# José Luis Cortés, el Tosco, director of NG la Banda, dies in Havana

**Date:** 04/19/2022

The popular musician José Luis Cortés, el Tosco, flutist, arranger, composer, music producer and director of the orchestra NG la Banda since its founding in 1988, died this Monday in Havana at the age of 70.

According to information from the Cuban Institute of Music, Cortés died as a result of a stroke.

The beloved and charismatic artist, precursor of timba and author of great musical hits, National Music Prize winner in 2017, is considered a master and creator of the "new school" of singers and flutists of Cuban popular music.

Born in the El Condado neighborhood, Santa Clara, in October 1951, José Luis Cortés is one of the most prominent figures in popular music on the Island, considered an architect of timba, and, together with his orchestra, NG La Banda, one of the most visible faces of the so-called salsa boom during the 1990s.

A graduate of the National School of Art specializing in flute, he was a successful composer, arranger and producer who, before creating his own group, performed with Los Van Van, under the direction of Juan Formell, and with the all-star group Irakere, founded and directed by the master Chucho Valdés.

His artistic projection transcended musical and geographical boundaries. Together with his orchestra, he has been a source of celebration for the most varied audiences in Cuba and beyond its borders, with hits such as Santa palabra, La expresiva, Lelolei, La apretadora, La bruja, Échale limón, La cachimba and others, and for his exceptional virtuosity as an instrumentalist, reaffirmed in many of the world's most demanding jazz festivals.

Cuban music has suffered another brutal blow. The boy from the Condado neighborhood, from Santa Clara, who arrived at the National School of Art with his creative concerns on his sleeve and who was nicknamed El Tosco for wearing rustic footwear one size larger than his own, an epithet that achieved universal renown, who moved with equal ease and height in classical and popular flute, signed by Juan Formell for Los Van Van and Chucho Valdés for Irakere –who doesn't remember his fabulous Rucu rucu to Santa Clara–, led one of the most intense renewal processes of Cuban music when in 1986 and 1987 he recorded four albums in the Egrem Siglo I ane studios; Siglo II ane; Abriendo el ciclo and A través del ciclo, in which he brought together the most brilliant performers and vocalists of the moment, many of them from the new generation.

That was the seed of NG la Banda –the Nueva Generación–, an orchestra that he premiered in 1988 and with which he wove an impressive saga of discoveries. If son evolved into the so-called timba, a movement that crystallized and defined Cuban dance music from the 90s onwards, it was largely due to el Tosco's talent as a composer, orchestrator and orchestra director, and his ability to channel skills and wills around his project. The proof is in the consistency of the wind section –the brass of terror–, the rhythmic blossoming of the percussion section, and the flavor of his vocalists, led by the ever loyal Tony Calá.

The musicians, the dancers and all those who immersed themselves in his sonic inventions agreed in granting José Luis the position he conquered in the vanguard of our time.

Orlando Vistel, president of the Musicians Association of the Uneac, in commenting on this sorrowful event, expressed: "We have lost a creator of the highest rank, whose legacy contains an incalculable value that I am sure will increase over the years." In 2017 he was recognized with the National Music Prize and the University of the Arts conferred upon him the diploma of Artistic Merit.

NG began to leave a notable recording mark barely a year after its founding with No te compliques. In the 1990s Échale limón and Veneno made history. The most animated social chronicles then coexisted with imaginative instrumentations, in the style of Mambo Murakami.

That was a constant in José Luis's work; in the double album Mis 22 años, which he released in 2011 and to which he invited dozens of brilliant collaborators, you can hear it alongside Lucha luchador and Si yo tuviera an extraordinary jazzed version of the Danza del fuego, by Manuel de Falla. On the nights at the Casa de la Música in Miramar, for many years his plaza, before pleasing the dancers, he used to open the set with España, by Chick Corea.