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Irakere Members
Irakere (faux-Yoruba language, Yoruba for "forest") is a Cuban band founded by pianist Chucho Valdés (son of Bebo Valdés) in 1973. They won the Grammy Award for Best Latin Recording in 1980 with their album ''Irakere''. Irakere was innovative in Afro-Cuban jazz and Cuban popular dance music. The group used a wide array of percussion instruments, such as batá, abakuá and arará drums, abwe, chequerés, erikundis, maracas, claves, Cowbell (instrument), cencerros, bongó, tumbadoras (congas), and güiro. History "Jazz bands" began forming in Cuba as early as the 1920s. These bands often included Cuban popular music, popular North American jazz, and show tunes in their repertoires. Despite this musical versatility, the movement of blending Afro-Cuban rhythms with jazz was not strong in Cuba for decades. As Leonardo Acosta observes: "Afro-Cuban jazz developed simultaneously in New York and Havana, with the difference that in Cuba it was a silent and almost natural process, prac ...
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Havana
Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba
''The World Factbook''. Central Intelligence Agency.
It is the most populous city, the largest by area, and the List of metropolitan areas in the West Indies, second largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region. The population in 2012 was 2,106,146 inhabitants, and its area is for the capital city side and 8,475.57 km2 for the metropolitan zone. Its official population was 1,814,207 inhabitants in 2023. Havana was founded by the Spanish Empire, Spanish in the 16th century. It served as a springboard for the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish conquest of ...
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Arturo Sandoval
Arturo Sandoval (born November 6, 1949) is a Cuban-American jazz trumpeter, pianist, timbalero, and composer. While living in his native Cuba, Sandoval was influenced by jazz musicians Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1977 he met Gillespie, who became his friend and mentor and helped him defect from Cuba while on tour with the United Nation Orchestra. Sandoval became an American naturalized citizen in 1998. His life was the subject of the film '' For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story'' (2000) starring Andy García. Sandoval, a 2024 Kennedy Center Honors recipient, has won 10 Grammy Awards, ''Billboard'' Awards and one Emmy Award. He has performed at the White House and at the Super Bowl (1995). Life and career Sandoval was born into a poor family in Artemisa, a small village in the province of Havana, Cuba. He started playing music at age 13 in the village band, learning the basics of music theory and percussion. After playing many instrume ...
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Abwe
An abwe or chekeré is a Cuban musical ensemble that uses gourds. It is a product of ''cabildos'', historical congregations of African slaves brought to Cuba. See also * Music of Cuba * Slavery * Caribbean music Caribbean music genres are very diverse. They are each synthesis of African, European, Asian and Indigenous influences, largely created by descendants of African enslaved people (see Afro-Caribbean music), along with contributions from other c ... References Cuban musical instruments Gourd musical instruments {{music-genre-stub ...
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Arará
Arará is an African diasporic religion that developed in Cuba during the late 19th century. It is sometimes regarded as a distinct religion of its own, and at other times as a variant of Santería. Its origins come from people descended from the Dahomey kingdom of West Africa, and retaining an identity, religion, and culture separate from those of other Afro-Cuban peoples. Although, historically, the Arará people have been staunch defenders of their separate heritage and religion, this distinct identity - while it still persists - has, over time, become increasingly blurred and harder to maintain. Definitions Arará is a religion of Dahomean origins. The ethnomusicologist María Teresa Vélez noted that Arará was "closely related" to Santería; although its origins are not Yoruba, it is sometimes considered a branch of Santería rather than a separate system. The religion is centred in Matanzas although has followers in Las Villas and Oriente. By the start of the 21st centu ...
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Abakuá
Abakuá, also sometimes known as Ñañiguismo, is a Cuban initiatory religious fraternity founded in 1836. The society is open only to men and those initiated take oaths to not reveal the secret teachings and practices of the order. Members are typically known as Abanékues and are divided amongst lodges or chapters called ''juegos''. Abakuá derives largely from the Ekpe, Ékpè society of West Africa, but displays adaptations like the inclusion of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic symbolism. The society teaches the existence of a supreme divinity named Abasí who supplied humanity with a form of power which holds a central place in Abakuá's origin myth. Rituals are called ''plantes'' and typically take place in a secluded room, the ''fambá''. Many of the details of these ceremonies are kept secret although they usually involve drumming. Some of the Abakuá society's ceremonies take place in public. Most notable are the public parades on the Epiphany (holiday), Day of the Three ...
