He composed works for Machito (Afro-Cuban suite with Charlie Parker, 1950) and Benny Goodman's Bebop Orchestra ("Undercurrent Blues"), and arranged for Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Kenton, among others.
In 1948, he relocated to New York City, where he continued his classical music studies under Stefan Wolpe, Bernard Wagenaar, and others at the Juilliard School, and began to pursue the jazz scene in his free time.
[3] During this period, he also worked as an arranger with Stan Kenton (Cuban Episode), Count Basie, Art Farmer, and Machito (the Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite feat.
"[4] He also wrote arrangements of pop songs for Count Basie in 1965 and 1966, and recorded Spanish Rice, an album of his Afro-Cuban jazz compositions, with Clark Terry in 1966.
He wrote scores for Stan Kenton and Art Barbieri during the early part of this inactive period, as well as some for Machito and Dizzy Gillespie's jazz orchestra.
O'Farrill did, however, make a comeback as a band leader in the jazz world with the 1995 release of the Grammy-nominated album Pure Emotion, which marked the first time he'd recorded as a leader in nearly 30 years—though he did lead a 17-piece Afro-Cuban orchestra at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City a year before, and arranged several songs for David Bowie's jazz-inspired 1993 album Black Tie White Noise, predicting his return.
Even just the title alludes to the inclusion of these three elements, and several movements are inspired by music of a Latin idiom (Canción, Mambo, Rhumba Abierta), while others are more jazz-inspired (6/8, Jazz), and all are brought together under the orderly form of a European suite.
In a review of Pure Emotion, Paul Verna writes for Billboard, "The return of veteran composer/arranger Chico O'Farrill should earn an enthusiastic welcome for devotees of swinging, straight-ahead Latin jazz.