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On March 22, 2013 in Stockholm, Sweden, Dionisio Ramón Emilio Valdés Amaro, better known as Bebo Valdés, died.

He was an excellent musician of Cuban music and Afro-Cuban jazz, considered one of the central figures of the golden age of Cuban music.

In addition to being a pianist, his best known facet, he has been a composer, arranger and orchestra conductor.

He was born in Quivicán, Cuba, on October 9, 1918. He was the father of the Afro-Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdés (b. 1941). From 1931 to 1935 he studied piano in his hometown with Moraima González; in 1936 he moved with his family to Havana, where he studied music theory, harmony and composition with Oscar Bofartigue.

In 1938 he made his professional debut with Happy D’Ulacia’s orchestra. He played in Havana, since the 1940s, in the orchestras Ulacia, García Curbelo, Julio Cueva and Orquesta Tropicana, and recorded albums with groups dedicated to performing Afro-Cuban jazz.2

Known among his family and friends by the affectionate nickname of Caballón because of his considerable stature, he composed mambos, such as La rareza del siglo, which covers the genre recently introduced by Pérez Prado and which would change the course of Cuban music. From 1948 until 1957, he worked at the Tropicana cabaret as pianist and arranger for Rita Montaner.

The Sabor de Cuba orchestra, of Bebo Valdés, and that of Armando Romeu, made the show of this night club, in which Valdés stopped performing in 1957, when he was hired by Ernesto Roca, of the Peer International Music Publishers, to make arrangements for Xiomara Alfaro and Pío Leyva; at the same time, he joined Guillermo Álvarez Guedez, of the Panart and Rolando Laserie in Radio Progreso. With his orchestra Sabor de Cuba, he accompanied singers Reinaldo Henríquez, Orlando Guerra (Cascarita), Pío Leyva and Ada Rex; Beny Moré also sang with this group, and Chucho Valdés made his debut.

About the descarga or jam session, there are multiple versions, this is the one by Bebo Valdés which, due to the concreteness of data, dates and record labels that made the recordings, is the most objective: “One night in October 1952, I was resting in a cabaret in Havana with members of the Tropicana orchestra.

It is important to know that since 1948, Cuban, Mexican or even American musicians used to meet on Sunday afternoons at the Tropicana to play descarga, in the course of which we mixed jazz and Cuban rhythms.

Sometimes the descargas were held at four o’clock in the morning, at the end of the [Tropicana] show. The percussionist Guillermo Barreto was the one who animated them; we had received Roy Haynes, Kenny Drew, Sarah Vaughan, Richard Davis and many other musicians passing through; in fact, all the great names of jazz paraded through the Tropicana.

All of that could have been recorded, but no one was interested. So, that night Irving Price, the owner of a record store on Galiano Street, announces to me that producer Norman Granz is in town and that he can’t believe that Cuban musicians are capable of playing jazz.

Granz and Price ask me to go to the studio to record. It was September 16, 1952. So, I called some musicians, but I myself was late for the session, because in the morning I had another recording for RCA: I was going to accompany a singer! When I finally arrived at Panart’s studio, Granz had already left for the United States.

We called the orchestra The Andre’s All Star, after the name of Irving Price’s record store. We had decided to play classic jazz tunes, such as Distrust, Taboo, Sleep and Blues for Andre. At the end of the session, as there were still a few minutes available for the record, I started playing a riff, from which we improvised. We called that track “Con poco coco.”

The record was titled Cubano! and the participating musicians were all from the Tropicana cabaret: Gustavo Más, tenor saxophone; Alejandro Vivar (El Negro Vivar), trumpet; Kiki Hernández, double bass; Guillermo Barreto, timbal; Rolando Alfonso, tumbadora and Bebo Valdés, piano.

The works it contains are the same as those mentioned by Bebo Valdés, and the label, Mercury. In 1955, Bebo Valdés recorded, in the studios of Radio Progreso, Holiday Habana and She Adores the Latin Type, for the Decca label, which contained mambo, chachachá, bolero, jazz descarga, even jazz with bebop tendencies.

