Lázaro Valdés Espinosa

Lázaro Valdés Espinosa, owner of a recognized career in Cuban popular music and jazz.

Lázaro Valdés is a member of a family of illustrious Cuban musicians, son of percussionist Oscar Valdés (1912-2003). Cuban musician, composer and arranger with extensive musical credentials. He worked as a pianist and musical director in Benny Moré's Banda Gigante. In 1972 he founded the group T con E, and it was not until 2003 that he created his new musical project, which today is consolidated.

He studied at the Conservatorio Profesional de Música "Mariano Pérez Sánchez" and played in several big bands in the 1950s and 1960s.

Valdés was the last pianist of Benny Moré's Banda Gigante, a formation that he led and kept active until 1963 after the death of its creator.

He was known for his son and jazz songs; he also led his own groups with which he recorded albums. He was director of the Son Jazz group.

His Son Jazz project consists of piano, bass, drums, timbales, congas and a singer, who performs Cuban jazz based on traditional music genres: son, danza, contradanza, danzón, guajira son and song in an excellent fusion.

Lázaro Valdés has received several awards for his many years of work as a distinguished musician, including the Medalla Raúl Gómez García (from the Union of Culture Workers) and the National Prize for Culture from the Ministry of Culture.

He was the brother of Oscar Valdés Jr. and father of Lázaro "Lázarito" Valdés Jr. (b. 1965), who is also a pianist (and leader of the Bamboleo band).

In the repertoire of his group, Lázaro Valdés includes works of his own authorship and versions of important Cuban and foreign composers. With the piano as the center, he develops versions with jazzy accents of emblematic pieces from the Cuban popular repertoire.

Discography
Valdés' first record production with his Son Jazz is titled Manteca. In Manteca, he also pays tribute to two of the most important Cuban musicians of the twentieth century: Ernesto Lecuona and Chano Pozo, using the former's work Gitanería as a leitmotif to compose the song Permiso gitano, and he pays his debt to Chano by those who were born and grew up in those neighborhoods called Los Sitios, La Victoria, Cayo Hueso and the rest of those forty-three classic neighborhoods of Havana where good music has been made, is made, and will be made, and which Lázaro Valdés knows very well and has taken charge of transmitting in his music.

From this Cuban musician is the book Orígenes y raíces de son, where he pours out his extensive knowledge of rhythm at the Centro de Convenciones Atlalpa, in Panama City.

Discographic notes

De Tal Palo... Tal Valdés (Pimienta Records, 2003)
Lázaro Valdés Y Son Jazz: Manteca ‎(Bis Music, 2011)
Lazaro Valdés Y Lazarito Valdés: Benny, Sin Ti No Hay Fiesta ‎(Egrem , 2017)



Lázaro Valdés Espinosa passed away at the age of 83.