SInce my beginnings as a musician, my curiosity and fascination with all music has taken me into the depth of various cultural forms of creativity and expression while respecting the traditions and other forms of study, and this continues to be so.
I find my vocabularies in the music of a jazz ballad, a Motown song just as much as in a bolero, a samba or a tango. All these years of study have allowed me to grow within the music I love, and eventually learn to create and enrich my life inside these cultures. This is me, the person and musician and it’s how I shape my music and my life.
Music became a force of habit for me. I didn’t even think about it. I just liked to do it and got a lot of pleasure from it. There was no thought behind it. It was intuition. Challenge itself was interesting to me. Later I learned it was about playing for other people, I felt a greater sense of being able to bring joy to other people by what I played. I wasn’t doing it for the applause. It was more for their enjoyment. It was for collective joy.
You should never forget: “Con Mendoza se goza!”
“With his superior technique and imagination. Victor Mendoza is not settling for continuing the vibraphone tradition in Latin jazz. He´s pushing it into the future.”
Fernando González, Jazz With an Accent.com and JAZZIZ Magazine
«Mendoza makes Latin jazz sizzle! He’s explosive and lyrical…his many moods make him a force to be reckoned with on today’s music scene. Indeed, Mendoza is one of today’s brightest composers.»
Ron Della ChiezaWGBH » Music America,» Boston
“The genre’s leading vibraphone practitioner and one of today’s most resourceful composers.”
Modern Drummer Magazine & Jazziz Magazine