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Musical ensemble, bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All-Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar, and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as compact discs (CDs) replaced LP record, LPs and cassette (format), cassettes as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it, he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he res ...
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Grammy Award For Best Latin Recording
The Grammy Award for Best Latin Recording was conceived and lobbied for by then NYC NARAS Chapter Board Member, salsa pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader, Larry Harlow. Through his gathering of 100,000 signatures and protesting in front of the Uris Theater in Manhattan it finally became a reality. It was presented from 1976 to 1983 and primarily encompassed progressive salsa and Latin-oriented jazz recordings. Starting from 1984 the Latin field was expanded to Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album, Best Tropical Performance (encompassing salsa and merengue), and Best Mexican/Mexican American Performance. Its first winner was Eddie Palmieri for the album, Sun of Latin Music. Years reflect the year in which the Grammy Awards were presented, for works released in the previous year. 1980s 1970s See also *Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album The Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 a ...
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Bebo Valdés
Dionisio Ramón Emilio Valdés Amaro (October 9, 1918 – March 22, 2013), better known as Bebo Valdés, was a Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger. He was a central figure in the golden age of Cuban music, especially due to his big band arrangements and compositions of mambo, chachachá and batanga, a genre he created in 1952. He was the director of the Radio Mil Diez house band and the Tropicana Club orchestra, before forming his own big band, Orquesta Sabor de Cuba, in 1957. However, after the end of the Cuban Revolution, in 1960, Bebo left his family behind and went into exile in Mexico before settling in Sweden, where he remarried. His musical hiatus lasted until 1994, when a collaboration with Paquito D'Rivera brought him back into the music business. By the time of his death in 2013, he had recorded several new albums, earning multiple Grammy Awards. His son Chucho Valdés is also a successful pianist and bandleader. Biography Early career Bebo Vald ...
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Cuba
Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital. Cuba is the List of countries and dependencies by population, third-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with about 10 million inhabitants. It is the largest country in the Caribbean by area. The territory that is now Cuba was inhabited as early as the 4th millennium BC, with the Guanahatabey and Taino, Taíno peoples inhabiting the area at the time of Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish colonization ...
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Yoruba Language
Yoruba (, ; Yor. ) is a Niger–Congo languages, Niger-Congo language that is spoken in West Africa, primarily in South West (Nigeria), Southwestern and Middle Belt, Central Nigeria, Benin, and parts of Togo. It is spoken by the Yoruba people. Yoruba speakers number roughly 50 million, including around 2 million second-language or L2 speakers. As a pluricentric language, it is primarily spoken in a dialectal area spanning Nigeria, Benin, and Togo with smaller migrated communities in Côte d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. Yoruba vocabulary is also used in African diaspora religions such as the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé, the Caribbean religion of Santería in the form of the liturgical Lucumí language, and various Afro-American religions of North America. Most modern practitioners of these religions in the Americas are not fluent in the Yoruba language, yet they still use Yoruba words and phrases for songs or chants—rooted in cultural traditions. For such pra ...
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Carlos Averhoff
Carlos Averhoff (December 6, 1947 – December 23, 2016) was a Cuban jazz musician primarily known for playing tenor saxophone. He has been called "Carlos Averhoff 'Sax'". He was lastly based in Miami, Florida. He was born in Matanzas, and in Cuba initially had classical training. In 1973 he replaced Paquito D'Rivera at the "Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna (OCMM)" as the government had declared him "reactionary." He was also involved in Timba music. His son Carlos Averhoff, Jr "Sax" is also a musician. Averhoff died at the age of 69 in Miami, Florida, in 2016.Muere en Miami el saxofonista cubano Carlos Averhoff
El Nuevo Herald, December 24, 2016


Teaching career

Averhoff has been Professor of Music at
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