Chucho Valdés

Pianist, Composer, Arranger, Bandleader

2025 NEA Jazz Master
Coral Springs, Florida

Date of birth: Oct 09, 1941

Bio

Pianist, bandleader, composer, and arranger Dionisio Jesús "Chucho" Valdés Rodríguez is one of the most influential figures in the world of Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz. An original member of the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, he founded the group Irakere, one of Cuba's best-known Latin jazz bands, which featured such stars of the Cuban music scene as trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and alto saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera. In a career spanning more than 60 years both as a solo artist and bandleader, Valdés has fused elements of the Afro-Cuban music tradition, jazz, classical music, rock, and more into his distinctive style.

Valdés was born into a family of musicians in Havana, Cuba, where his father—pianist, composer, and bandleader Ramón "Bebo" Valdés—served as his first teacher and defining influence. Playing by ear at the age of three, Valdés was already performing on the piano with both hands and in all keys. At age five, he began receiving private piano lessons and training in theory, and, at 14, he graduated from the Municipal Conservatory of Music of Havana. A year later, Valdés formed his first jazz trio.

In 1959, he debuted professionally with the Sabor de Cuba orchestra, directed by his father. Valdés' first recorded sessions as a leader took place in 1964 in the Areíto Studios of Havana with D’Rivera on saxophone and clarinet, and, in 1967, he was selected to be part of the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna. In 1970, Valdés and his combo became the first Cuban jazz group to perform abroad after appearing at the Jazz Jamboree International Jazz Festival in Poland. In 1973, Valdés founded Irakere, an explosive ensemble that quickly caught the attention of international audiences, including Dizzy Gillespie, who brought them to the attention of Bruce Lundvall, then president of CBS, who promptly signed them. Although the band's line-up changed over the years, Valdés stayed with the group until 2005.

Valdés leads his own ensembles and has taken home seven Grammy Awards and six Latin Grammy Awards to date. In 2006, he was named the Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and, in 2018, he was inducted into the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame and bestowed with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Science.

Selected Discography

Irakere, Irakere, CBS, 1979 
Live at the Village Vanguard, Blue Note, 1999
Bebo Valdés/Chucho Valdés, Juntos para siempre, Sony Music Latin, 2007
Chucho’s Steps, Four Quarters Entertainment, 2009
Arturo O’Farrill/ Chucho Valdés, Familia: Tribute to Bebo & Chico, Motéma Music, 2017