Walfredo de los Reyes Sr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | Cuba |
| Genres | Latin jazz, descarga |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, music educator, clinician |
| Instrument(s) | Timbales, drums |
| Labels | Gema |
Walfredo de los Reyes Sr. is a Cuban percussionist, timbalero, and educator, in the fields of session recording, live performance, and clinics. He is the father of famed percussionists Walfredo Reyes Jr. and Daniel de los Reyes and of actor Kamar de los Reyes. He is often cited as one of the most influential modern timbaleros together with Tito Puente and Willie Bobo. [1]
Born as Walfredo de los Reyes III, his trumpeter father was named Walfredo de los Reyes II, also a well known musician. To distinguish the two during their mutually active career span from the 1940s through the early 1960s, his father was originally published as Walfredo de los Reyes Sr. and he as Walfredo de los Reyes Jr. With the senior's retirement, and the onset of his own son's career, he then became published as the new Walfredo de los Reyes Sr. and his son as Walfredo Reyes Jr. (natively Walfredo de los Reyes Palau IV). [2]
Citing Louie Bellson and Buddy Rich as musical influences, [3] he has performed or recorded with artists including Josephine Baker, Cachao, Elena Burke, La Lupe, Julio Gutiérrez, Quarteto Las D'Aida, Louie Bellson, Paquito Hechavarría, Bobby Darin, Dionne Warwick, Juliet Prowse, and Debbie Reynolds.
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2013) |
Walfredo Reyes Sr. carries the following endorsements:
Timbales or pailas are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing. They are shallower than single-headed tom-toms and usually tuned much higher, especially for their size. They were developed as an alternative to classical timpani in Cuba in the early 20th century and later spread across Latin America and the United States.
Louie Bellson, often seen in sources as Louis Bellson, although he himself preferred the spelling Louie, was an American jazz drummer. He was a composer, arranger, bandleader, and jazz educator, and is credited with pioneering the use of two bass drums.
Kamar de los Reyes was a Puerto Rican actor. He was best known for his portrayal of Antonio Vega on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live, and as Raul Menendez, the primary antagonist of the 2012 video game, Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
A descarga is an improvised jam session consisting of variations on Cuban music themes, primarily son montuno, but also guajira, bolero, guaracha and rumba. The genre is strongly influenced by jazz and it was developed in Havana during the 1950s. Important figures in the emergence of the genre were Cachao, Julio Gutiérrez, Bebo Valdés, Peruchín and Niño Rivera in Cuba, and Tito Puente, Machito and Mario Bauzá in New York. Originally, descargas were promoted by record companies such as Panart, Maype and Gema under the label Cuban jam sessions. From the 1960s, the descarga format was usually adapted by large salsa ensembles, most notably the Fania All-Stars.
El Chicano was an American brown-eyed soul group from Los Angeles, California, whose style incorporated various modern music genres including rock, funk, soul, blues, jazz, and salsa. The group's name was from Chicano, a term for United States citizens of typically Mexican descent.
William Correa, better known by his stage name Willie Bobo, was an American Latin jazz percussionist of Puerto Rican descent. Bobo rejected the stereotypical expectations of Latino music and was noted for his versatility as an authentic Latin percussionist as well as a jazz drummer easily moving stylistically from jazz, Latin and rhythm and blues music.
Francisco Aguabella was an Afro-Cuban percussionist whose career spanned folk, jazz, and dance bands. He was a prolific session musician and recorded seven albums as a leader.
Amadito Valdés is a Cuban timbalero, best known for his work with Cuarteto Las d'Aida and Buena Vista Social Club.
Carl Verheyen is an American musician best known for being the guitarist of Supertramp, the leader of the Carl Verheyen Band, and as a Los Angeles session guitarist. He was ranked One of the World's Top 10 Guitarists by Guitar Magazine and won the LA Music Awards category of Best Guitarist at their 6th annual awards ceremony. He has recorded with such artists as The Bee Gees, Chad Wackerman, Dolly Parton, Victor Feldman, Richard Elliot, and Stanley Clarke and has played guitar on film soundtracks including The Crow, The Usual Suspects, Ratatouille, and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, and TV shows Cheers, Seinfeld, and Scrubs.
Daniel de los Reyes is an American percussionist who is a former member of Earth, Wind & Fire and Chicago. He is currently a member of the Zac Brown Band. He is the oldest member of the band.
Memo Acevedo is a drummer from Colombia who performs Latin/Brazilian jazz.
The Orquesta Hermanos Palau was one of the most renowned dance bands in Cuba during the early 1930s and late 1940s, following the tradition of local jazz bands started by the Jazz Band Sagua in 1914. These orchestras emerged as an influential sign of the American music in Cuba, to achieving a bridge between popular music genres and the characteristic sound of American jazz big bands.
Peter Michael Escovedo III is an American percussionist and musical director.
Walfredo Reyes Jr. is a Cuban American musician who is an expert in drum set and auxiliary percussion, and a music educator and clinician. He has performed with many jazz, Latin, World music, World fusion, Afro-Cuban, and rock bands as a touring, session recording, and full-time player/performer.
Pedro Nolasco Jústiz Rodríguez, better known as Peruchín, was a Cuban pianist specializing in jazz-influenced Cuban popular music. He was an important figure in the 1950s descarga scene in Havana, and one of the most influential Cuban pianists of the 20th century.
Paquito Hechavarría was a Cuban pianist. Hechavarría built his career in Cuba by playing in some of the most popular orchestras, including Conjunto Casino, Orquesta Riverside and Los Armónicos. However, he is primarily known for his later work with Miami Sound Machine, the band that catapulted Gloria Estefan to international stardom. He has collaborated with popular artists such as David Byrne, Santana and Christina Aguilera.
Francisco Emilio Flynn Rodríguez, better known as Frank Emilio Flynn, was a renowned Cuban pianist. Despite being blind, he was a skilled and versatile pianist who mastered many forms of Cuban music, from danzas and danzones to filin, descarga and Afro-Cuban jazz. He was the founder and director of several ensembles, including Loquibambia (1946) and Los Modernistas (1951), both co-founded with José Antonio Méndez, as well as the Quinteto Instrumental de Música Moderna (1958), which later became Los Amigos.
De los Reyes is a Spanish name of religious origin, meaning 'of the kings', with reference to the Biblical Magi. Notable people and places with the name include:
José Mangual Jr. is an American Salsa percussionist of Puerto Rican Descent, singer and composer best known for his recordings with Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe during the 1960s and 1970s salsa boom in New York.
