Hummingbirds & cigars

“I love those little birds, man,” he said “Every time one comes around, I smile.”

Darting iridescent bodies and a blur of wings so fast the eye can’t follow are the perfect visual counterparts to Sandoval’s supersonic bebop-and-beyond trumpet flights.

Friday, he brings a six-piece Miamibased band to East Lansing’s Wharton Center for a night of — what should I call it? Sandoval draws from several styles of jazz, Cuban rhythms, classical forays and any other source of nectar that attracts him.

“I call that music,” he said. “We play such a variety of styles. I never, ever wrote a set list. I just call the tunes and that’s it.”

When Sandoval plays the jazz classic “A Night in Tunisia,” he jokingly calls it “a whole weekend.” The tune might veer from hummingbird-fast bebop to a moody tango to a virtuosic cadenza straight out of Franz Liszt — if Liszt played jazz trumpet and smoked Cuban cigars.

Expect a lot of music inspired by Sandoval’s mentor, bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. This year, Sandoval released a new CD paying tribute to Gillespie and published a book about their experiences together.

Sandoval, 65, was born in Artemisa, Cuba. In 1977, he was a restless 27-year-old jazz fanatic, tired of playing with acrobats and clowns from Russian and Polish circuses visiting communist Cuba.

Early one morning, a fellow musician called Sandoval to tell him that Gillespie was coming to Cuba that day.

“The Caribbean cruise ship docks at 3 p.m.,” the informant whispered into the phone. “That’s all I can tell you.”

Heart pounding, Sandoval waited for his idol to disembark and introduced himself.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t know any English, but we communicated somehow,” he said.

Gillespie wanted to meet Cuban musicians and go to the clubs where they played. They piled into Sandoval’s ancient heap of a car, went on a musical tour of the island and became fast friends for life.

“A year after that, I made my first visit to the U.S. and I started to play with him until he passed away in 1993,” Sandoval said. “He was an incredible human being.”

Sandoval defected to the United States while touring with Gillespie in Spain in 1990.

The story was told in the 2000 HBO film, “For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story,” with Andy Garcia as Sandoval.

Gillespie co-invented the dizzyingly fast and intricate bebop style of jazz and blended it with Cuban rhythms in a hybrid style called “Cubop.”

“Me and a million musicians all over the world — we’re still trying to figure it out,” Sandoval said. “It’s so difficult, intense and profound. A lifetime is not enough time to learn everything about bebop.”

Being serious about music while having a high time on stage was the nub of Gillespie’s life and art. Sandoval and his band carry on that tradition.

“The audience knows we’re having fun,” Sandoval said. “It’s a contagious feeling. It’s sincere and spontaneous, an expression of the musician on the spot. The day after that, the same tune is going to sound different, and that’s the beauty of jazz.”

Sandoval’s multi-layered arrangements pack a lot of deep pleasures under the brassy sheen.

The Gillespie tribute CD puts dozens of styles and textures, including a string quartet, into orbit around its bebop nucleus. Sandoval is an entertainer, but he also rewards close listening.

“It’s like any good art form,” Sandoval said. “You’re not supposed to go to the concert hall, hear a Mahler symphony and have a conversation through the whole piece. That makes no sense at all. Jazz music is very profound, created from the deep heart of the musician. It’s not something to just listen to in an elevator.”

He plays very well with others, too. He has accompanied just about any star vocalist you can name, including Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. At the 2012 Oscars, he put some spine into Celine Dion’s bland reading of “I Finally Found Someone.” At the 2004 Grammys, he sprayed his twirling, helium-high party licks on top of Justin Timberlake’s “Señorita” and did a spirited call-and-response with Timberlake at the piano. When a few Internet commenters complained that Sandoval “cheapened himself,” Sandoval weighed in with the final word.

“I really loved to share the stage with Justin,” he wrote on the video’s YouTube page. “He is a very nice and talented man. I’ll love to do it again. Period.”

He diplomatically declined to name a favorite vocal collaborator.

“I enjoyed all of them,” he said. “Whoever wanted me on their recordings, or on a gig, that means we have a mutual admiration and respect.”

The Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013 was a high point of Sandoval’s life. Other awardees from the jazz world include Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie.

“To think that I am in such company is a huge honor, completely overwhelming,” Sandoval said. “I keep that medal very close to my heart.”

To him, the key word in the award is “freedom.”

“Freedom is the most important word in the dictionary. No freedom, no life. I suffered dictatorship in my own blood and I know how important it is to feel free.”

It was time for Sandoval to get off the patio. The prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition was devoted to trumpet players this year, and Sandoval was due on the judging stand at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theater with fellow trumpeters Quincy Jones, Jimmy Owens, Randy Brecker, Roy Hargrove and Ambrose Akinmusire.

(Chicago trumpeter Marquis Hill, accompanied by Michigan State University’s Jazz Studies director Rodney Whitaker on bass, won the competition.)

Then it was off on another tour, including the stop at Wharton, with the Miami band, one of three that Sandoval tours with.

“My schedule is ridiculous but I don’t complain,” Sandoval said. “I’m grateful I have such an amount of gigs. I’m doing exactly what I love to do.”

Arturo Sandoval

8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 14 Wharton Center Cobb Great Hall (800) WHARTON, whartoncenter.com