San Francisco Jazz Hero
When a presenter is having trouble procuring a visa for a Cuban musician to perform in the United States, Bill Martinez often gets the call. The San Francisco immigration attorney has spent the past half century figuring out avenues to break through the barriers imposed by both governments that keep Cuban artists off American stages. It’s a calling he came by through his love of Latin American culture, and his own efforts to champion master musicians and dancers from throughout the region. And in maintaining ties between Latin American artists and their jazz kin, Martinez is an essential Jazz Hero.
A native San Franciscan, he graduated from the University of San Francisco and UC Law-San Francisco. In 1982, he and Juan Gonzalez, founder of the bilingual neighborhood newspaper El Teocholote, launched the Encuentro del Canto Popular, a San Francisco-based Latin American music festival that began as a one-off fundraiser. While it barely finished in the black, the event put Martinez on the map as a presenter with a vision guided by the nueva cancion movement, which used music as a tool to fight political oppression across Latin America.
“It was such an emotional night,” Martinez recalls. “We felt so empowered by this musical expression. It wasn’t successful as a fundraiser, but it was in terms of creating a home for this music.”
Over the years the event has presented some of Latin American music’s most illustrious stars at venues around the city. And as the Encuentro grew and evolved Martinez embraced new sounds while staying true to its original message of unity and resistance. Inspired by Bill Graham, “the way he brought together an array of music to create a community,” Martinez has always sought to feature “music from Chile, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, all the different genres within the arcoiris, the rainbow.”
More importantly, Martinez’s work with the Encuentro led him to become one of the nation’s leading experts in U.S.-Cuba cultural exchanges and artists’ visas. As a co-founder of Latino Entertainment Partners, which produced historically significant concerts of Cuban artists, Martinez has collaborated with many cultural organizations, mainly in the Bay Area. He was co-producer of the 2020 “concerts for Cuba” internet production of HotHouse Cultural Center (Chicago) featuring 100 artists from the U.S. and Cuba, and was awarded the 2023 globalFEST Impact Award for contributions to culture in the U.S.
—Andrew Gilbert, JJA Secretary and Board Member
