Dionisio Jesús Valdés Rodríguez

Pianist, organist, composer and instrumentalist, Chucho Valdés is considered one of the best pianists in the world and certainly the most important jazz figure currently in Cuba.

Chucho was born in Alquízar, current province of Mayabeque. From childhood he began playing piano guided by his father, also pianist, Bebo Valdés, and at age 14 he began his professional activity in the orchestra Sabor de Cuba, directed by his father.

He was a student of the Municipal Conservatory of Havana, where he worked with Ángela Quintana and later 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.

Before his twenties he was already a renowned 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 Orchestra of Modern Music, subsequently founding the Irakere group project, together with guitarist Carlos Emilio Morales. With this group, he develops significant work rescuing the roots of Cuban music, handled with new expressive elements.

His worldwide revelation as an important exponent of the international jazz movement occurs at the Jazz Jamboree Festival in Warsaw in 1970, where he was ranked by critics among the best jazz pianists of that moment, as a renovator of Latin Jazz or Afrocuban Jazz and exponent of the Cuban jazz message.

His interpretive quality has been recognized internationally with the awarding of Doctor Honoris Causa status by the University of Victoria in Canada, and by that of Havana and the delivery of the Félix Varela Medal of Cuba, the keys to the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Madison and Neuilly in the United States and that of Ponce in Puerto Rico.

Master in all genres, both jazz, classical music and popular dance music, he has given master lectures at Banff University in Canada, the Royal Academy of Music in London, Center for Advanced Studies in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the American state of California.

He has received several Grammy Awards: in 1978 with Misa Negra performed with the Irakere Group; in 1996 with Havana, an album co-starring with trumpeter Roy Hargrove and a Cuban-American-Puerto Rican band, in 2001 for Live at the Vanguard Village, and in 2002 for the CD Canciones Inéditas, produced by the Cuban label Egrem which obtained the Grammy Latino Award category as Best Pop Instrumental Album, in 2009 in the Latin Grammy edition with the album Juntos para siempre, this time he shared honors with his father Bebo Valdés and in 2010 with a CD with Spanish singer Concha Buika for best traditional tropical album for El último trago.

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 highly original instrumentations of popular pieces are considered a contribution of great significance to the development of Cuban music.

Main Discography
Year Title Record Label
1986 Lucumí Messidor
1991 Solo Piano World Pacific
1995 Grandes de La Música Cubana, Vol. 1 Alex
1997 Pianissimo Sony International
1998 Bele Bele en La Habana Blue Note
1999 Babalú Ayé Bembe
1999 Briyumba Palo Congo Blue Note
2000 Live at the Village Vanguard Blue Note
2000 Cuban Jazz Pianissimo International Music
2000 Unforgettable Boleros Velas
2000 Boleros Inigualables EGREM
2001 Solo: Live in New York Blue Note
2001 Chucho Valdés y su Cuban Jazz Blue Note
2002 Canciones Inéditas EGREM
2002 Cantata a Babalú Ayé EGREM
2002 Yemayá EGREM
2002 Fantasía Cubana: Variations on Classical Themes Blue Note
2003 New Conceptions Blue Note
2005 Virtuoso La Escondida
2007 Cancionero Cubano Blue Note
2010 El último trago. Concha Buika
2010 'Chucho's Steps' (World Village)

Distinctions

He has received the keys to the cities: Ponce, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, Madison and Panama, among others.

Chucho Valdés, proclaimed in 2012 by The New York Times as "the Dean of Latin Jazz," is also one of the protagonists —along with his compatriot Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Dominican Michel Camilo— of the documentary Playing Lecuona, a Cuban-Spanish co-production, filmed in different settings around the world and which will premiere soon.

Another development is the manufacture of the first eight Chucho brand pianos in Japan. The designers and manufacturers took into account the sound of Latin jazz. There were no precedents for the construction of a musical instrument intended exclusively for jazz performers. This project was born from the idea of Japanese Sakai, a piano manufacturer and repairperson, after attending a concert by the renowned jazz musician, who, according to specialized criticism always projects himself "Without limits."

Honors

Illustrious Son of Quivicán, Cuba.
Félix Varela Order of the first degree for his outstanding artistic merits, granted by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba, 1998
He was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Latin Jazz in Los Angeles, in a ceremony with Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri and Lalo Shiffrin, in 2000.
In June 2011 he was named Honorary Visitor of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The Provincial Council of Málaga named him Adopted Son of the Province, 2012
Recognition Gitana Tropical, Provincial Directorate of Culture of Havana, 2012.
He was nominated for the Platinum Awards in the Original Music category for the film Esteban in 2017.

Doctor Honoris Causa

Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Victoria in Canada, 1997.
Doctor Honoris Causa in Arts from the Superior Institute of Art of Havana, 2000.
Doctor Honoris Causa from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, United States —together with his father Bebo Valdés— in May 2011.