Homage to Chucho Valdés, the most influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz

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Homage to Chucho Valdés, the most influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz.

Chucho Valdés Afro Cuban Keyboard Grooves sheet music

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Pianist, organist, composer and instrumentalist, Chucho Valdés (Quivicán, Cuba, October 9, 1941), is considered one of the best pianists in the world and certainly the most important jazz figure in Cuba today. Since he was a child, he began playing piano guided by his father, also a pianist, Bebo Valdés, and at the age of 14 he began his professional activity in the Sabor de Cuba orchestra, directed by his father.

He was a student at the Municipal Conservatory of Havana, where he worked with Ángela Quintana and later he was a disciple of Zenaida Romeu and Rosario Franco, whose influences he considers important in his musical training, graduating from the University of the Arts of Havana.

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Before the age of twenty, he was already a famous pianist, later deciding to join jazz groups. In the early sixties he was part of the orchestra of the Musical Theater of Havana, where he coincided in professional activity with Leo Brouwer, Federico Smith and Alberto Alonso. He later joined the Cuban Modern Music Orchestra, later founding the group project Irakere, together with guitarist Carlos Emilio Morales. With this group, he carries out significant work to rescue the roots of Cuban music, managed with new expressive elements.

His worldwide revelation as an important exponent of the international jazz movement occurred at the Warsaw Jazz Jamboree Festival in 1970, where he was placed by critics among the best jazz pianists of that time, as a renewer of Latin Jazz or Afro Cuban Jazz and an exponent of the jazz message. Cuban. Among his most famous compositions are Mercy cha, Niña, Por la libre, Valle Picadura (danzón), Misa Negra (for piano), Juana 1600, Calzada del Cerro, Las Margaritas and Mambo Influenciado, among others. His very original instrumentation to popular pieces are considered a contribution of great significance to Cuban musical development.

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His interpretive quality has been recognized internationally with the granting of the status of Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Victoria of Canada, and by the University of Havana and the awards of the Félix Varela Medal of Cuba, the keys to the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Madison and Nevilly in the United States and Ponce in Puerto Rico. Master in all genres, both jazz, classical music and popular dance music, he has given master lectures at the University of Banff in Canada, the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Center for Higher Studies in Los Angeles and San Francisco in California, USA.

He has received four Grammy Awards: in 1978 with Misa Negra performed with the Iraqere Group; in 1996 with Havana, an album co-starring with trumpeter Roy Hargrove and a Cuban-American-Porto Rican band, in 2001 with Live at the Vanguard Village, and in 2002 with the CD Canciones Inéditas, produced by the Cuban label Egrem that obtained the category of the Latin Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Album.

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Chucho’s father, Bebo, who attained a legendary status as the pianist and director of the Tropicana Club orchestra and Orquesta Sabor de Cuba, fled Cuba in 1960, and did not record music again until the 1990s. In the late 1990s, Chucho decided to focus on his solo career, and his son Chuchito replaced him as the pianist/director of Irakere. Chucho and Bebo occasionally played together until the latter’s death in 2013. Since 2010, Chucho performs with a backing band known as the Afro-Cuban Messengers.

Chucho has spent much of his time teaching younger generations, either in his homeland of Cuba at the Havana National school (with many famous musicians such as Herbie Hancock), or elsewhere. Chucho is the father of six children: Chuchito Valdés Cortes, Emilio Valdés Cortes, Yousi Valdés Torres, Leyanis Valdés Reyes, Jessie Valdés Reyes, and Julian Valdés Salcedo.

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Awards and honors

Chucho has won four Grammy Awards as a solo artist:[1]

Best Latin Jazz Album in 2001 for his album Live at the Village Vanguard
Best Latin Jazz Album in 2010 for Juntos Para Siempre, with his father Bebo Valdés
Best Latin Jazz Album in 2011 for Chucho's Steps, with the Afro-Cuban Messengers
Best Latin Jazz Album in 2017 for Tribute to Irakere: Live in Marciac.

Other albums of his nominated for a Latin Jazz Album Grammy include Bele Bele en la Habana (1999), Briyumba Palo Congo – Religion of the Congo (2000) and New Conceptions (2004).

He has also been part of two ensembles who have won Grammy Awards:

Best Latin Recording in 1980 for the album Irakere by Irakere
Best Latin Jazz Performance in 1998 for the album Habana, by Roy Hargrove's Crisol

He has won the following Latin Grammy Awards:

Best Latin Jazz/Jazz Album in 2004 for New Conceptions
Best Latin Jazz/Jazz Album in 2009 for Juntos Para Siempre
Best Latin Jazz/Jazz Album in 2019 for Jazz Batá 2

On October 16, 2006, Chucho Valdés was nominated Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

In May 2011, Chucho Valdés was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.

In Abril 2022, Chucho Valdés was awarded Best Latin Jazz Album Mirror Mirror with Eliane Elias & Chick Corea @grammyaward2022 Best Latin Jazz.

Solo discography

Albums

1964: Jazz nocturno (Areito)
1964: Guapachá en La Habana (Areito) – with Guapachá
1970: Chucho Valdés (Areito)
1972: Jazz batá (Areito)
1976: Piano I (Areito)
1981: Tema de Chaka (Areito)
1986: Invitación (Areito)
1988: Lucumi (Messidor)
1988: Straight Ahead (Jazz House) – with Arturo Sandoval
1991: Solo Piano (Blue Note)
1998: Bele Bele en la Habana (Blue Note)
1999: Briyumba Palo Congo (Blue Note)
1999: Live (RMM) -- with Hilton Ruiz[8]
2000: Live at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note)
2001: Solo: Live in New York (Blue Note)
2002: Canciones inéditas (EGREM)
2002: Fantasía Cubana: Variations on Classical Themes (Blue Note)
2003: New Conceptions (Blue Note)
2005: Cancionero cubano (EGREM)
2008: Canto a Dios (Comanche)
2008: Tumi Sessions (Tumi)
2008: Juntos para siempre (Sony) – with Bebo Valdés
2010: Chucho's Steps (Four-Quarters)
2013: Border-Free (Comanche)
2016: Tribute to Irakere: Live in Marciac (Live) (Comanche)

EPs

1964: Por la libre (Areito)
1964: No me digan na (Areito) – with Guapachá

Bebo Valdés & Chucho Valdés – Tres palabras

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