Tag Archives: Afro-Cuban Jazz

In tandem along with his multi-instrumentalist sibling Orestes, bassist Israel “Cachao” López introduced to Cuban music the African rhythms that changed the island’s traditional danzón into what’s now referred to as the mambo — he also pioneered the descarga, the late-night jam sessions that revolutionized the sound and scope of …

Completed musician Cyro Baptista provides played the entire selection of percussion instruments from his indigenous Brazil, in addition to a great many other world music instruments. Structured out of NY, he arrived on the Paquito d’Rivera discharge, on John Zorn’s film functions within the middle-’80s, and he continuing to seem …

Less a music group than an assemblage of a few of Cuba’s most renowned music forces, Buena Vista Sociable Club’s origins lay with noted American guitarist Ry Cooder, who also in 1996 traveled to Havana to search out several legendary local music artists whose performing professions had largely ended years …

By virtue of his warm, flamboyant stage manner, longevity, continuous touring, and appearances within the media, Tito Puente is just about the most beloved symbol of Latin jazz. But a lot more than that, Puente were able to maintain his music amazingly fresh on the decades; like a timbales virtuoso, …

A veteran figure from the Afro-Cuban jazz motion, Arturo O’Farrill was created in Cuba and was raised in NEW YORK. The kid of big-band head Chico O’Farrill, Arturo was informed on the Manhattan College of Music as well as the Brooklyn University Conservatory. From 1979-1983, he performed piano using the …

Aimed by ex-Sierra Maestra drummer Juan De Marcos Gonzalez, the Afro-Cuban All Stars have already been necessary to the developing worldwide popularity of Afro-Cuban music. Their 1997 recording, A Toda Cuba Le Gusta, was the first ever to be recorded through the now-legendary Buena Vista Sociable Club classes. A multi-generational …

Orlando Valle, known with the nickname Maraca, formed the Afro-Cuban Jazz Task after many years of reputation in his local Havana being a respected jazz flute participant. The group has a curious mixture of guaracha, bolero, and traditional jazz filtered through a few of Cuba’s esteemed indigenous players. The lineup …

A Mongo Santamaria concert is really a mesmerizing spectacle for both eye and ears, and also in his seventies, this seemingly ageless Cuban percussionist/bandleader could energize packed behemoth arenas like the Hollywood Dish. A get better at conguero, Santamaria at his greatest produces an incantatory spell rooted in Cuban spiritual …

Manny Oquendo began percussion studes in 1945 and gained drumming experience with the rings of Carlos Valero, Luis del Campo, Juan “Un Youngster” Torres, Jose Budet, Juanito Sanabria, Marcelino Guerra, Jose Curbelo and Pupi Campo before starting to be Tito Puente’s bongo participant in 1950. Four years afterwards Oquendo was …

Since he started taking harmonica solos within the mid-’50s, Toots Thielemans continues to be without the close competition in his instrument, a minimum of until Hendrik Meurkens arrived. Blessed in Germany to Dutch parents, Meurkens started being a vibraphonist, not really playing harmonica until he noticed Thielemans when he was …