and relative humidity are predicted to produce near-critical fire weather conditions. Outdoor burning is not advised.
Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is telling residents to refrain from burning in counties where a Red Flag Warning is in effect, and to check any recent burning to ensure the fire is completely out. The DNR will not issue or activate open burning permits for large vegetative debris burning during a Red Flag Warning, and campfires are strongly discouraged.
“When fire risk is this high it’s important to be careful with anything could spark a wildfire,” said Karen Harrison, DNR wildfire prevention specialist.
Justin Ekelman’s business, Shrimply the Best, has a fan following.
MARICOPA COUNTY, Ariz. — There are things you expect to see along a desert highway and then there are Justin Ekelman’s hand-painted signs.
Drivers on State Route 347 between Phoenix and Maricopa usually pass them before they see the old, white cargo van Ekelman parks in a dirt lot off Riggs Road.
He is a man, with a van, who sells seafood.
“I do this year-round, I sweat it out and then when the winter comes, the snowbirds come back and it’s amazing,” Ekelman said. “You can’t bring enough; you can’t fill this thing enough.”
He is also not oblivious to what some people think when they see his Pike Place Market on four wheels: Seafood from a van in the desert? It seems a little sketchy. And a little dangerous.
But if you stop, Ekelman will proudly show you his frozen food vendor permit and other licenses one needs to sell shrimp and scallops on the side of the road.
Ekelman’s business, Shrimply the Best, has a fan following. In fact, one-third of voters in a recent InMaricopa poll named his seafood van their favorite food source.
Shrimp from Rocky Point are his bestsellers but Ekelman keeps his chest freezer stocked with Caribbean lobster tails, mussels and a variety of fish, too. An extension cord plugged into a gas-powered generator keeps everything frozen even when it’s 115 degrees outside.
“If it was sitting in a cooler in ice, it may be a little weird,” Ekelman said.
Selling seafood out of a van has provided Ekelman, a single father of two teenage boys, with enough to pay his bills and keep a roof over their heads. He feels more blessed than he did 15 years ago during the Great Recession.
Ekelman bought his first home in 2008, then lost his job as a carpet and air duct cleaner.
“Long story short, I ended up having to short sell my home, lived with my parents for a year and a half. My dad said come do this,” Ekelman said.
His father, a former door-to-door meat salesman, ventured into the roadside seafood business 40 years ago. Ekelman said his dad used wet rags to keep himself cool during the summer months.
“I did it one year like that. Why would you do that when you could buy a $130 air conditioner? I made a stand, put it in my window, now I have a little cold room,” Ekelman said, pointing to the curtains at the front of his van.
His father retired more than a decade ago and Ekelman retained many loyal customers. The business has not changed much since then, including the rudimentary hand-painted signs along the highway. Those are informative – and nostalgic.
“Ahead: Rocky Point Shrimp,” one of them reads.
“I go to Home Depot, get the wood, get them cut and paint them up, that’s how my dad always did it,” Ekelman said. “I have people stopping all the time saying ‘I can make you professional signs’ and I‘m like, ‘Bro, this is what people see. It’s a lot cheaper.’”
Ekelman also gets his seafood from the same source: His dad’s friend who owns a distributing company and gets seafood shipped to the Valley from across the globe. The company supplies seafood to restaurants, cruise liners and small fry (we couldn’t resist) like Ekelman.
“A lot of people assume I am getting it all from Mexico, it’s not,” Ekelman said. “A lot of the shrimp do but I just had salmon from Alaska, my lobster tails right now are out of the Bahamas, I have got orange roughy from New Zealand, the catfish is from here in the U.S., all sorts of different places but it is wild caught.”
Ekelman said he gets a good deal buying wholesale but the COVID pandemic forced him to raise his prices.
“My lobster tails, I was paying $5 a tail cheaper near 2019, COVID hit and everything went up,” Ekelman said. “I have tried to keep it pretty reasonable but my profit margins have gone down.”
Shrimply the Best accepts cash and credit cards.
A pound of raw, frozen shrimp ranges from $9 to $12 per pound depending on the size and type. Ekelman sells a 5-pound bag of extra jumbo, U-15 size tiger shrimp for $60 a bag. Chilean black mussel meat is $10 per pound. Wild-caught U.S. catfish sells for $6 per pound and orange roughy, a deep-sea perch caught in the waters off New Zealand goes for $12 per pound.
When Ekelman has no customers, he sits in the cab of the van with his makeshift air conditioning unit and reads his Bible.
He’s especially proud of his lobster tails, which are nearly as big as his forearm. An 18–20-ounce tail goes for $36 or two for $68.
“Mother’s Day is crazy; I could fill this thing with lobster and it’s just gone,” Ekelman said. “Father’s Day? Well, we don’t get treated as well as the ladies do sometimes.”
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The crash occurred at 8:15 a.m. Wednesday in Welcome, Minnesota after the bus driver failed to yield to the truck, which had the right-of-way.
WELCOME, Minn. — Nine students were injured Wednesday morning when a truck crashed into a bus in southern Minnesota.
The crash occurred at 8:15 a.m. in Welcome, Minnesota after the bus driver failed to yield to the truck, which had the right-of-way at the intersection of County Road 7 and 280th Street, according to the Redwood County Sheriff’s Office. In a press release, officials say the nine students sustained “minor injuries” and were transported to a nearby hospital.
The initial investigation indicates that the truck, an F550, was traveling north on County Road 7, while the bus, which was providing service to the Wabasso Public School District, was traveling east on 280th Street. The news release says the truck had the right-of-way at the intersection.
“We are grateful that no serious injuries happened to our students, the driver or the other driver, however, nine students were transported to area hospitals for follow-up treatment,” Superintendent Jon Fulton said in a letter to parents. “… The District and 4.0 bus transportation company is praying for a speedy recovery for the students and families involved.”
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