Results for "Congas"

Big Black

Born: 1937

Big Black - congas, percussion The master musician, percussionist and hand drummer, known as Big Black, was born Daniel Ray in Georgia in 1934, and grew up as a child in the Carolinas. Big Black first heard drum and percussion rhythms while listening to a radio broadcast from Cuba and was mesmerized by the sounds of congas and bongos. He started playing percussion in Miami in the 50's and performed with various salsa and calypso bands until he moved to New York in the 60's. He got connected with various Bebop artists and bands there and soon was a regular percussionist for Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard and Randy Weston

Poncho Sanchez

Born: October 30, 1951

GRAMMY-winning bandleader, conguero, and percussionist Poncho Sanchez is among the most influential percussionists in jazz.  For more than four decades, he’s stirred up a fiery stew of straightahead jazz, gritty soul music, and infectious melodies and rhythms from a variety of Latin American and South American sources. Throughout his career, Sanchez has held aloft the torch lit by such innovators as Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente and Cal Tjader, embraced by each of those icons and entrusted to carry forward the traditions of Latin Jazz.

Sanchez was born in Laredo, Texas, in 1951 to a large Mexican-American family, but grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, where he was raised on an unusual cross section of sounds that included straightahead jazz, Latin jazz and American soul. By his teen years, his musical consciousness had been solidified by the likes of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaria, Wilson Pickett, and James Brown. Along the way, he taught himself to play guitar, flute, drums and timbales, but eventually settled on the congas. Sanchez landed a permanent spot in Cal Tjader's band in 1975, and remained with him until the bandleader's death in 1982.  Sanchez then shifted his focus to his own group, which he had formed in 1980, and signed with powerhouse label Concord for the release of ‘Sonando’, beginning a musical partnership that has spanned nearly four decades and yielded more than two dozen recordings. 

Ray Barretto

Born: April 29, 1929

Barretto was born on 29 April 1929, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, of Puerto Rican parents. Noted for his many years as a prominent Latin bandleader, his music career actually began as a studio performer on the conga for jazz recording sessions. He was raised in the Latin ghettos of East Harlem and the Bronx, in an environment filled with music of Puerto Rico but with a love for the swing bands of Ellington, Basie and Goodman. He escaped the ghetto by joining the United States Army when he was 17 years old, but he did not escape the music. Influenced by a record of Dizzy Gillespie, “Manteca”, with conguero Chano Pozo

Francisco Aguabella

Born: October 10, 1925

Francisco Aguabella - congas A master percussionist who was born in Matanzas Cuba, Francisco Aguabella is one of the first eschelon of drummers who came to America and are responsible for all drummers that came after them," says Latin percussionist John Santos in the movie "Sworn To The Drum.” Francisco Aguabella was born October 10, 1925, and raised in the Matanzas drumming tradition of Cuba. In 1953, he immigrated to the United States and established himself in California as an olu batá (batá drummer). Batá drumming is a ceremonial musical style that plays an integral role in the African-derived religion of Santeria, practiced in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and, since the 1950s, in the United States

Vernon Chatlein

Born: November 28, 1984

Vernon Allan Joseph Chatlein Vernon is a very promising and talented conguero and all- round percussionist. He specializes in Cuban and Latin Caribbean Music, but he is also an excellent performer of local folkloric music. He studied Congas and Latin percussion under the tutelage of Mr. Pedro Driggs, Cuban percussionist and teacher at the Music Academy “Edgar Palm” in Curaçao. Vernon also studied with master-conguero Joaquim Pozzo and maestro Enrique Lasaga in Havana, Cuba and also Grammy award winner percussionist Pernell Saturnino. After graduating from the University of Netherlands Antilles majoring in Information Technology, Vernon went to Havana, Cuba to study music at the “Conservatorio Amadeo Roldan” where he did one year of formal studies and where he got his first Bata lessons from ironically a female percussionist and very good friend from Santiago, Cuba, Magdelis Savigne. In his second year in Havana he delved more profoundly in to the world of Bata and Afro-Cuban percussion. Vernon is now based in Amsterdam, Netherlands where he is doing jazz studies at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with main subject percussion

Edwin "Nepy" Maldonado

Born: November 15, 1976

Edwin "Nepy" Maldonado: Percussionist, Arranger, Producer and Vocalist.Edwin "Nepy" Maldonado was born and raised in Trenton, NJ, Nov. 15, 1976. He was the first child born to Eddie & Mille Maldonado. As a child, he always had an interest for music. Banging on pots and pans, whether the music was on or off, his father knew his son would become a musician. At the age of 8, Nepy, as everyone know him, made his debut playing the bongo with a band his father played rhythm guitar with, Estrellas Del Caribe. By the time he was about 11 or 12, he joined the family band led by his father Eddie and musically directed by his uncle Nelson Maldonado, Conjunto Familia, as a percussionist playing congas, timbales & bongo alongside his uncle Albert Maldonado

Sidoun

Born: November 19, 1959

Angelo Segarra

Born: August 6

Angelo Segarra is one of the most talented, versatile musicians/conga players of the Latin Jazz Genre. He has been playing conga since a very young age. His first performance at age 18 was with Orchestra La Raza, opening band for Ismael Rivera, Joe Cuba, Adalberto Santiago and many others. He attended Johny Colon School of Music, where one of his mentor was Charlie Palmieri. He continued his music studies at Harbor Conservatory of Music where he studied arranging & orchestration. Angelo also teaches music at elementary and intermediate schools throughout New York City. Currently, he has his own Latin Jazz Band in which he incorporates all the jazz flavors into Latin jazz

Michael Cobb

Nelson Ortiz

Co-founder of YAVAZ,Nelson was a guitarist and a singer back in the 1960's in Tijuana in some of the most popular nightclubs like Mike's Bar, The Aloha & The Blue Note. His band played in concert with a then up and coming band called Chicago Transit Authority. After years in retirement he became a percussionist. Soon after he was playing with at the Puerto Vallarta Jazz Festival with such notables at Poncho Sanchez, Mongo Santa Maria and Dave Valentine. Nelson also performed on several tracks of the Emmy award winning "Liquid Stage" soundtrack. For the past 10 years, Yavaz has been playing concerts throughout the Southern CA area, Arizona and Las Vegas.