Tucson’s newest resident jazzman to make his debut here

He was 16 years old and it was love at first listen.

It was the same year that he met a young American girl whose family moved to Costa Rica for her father’s job.

It was love at first sight.

Five years later, with a couple years of studying architecture and flute under his belt, Muñoz left Costa Rica with $100 in his pocket, intent on studying jazz and marrying the girl.

“Love and music brought me to the United States,” the 69-year-old said with a laugh. “You do crazy things when you’re in love.”

Last August, Muñoz did another crazy thing for love: He moved to Tucson.

He and his wife left behind Santa Barbara, where they had lived nearly 50 years, to be near his wife’s elderly mother and sister, who have lived in Tucson nearly 40 years.

This weekend, the Luis Muñoz Quartet featuring vocalist Lois Mahalia will make its Tucson debut with a trio of concerts at Hotel Congress’s Century Room downtown.

“It is a journey though my discography,” Muñoz said of his concert, which he took back home to Costa Rica earlier this month and has toured in California. “We do things related to tango or bolero or complete improvisation from nothing. We give ourselves that freedom, which truly brings joy to artists like ourselves. I write music for myself and I play for myself with the hope that people love it.”

Not long after moving here last August, Muñoz took a step back from performing to get to know his new community. He and his wife discovered long walks along the Rillito and found a favorite Ethiopian restaurant — they are vegetarians — and go-to breakfast spot.

They’ve taken in shows at the Century Room, saw jazz great Wynton Marsalis at Fox Tucson Theatre and saw Arizona Theatre Company‘s production of Noël Coward’s “Private Lives” at the Temple of Music & Art.

“Tucson is very different from Santa Barbara,” Muñoz, said. “I’ve found a lot of great things here.”

Muñoz said his music blurs the lines between jazz and classical; he studied classical composition at UC Santa Barbara, which influences his writing. But he always finds himself marketed as a jazz artist.

“I also come from the classical world. I also come from the Latin world. And the Latin world itself has an entirely large world,” he said, from African-Caribbean to Cuban, Brazilian and Latin-American. “I, as a composer, do not place on myself any limitations. It’s not jazz per se, certainly not your traditional concept of jazz. It’s not really jazz; it’s music.”

Mahalia has been singing with the Luis Muñoz Quartet since 2019, when Muñoz invited the British Guyana native to sing on his album “The Infinite Dream.” Mahalia, who moved to the U.S. when she was 13, had spent much of her career singing backup to artists including Joe Walsh, the late Joe Sample and Kenny Loggins.

The Luis Muñoz Quartet featuring Lois Mahalia will perform at 7 and 9 p.m. Friday, May 26, and 7 p.m. Saturday, May 27, at the Century Room, 311 E. Congress St. Tickets are $20-$30 through hotelcongress.com.