On many levels, The Conga Kings’ Jazz Descargas is authentic Afro-Cuban jazz. For starters, Carlos “Patato” Valdes and Candido Camero have been Afro-Cuban music pioneers for decades. Patato is ...
On many levels, The Conga Kings’ Jazz Descargas is authentic Afro-Cuban jazz. For starters, Carlos “Patato” Valdes and Candido Camero have been Afro-Cuban music pioneers for decades. Patato is ...
In 1917, Ramon Santamaria Rodriquez was born into poverty in Havana, Cuba. Nicknamed “Mongo” (a tribal chief in Senegal), he began playing the conga drum at an early age and as a teen, Mongo ...
Want a great conversation-starter with a jazz fan? Ask, "What's your favorite pairing of bass and drums?" Count Basie's Walter Page (bass) and Jo Jones (drums)? Miles Davis' Jimmy Cobb and Paul ...
Ray Barretto, the towering Puerto Rican percussionist who straddled the occasionally conflicting worlds of salsa and Latin jazz during a career that spanned more than half a century, died Friday. He ...
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...
Carlos Valdes, better known as “Patato,” whose melodic conga playing made him a giant of Latin jazz in Cuba and then for more than half a century in the United States, died on Tuesday in Cleveland. He ...
Poncho Sanchez is one of the world's greatest conga players — and has led his own band now for 32 years. Sanchez and his band — featuring special guest Terence Blanchard — play Jazz Fest on Friday, ...
Previously I have written about the differences between Afro-Cuban jazz and American jazz and examined the reasons why the descendants of the same African ancestors, living only 90 miles apart in the ...