Efraim Trujillo

Efraim Trujillo

Biography

Efraïm Trujillo was born in Lynwood, California. At the age of six, he started playing the clarinet, later also taking up the saxophone. Since his childhood, Amsterdam has been his place of residence. He graduated in 1994 at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in the direction UM (performing musician). In 2019 recieved his Master’s degree at the same institute. His research about the Blues was rewarded

Trujillo plays on major jazz stages with The Preacher Men, The_Ploctones & New Cool Collective Big Band. He has also collaborated with the Metropole Orkest and Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw. He worked as an arranger for Nederlands Jeugd Jazz Orkest in 2017 and 2018. He is the musical leader, conductor, and arranger of the Amsterdam Funk Orchestra. In 2019 he won the Edison Public Award with his music group The Preacher Men. (see below)

Efraïm has played at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, the Standard Bank Jazz Festival in South Africa, the Tokyo Jazz Festival in Japan and many more festivals. In addition, he worked for many years for the NTR radio programs Mijke & Co Live. There he had the opportunity to play with and arrange for various artists such as Oleta Adams, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Gregory Porter, George Duke, and Chris Potter.

Blue

Saxophonist and composer Efraïm Trujillo is searching for the essence of the blues since 2018. In March 2019, he was awarded ‘9 with distinction’ for his Master Research Paper “Into The Blue (Revealing the essence of a musical genre)” at the Conservatory of Amsterdam.

In addition to this written work, the concept album ‘BLUE’ from his trio The Preacher Men was released, consisting of original music produced and mainly composed by Efraïm.

He collaborated in this project with, among others Hammond player Rob Mostert, drummer Chris Strik and producer Al Schmitt. In Jazzism Magazine ‘BLUE’ was chosen best Blues Album of 2018 (by Marie-Claire Melzer). NRC Handelsblad maned The Preacher Men as one of ‘the cultural highlights of the summer’ of 2019. On the 19th of June it was announced that ‘BLUE’ is the winner of the prestigious Edison Audiance Award 2019.

BLUE – Into the Blue (The Preacher Men)

BLUE – Go! (The Preacher Men)

Edison Awards

Efraïm Trujillo was nominated four times for the Edison Awards The Ploctones, in 2009 and in 2011, The ‘Ob6sions’ in 2013 and ‘The Preacher Men’ in 2019.

He also played on the Edison winning album by New Cool Collective Big Band: Thierno.

Projects