According to Luc Delannoy, in 1956 the Panart recorded Cuban Jam Session, with Julio Gutiérrez and Pedro Jústiz (Peruchín), as directors, and the musicians Alejandro Vivar (El Negro Vivar), Edilberto Escrich, Osvaldo Urrutia (Mosquifin), Emilio Peñalver, José Silva (CHombo), Juan Pablo Miranda, Salvador Vivar, Jesús Esquijarrosa (Chucho), Oscar Valdés, father, Marcelino Valdés, Walfredo de los Reyes and José Antonio Méndez. The participation of Israel López (Cachao) in a descarga did not occur until 1957, when the Panart recorded Descargas cubanas, with the participation of Cachao himself, Guillermo Barreto, Gustavo Tamayo, Rogelio Iglesias, Richard Egües, Andrés Hechavarría (El Niño Rivera), Rolito Pérez, Alfredo León, Arístides Soto (Tata Güines), Alejandro Vivar (El Negro Vivar), Generoso Jiménez, Orestes López (Macho), Emilio Peñalver and Virgilio Vixama. In other years, there were also recordings of downloads, and some unrecorded ones, such as those recalled by Leonardo Acosta at the Cuban Jazz Club, held between 1958 and 1960, with the participation of Pedro Jústiz (Peruchín), piano; Guillermo Barreto, drums and pailas, and Arístides Soto (Tata Güines), tumbadora (drums). This proves -or at least shows another side of the coin- that Bebo Valdés was one of the initiators of descarga in Cuba, a resource used by Cuban musicians in the most diverse instrumental formats, genres and styles of our popular music, as, for example, did the composers of the filin movement.

On June 8, 1952, with a band of twenty musicians, Bebo unveiled the batanga rhythm in the studios of RHC Cadena Azul; among the three singers in the orchestra was Beny Moré.

That same year he travels to Mexico with the purpose of recording a disc with this new modality of Cuban music, which also included a new choreography; they were not successful, and, according to Bebo Valdés, “the batanga died a natural death”.

When he left Cuba in 1960 due to disagreements with the Cuban government, Bebo also abandoned his family, his wife Pilar Valdés and his five children (including Chucho). Bebo Valdés goes to Mexico, then moves to Los Angeles, California, where he works with singer Miguelito Valdés; from there he travels to Spain, where he records two albums as director of the orchestra that accompanies Chilean singer Lucho Gatica.

Later he toured England, France, Holland, Germany and Finland with the Lecuona Cuban Boys. In 1963 he settled in Sweden, and worked with the Hatuey Orchestra, a Swedish group playing Cuban music. In Sweden he formed a new family when he married in 1963.

International career

After thirty years of relative anonymity, on November 25, 1994, Valdés received a call from Paquito D’Rivera, who invited him to record a new album in Germany for the Messidor label. A new beginning in his career took place at the age of 76 with the recording of Bebo Rides Again.

He participated in Fernando Trueba’s film Calle 54, along with, among others, pianist and composer Chucho Valdés, Paquito D’Rivera, Elaine Elías, Chano Domínguez, Jerry González, Michel Camilo, Leandro J. Barbieri (Gato Barbieri), Ernesto Antonio Puente (Tito Puente), Arturo O’Farrill (Chico), Israel López (Cachao), Orlando Ríos (Puntilla) and Carlos Valdés (Patato).

In 2004 he traveled to Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, to participate in Trueba’s film El milagro de Candeal, along with Carlinhos Brown, Marisa Monte, Mateus Aleluia and César Mendez.

An integral musician capable of tackling the most diverse genres and styles of music, not only as a pianist and composer, but also as an orchestrator and orchestra conductor of sublime values; of solid technical training, both theoretical and pianistic, Bebo Valdés is one of the all-time greats of Cuban music. He was, with Israel López (Cachao) and Patato Valdés, nominated for the Latin Grammy Award for El arte del sabor, best traditional tropical album 2002.

In 2002, Fernando Trueba produced Lágrimas negras, an album that unites flamenco singer Diego el Cigala with Bebo Valdés on piano.

After its release in 2003, it became an international success, recognized with a Grammy, three Music Awards, an Ondas Award, five Amigo Awards, three Platinum Discs in Spain and one each in Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela. The New York Times praised the album as Best Latin Music Album of the Year and opened the doors to a tour of Paris, New York, London, Havana, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Mexico City, Madrid and Barcelona, among others. By the end of 2004 the album had sold more than 700,000 copies worldwide.

He retired to Benalmádena, a village in the province of Málaga (Spain), until his death in Stockholm (Sweden).

Chucho Valdés

Read also: Carlos “Patato” Valdés one of the best percussionists in the history of Latin Jazz