Yasek Manzano Silva (born December 10, 1980 in Havana) is a Cuban trumpet player and composer in Marianao. He has performed with Celia Cruz, Los Van Van, Irakere, Bobby Carcassés [1] and the British bands Manic Street Preachers [2] and Simply Red.
Silva began studying music at the Alejandro Garcia Caturla Conservatory in Marianao and reproduced the music he heard on his parents' LPs. In 1995, Manzano entered the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory in Havana, where he became interested in jazz music. He later attended the Havana School of Arts and Music.
In 1995, Manzano began to perform regularly at La Zorra Y El Cuervo, a club in Havana. In 1997, Roy Hargrove, an American jazz trumpeter gave him his first trumpet and Silva started to play in various jam sessions in the city. Later, he traveled to New York and was offered a scholarship at the Juilliard School of Music, where he studied under jazz trumpet player Wynton Marsalis [1] and played in the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra.
Back in Cuba in 2003, Manzano started his professional career by forming his own group and recording his first album in collaboration with Roberto Martínez. In recent years he has performed with many notable Cuban musicians, including Chucho Valdés, Joaquín Betancourt, Frank Fernández, Beatriz Márquez, Marta Campos, Emilio Morales, Amauri Pérez, Roberto Julio Carcassés, Tony Martínez, Soraima Pérez (Sory), con el grupo de rock Tesis de Menta, entre otros.
Manzano often has been invited abroad to countries like the United States, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, [3] United Kingdom, South Africa, Switzerland, Italy, and Barbados to record, teach or perform. He also is a member of the del Consejo Nacional de la Union de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (UNEAC).
Arturo Sandoval 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 Nations 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.
Wynton Learson Marsalis is an American trumpeter, composer, and music instructor, who is currently the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has been active in promoting classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awards, and his oratorio Blood on the Fields was the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Marsalis is the only musician to have won a Grammy Award in both jazz and classical categories in the same year.
Latin jazz is a genre of jazz with Latin American rhythms. The two main categories are Afro-Cuban jazz, rhythmically based on Cuban popular dance music, with a rhythm section employing ostinato patterns or a clave, and Afro-Brazilian jazz, which includes samba and bossa nova.
Afro-Cuban jazz is the earliest form of Latin jazz. It mixes Afro-Cuban clave-based rhythms with jazz harmonies and techniques of improvisation. Afro-Cuban music has deep roots in African ritual and rhythm. The genre emerged in the early 1940s with the Cuban musicians Mario Bauzá and Frank Grillo "Machito" in the band Machito and his Afro-Cubans in New York City. In 1947, the collaborations of bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and percussionist Chano Pozo brought Afro-Cuban rhythms and instruments, such as the tumbadora and the bongo, into the East Coast jazz scene. Early combinations of jazz with Cuban music, such as "Manteca" and "Mangó Mangüé", were commonly referred to as "Cubop" for Cuban bebop.
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.
Prudencio Mario Bauzá Cárdenas was an Afro-Cuban jazz, and jazz musician. He was among the first to introduce Cuban music to the United States by bringing Cuban musical styles to the New York City jazz scene. While Cuban bands had had popular jazz tunes in their repertoire for years, Bauzá's composition "Tangá" was the first piece to blend jazz harmony and arranging technique, with jazz soloists and Afro-Cuban rhythms. It is considered the first true Afro-Cuban jazz tune.
Alfredo Rodríguez was a Cuban pianist who played Afro-Cuban music as well as Latin jazz. Born in Havana, his musical career began in New York, where he struggled to establish himself, playing with dozens of Latin music groups over two decades. In 1983, he moved to Paris, where he enjoyed greater success, recording several albums as a leader to critical acclaim. In his later years, he founded a new group, los Acerekó, featuring Tata Güines, Changuito and Joel Hierrezuelo among others.
Orbert C. Davis is an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader.
Roger O'Neal Ingram is a jazz trumpeter, educator, author, and instrument designer. He played trumpet for the orchestras of Maynard Ferguson, Woody Herman, Wynton Marsalis, Ray Charles, and Harry Connick Jr.
