Pedrito Martínez

Cuban-born percussionist Pedrito Martinez can be an acclaimed musician who plays a powerful mixture of traditional Cuban rumba, Afro-Latin jazz, and Spanish flamenco music. Created in Havana in 1973, Martinez started performing expertly before his teenagers with such regional legends as percussionist Tata Güines, along with the folkloric ensemble Los Muñequitos de Matanzas. In 1998, his participation with saxophonist Jane Bunnett’s Soul of Havana ensemble discovered him planing a trip to Canada, where he continued to be. He quickly founded himself like a world-class percussionist and also took 1st place within the inaugural Afro-Latin Hands Drumming part of the 2000 Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition. Also in 2000, he spent some time working with such performers as Claudia Acuña, Tag Weinstein, Eliane Elias, Paquito d’Rivera, Steve Turre, Brian Lynch, among others. He offers released two albums using the Afro-Cuban/Afro-beat music group Yerba Buena. Martinez released Rumba de la Isla single as well as the self-titled Pedtrito Martinez Group albums in 2013. Both had been broadly acclaimed by critics. The second option, made by Steve Gadd, produced numerous magazines’ year-end lists, and was nominated for any Grammy. After American chief executive Barack Obama announced a normalization of U.S. relationships with Cuba, Martinez was enthusiastic to record in his homeland. Acquiring his music group to the isle country, they collaborated with a multitude of guests in the historical Egrem Studio room in Havana. The program included Cuban performers Descemer Bueno and Issac Delgado, and rapper Telmary Diaz, in addition to Ruben Cutting blades, Wynton Marsalis, and Angelique Kidjo. Habana Dreams premiered in June of 2016 and got into the Latin and Jazz digital graphs inside the Best Five.