Atlantic Jazz Lab Orchestra

Atlantic Jazz Lab Orchestra (AJLO) is a jazz orchestra founded in 2017 under the name Orquesta de Jazz del Atlántico, as part of the Atlantic Jazz Lab — an organisation dedicated to the promotion of jazz in the Canary Islands. AJLO is directed by trumpeter Natanael Ramos, one of the most outstanding musicians of his generation. In addition to his work as Orchestra Director, Ramos is also a composer, arranger and educator, and has received several awards and distinctions, including the 1st Prize in Big Band Composition from the Jazz Association of Granada and the SGAE Foundation in 2015.

Atlantic Jazz Lab Orchestra is made up of some of the most prominent and respected jazz musicians in the country, with a repertoire ranging from jazz classics by Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Frank Sinatra to new compositions and arrangements by Kenny Wheeler, Chris Kase and Miguel Blanco. The orchestra has toured all the Canary Islands and other parts of Spain, as well as performed at festivals such as the Festival Internacional de Música de Canarias and the Festival Internacional de Jazz de Canarias.

In addition to its work on stage, AJLO is also committed to music education and carries out numerous programmes and workshops for young musicians and music students. It has released its first recording, titled “Garajonay Suite”.

Line-up

Trumpets: Álvaro Artime, Natanael Ramos, Leo Torres and Julian Díaz.

Trombones: Pablo Martínez, Cristo Delgado and Pablo González.

Woodwinds: Fernando Sánchez, Diego Jimenez, Cameron Rivero, Marcos Pérez and Fernando Barrios.

Piano: Daahoud Salim.

Double bass: Paco Charlin.

Drums: Andreu Pitarch.

Natanael Ramos

Natanael Ramos is a trumpeter, composer and director from the Canary Islands, dedicated to the promotion and development of jazz in the archipelago. As founder and artistic director of the Atlantic Jazz Lab, Natanael has created a reference space in the musical scene, where creativity and artistic exchange around jazz are fostered. This laboratory has become a fundamental space, allowing musicians from different backgrounds to connect and experiment through music.

In addition to his work at the Atlantic Jazz Lab, Natanael is a jazz trumpet professor at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Canarias. Through his teaching and masterclasses, he shares his passion for jazz and his vision of music as a tool for cultural and collective expression. His educational work encompasses not only technical training, but also the development of creativity and artistic commitment in his students, inspiring a new generation of musicians.

With his personal project, Islander’s Dilemma, Natanael has performed across Spain and Latin America, taking his music to countries such as Colombia and Chile. This project fuses the musical roots of the Canary Islands with the language of contemporary jazz, offering an original sound that connects tradition and innovation. He has also collaborated with outstanding international musicians and ensembles such as Reinier Baas, Ben van Gelder, Joris Roelofs, JM Jazz World Orchestra and New Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra on stages across Europe including BIMHUIS and the North Sea Jazz Festival.

His work embodies the fundamental values of jazz: freedom, creativity and improvisation, and reflects his conviction that music has the power to connect people and enrich cultural identity in any context.

Esther Van Hees

Esther Van Hees (Belgium, 1991) is one of the most versatile and distinctive voices in contemporary European jazz. In love with jazz from childhood through classic cinema, she was discovered as a teenager by the director of a local big band while singing Doris Day and Judy Garland repertoire on the street. At eighteen she moved to the Netherlands to study jazz singing, completing her training with honours at the conservatories of Tilburg and Amsterdam. In 2013 she received the conservatory talent prize and released her debut EP Got Wings, making clear her intention to build her own voice within the genre.

Throughout her career she has developed projects that reflect the breadth of her musical world: duo albums with guitarist Mateusz Pulawski, a solo record reinterpreting popular Dutch songs, and the indie-jazz duo Blue Sands with bassist Reindert Kragt, with whom she won the Edison Prize 2025 in the Vocaal Nationaal category. She has performed at landmark venues such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and shared the stage with figures such as Ben Van Gelder, Yuri Honing and Jef Neve.

In 2022 she was invited by the Dutch Jazz Archives to perform the repertoire of Ruud Bos alongside the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw. In Belgium she stars in the theatre show Hier laat ik je los, Wim, a tribute to composer Wim de Craene. Since 2016 she has collaborated with Canarian trumpeter Natanael Ramos, with whom she has toured Colombia, Chile and the Canary Islands. With A Serenade with the Ladies of Jazz, alongside the Atlantic Jazz Lab Orchestra, she brings to the stage the legacy of the great female voices of jazz, adding her own chapter to that history.