Cuban pianist, composer, and arranger Chucho Valdés is the most influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz. Over a career spanning more than 60 years as a musician and bandleader, Valdés has distilled elements of Afro-Cuban musical tradition, jazz, classical, and rock into a deeply personal style.
Winner of seven GRAMMY® and six Latin GRAMMY® awards, Mr. Valdés received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He has been also inducted into the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame. Mr. Valdés most recent awards include a Latin GRAMMY in 2023 for Yo También te Eché de Menos, the product of his reunion with longtime friend and musical partner, clarinetist, saxophonist, and composer Paquito D'Rivera, and a GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY in 2022 for Mirror Mirror, an album of duets with pianist and singer Eliane Elias and the late great pianist and composer Chick Corea.
Mr. Valdés maintains a remarkable activity on stage, performing as a soloist and leader of groups in different configurations, including his quartet and orchestral ensembles.
In 2024, Mr. Valdés led Irakere 50, a celebration of the small big band he founded in 1973 and led until 2005. With its bold fusion of Afro-Cuban ritual music, Cuban popular music, jazz, rock, and elements of classical music, Irakere marked a before and after in Latin jazz. In 1979, Irakere was the first Cuban band to receive a GRAMMY, winning the award for their eponymous debut album in the United States. In a historic concert at the Arsht Center in Miami, part of the Irakere 50 tour, Mr. Valdés summoned two pillars of that band who are stars in their own right: D'Rivera and trumpeter and composer Arturo Sandoval.
But while celebrating achievements, Mr. Valdés has continued to look ahead with works such as "La Creacion," a three-movement suite for small ensemble, voices, and big band, which tells the story of the origin of the world according to the Regla de Ocha, the Afro-Cuban religion most commonly known as Santeria.
"La Creación" premiered on November 5, 2021, at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami.
Dionisio Jesús "Chucho" Valdés Rodríguez was born in Quivicán, Havana province, Cuba, on October 9, 1941. His first musical teacher was his father, the great pianist, composer, and bandleader Ramón "Bebo" Valdés, a legendary figure in Cuban music. From those lessons at home, his formal studies, and his experiences on stages in concert halls and jazz clubs, Mr. Valdés developed a style that marked an era in Afro-Cuban jazz.