Carlos Barbería began his career in Havana, Cuba in the 1950s playing night clubs such as Monmatre and Tropicana. An early album titled "Carlos Barbería and his Orquesta "Kubavana" featured singer Yvette De La Fuente who performed with the band during the mid-1950s in Havana. "Bésame Mucho", Consuelo Velazquez' classic bolero, sung and recorded internationally by many artists and which was later recorded by the Beatles and the 2008 recording by Luis Miguel of another old classic "La Gloria Eres Tu" by Jose Antonio Mendez, were two of the songs on the album. During the 1950s Barberia also directed a smaller ensemble or combo, which featured Regino Tellechea and also Ivette de la Fuente as singers. His jazz band in Havana also featured famous sonero/bolerista singers like Raúl Planas, Juan Antonio Jo "El Fantasmita" and sometimes Rudy Calzado and Carlos Embale. In his day Barberia was very talented and a great host. In Havana he met the famous Ava Gardner. That same night the actress invited him out; she loved the way he conducted his orchestra, the way he would wear the "habanera", a typical Cuban shirt. Barberia with his band and combo steadily recorded for various Cuban labels. He was featured in Cuba's foremost TV and radio stations as well as featured in Havana's top night clubs and theatres. During the 1970s and 1980s Barbería led a Cuban big band, Orquesta Kubavana, in New York. Artists who performed with him included Paquito D'Rivera, Willy 'El Baby' Rodríguez, and Meñique. as well as a featured performance by Yvette De La Fuente.
Mezcla is a music group from Cuba.
Kumar is a Cuban musician who was born in Havana in 1984. He also appeared as an actor in Benito Zambrano’s movie Habana Blues, and his song "No Se Vuelve Atras" is featured in the movie’s soundtrack.
Roberto Carcassés is a Cuban jazz pianist. He was born on May 19, 1972, in Havana, Cuba. He has collaborated with many musicians, such as Chucho Valdés, Changuito, Wynton Marsalis, George Benson, and Descemer Bueno. He is the bandleader of the Interactivo collective.
Arturo O'Farrill is a jazz musician, the son of Latin jazz musician, arranger and bandleader Chico O'Farrill, and pianist, composer, and director for the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra. He is best known for his contributions to contemporary Latin jazz, having received Grammy Awards and nominations, though he has trained in other forms such as free jazz and experimented briefly with hip hop.
Interactivo is a collaborative group of Cuban musicians, led by the pianist, singer and composer Roberto Carcasses. As an acknowledgement of their growing notoriety, the band has recently been the subject of a documentary directed by Tane Martinez, and premiered at the Havana International Film Festival in December 2010.
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is an American big band and jazz orchestra led by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. The orchestra is part of Jazz at Lincoln Center, a performing arts organization in New York City.
Roberto Pla is a Colombian percussionist and bandleader based in London, England. Primarily a timbalero, he is best known for his contribution to the Latin music scene in the United Kingdom. He has toured with Carlos "Patato" Valdés, Alfredo Rodríguez and Adalberto Santiago, among others.
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.
Pedrito Martinez is a Cuban percussionist, drummer, singer, dancer, bandleader, songwriter, composer, and educator. He was born and raised in Havana, Cuba. He is a Cuban Conguero performing classic Cuban Rumbas, Afro-Cuban folkloric and religious music. He is a Santería priest. He came to the United States of America from Havana in 1998. He plays the Batá drum, conga, cajón, timbale, and bongo drums, among other percussion instruments. Pedrito learned his craft from the streets of Havana, Cuba. He has performed with Paquito D'Rivera, Arturo O'Farrill, Brian Lynch, and Bruce Springsteen. He settled in the New York City - New Jersey area in 1998.
Alfredo Diez Nieto was a Cuban composer, conductor, and professor. He taught composition at Instituto Musical Kohly, the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory, the National Art School, and the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. He founded and conducted the Orquesta Popular de Conciertos. Diez Nieto composed orchestral works including three symphonies and chamber music for various instruments, using and transforming elements from Cuban folk music.