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Gerardo Rosales was born in Caracas Venezuela on July 6, 1964. At the beginning of his musical career he was a percussionist for important figures of his country.

He has been living in Europe since 1992, and has taken up residence in Holland, a country that has served as a base for him to project his music around the world.

He has recorded 20 albums under his own name and more than 70 productions with other artists.

Gerardo Rosales’ specialty is creating musical projects in the styles of salsa and Latin jazz.

Gerardo Rosales is the creator and producer of El Combo Mundial, Venezuela Masters, Charanga La Crisis, Our Latin Groove, La Gran Charanga, Son del Sofá, Rítmico y Pianístico, Cachao Sounds and many more.

In his beginnings in his country Venezuela he performed with:  Orquesta Café, Orlando Poleo, José Rosario, Canelita, Soledad Bravo, Adrenalina Caribe, Ilan Chester, Cecilia Todd, Víctor Cuica, Alberto Naranjo, El Trabuco Venezolano, Joe Ruiz, Tabaco, Los Satélites, Nancy Ramos, Wilmer Lozano,Watussi, Trina Medina etc.

In Europe he has performed with: The Rosenberg Trio, Saskia Laroo, Hans Dulfer, Benjamin Herman, Peter Beets, Tango Extremo, Drums United, Nueva Manteca, New Cool Collective, Fra Fra Sound, Denisse Jannah, Laura Fygi, Izaline Calister, Metropole Orchestra, Holanda Big Band, Cubop City Big Band, Lilian Vieira, Rolf Sanchez, ChaChaChalina y Maite Hontelé etc.

Gerardo Rosales has accompanied on tours, recordings and performances in Europe artists such as Dee Dee Bridgewater, Benny Bailey, Paquito D Rivera, Bebo Valdés, Toots Thielemans, Jimmy Bosch, Juan Pablo Torres, Herman Olivera, Oscar D León, José Alberto El Canario “, Andy Montañéz, Meñique, Edy Martínez, Carlos” Patato “Valdés, Conexión Latina, Orlando Valle” Maraca “, Alfredo Rodríguez, Armando Peraza, Luisito Quintero, Ramón Valle, Larry Harlow, Adalberto Santiago, Frankie Vázquez, Oscar Hernandez, Africando, Chamaco Rivera, Luisito Carrion, Jorge Herrera, Edgar Dolor, Dorance Lorza, Luisito Rosario, Watussi, David Cada, and Tito Allen, etc.

The Records of Gerardo Rosales:

2016 Gerardo Rosales “Salsa Vintage” (Download – CD – LP)

2014 Gerardo Rosales “Son Del Sofa” (Single) ITunes

2013 Gerardo Rosales “Síguelo” (CD).

2011 Gerardo Rosales “Chano Pozo’s Music” (CD).

2011 Gerardo Rosales “30 Aniversario” (CD).

2010 Cachao Sounds “La Descarga Continúa” (CD).

2010 Gerardo Rosales “Buscando Chamba” (CD).

2009 Venezuelan Masters Orchestra “Toros y Salsa” (CD).

2008 Gerardo Rosales “Salsa Mundial” (CD).

2007 Our Latin Groove “Bringin’ it All On Back” (CD).

2005 Gerardo Rosales “Mongomanía” (CD).

2005 Charanga La Crisis “Salsa Antigua” (CD).

2004 Gerardo Rosales “Tribute to Fania” (CD).

2001 Gerardo Rosales “La Salsa es mi Vida” (CD).

2001 Gerardo Rosales & Edy Martínez “Rítmico y Pianístico” (CD).

1999 Gerardo Rosales “El Venezolano” (CD).

1998 Gerardo Rosales “Señor Tambó” (CD).

1996 Gerardo Rosales “Venezuela Sonora” (CD).

1992 Gerardo Rosales “Salsa Pa’lante de Venezuela” (CD).

1991 Gerardo Rosales “Salsa Pa’Lante de Venezuela” (33 RPM Vinyl).

Algunos discos grabados por Gerardo Rosales con otros Artista:

Orquesta Cafe “Criollisima” 1987 (Fama) Venezuela ( Salsa )

Joe Ruiz – Javier Plaza – Jose Torres – Gerardo Rosales

Bebo Valdes “Rides Again” 1994 ( Messidor) Germany ( Latin Jazz )

Paquito D Rivera – Patato Valdes – Amadito Valdes – Gerardo Rosales

Conexion Latina – “La Conexion” 1996 (Enja) Germany ( Salsa )

Rudi Fuesers – Leslie Lopez- Anthony Martinez – Nicky Marrero – Gerardo Rosales

David Rohschild “Looking Up” 1997 (Via) The Netherlands ( Salsa )

Adalberto Santiago – Banjamin Herman – Gerardo Rosales

Leslie Lopez “Bomba Moderna” 1999 (Buitenkunst) The Netherlands (Latin Jazz)

Ramon Valle – Joe Rivera – Nils Fischer – Gerardo Rosales

The Rosemberg Trio “Suenos Gitanos” 2001 (Polydor) The Netherlands ( Latin )

Toots Thielemans – Leonardo Amuedo – Gerardo Rosales

Ronal Snijders “Bijlmerjazz 2004 (Independent) The Netherlands (Jazz)

Randal Corsen – Jesse van Ruller – Gerardo Rosales

Cubop City Big Band “Arsenio 2004 (Tam Tam) 2004 The Netherlands (Cuban)

Lucas van Merwijjk – Edy Martinez – Nelson Gonzalez – Gerardo Rosales

Drums United “World of Rhythm” 2006 (Tam Tam) 2004 The Netherlands (World Music)

Lucas van Merwijk – Nils Fischer – Aly N ‘ Diaye Rose – Gerardo Rosales

Samba Salad – Metropol Orkest “Live Vredenburg” 2006 The Netherlands (World Music)

Herman Link – Dick Bakker – Maurice Luttikhuis – Rita Iny – Gerardo Rosales

Aquilez Baez “ La Patilla” 2007 (Cacao) Venezuela (Latin Jazz)

Anat Cochen – Huascar Barradas – Diego Alvarez – Gerardo Rosales

Maria Catharina “Obsecion” 2010 (Independent) The Netherlands (Jazz)

Adinda Meertins – Thomas Bottcher – Marc Bischoff – Gerardo Rosales

Masalsa “Resurreccion” 2012 (Independent) The Netherlands (Salsa)

Soeshiel Sharma – Ray de La Paz – Marcos Bermudez – Gerardo Rosales

Izaline Calister “Kandela” 2012 (Coast to Coast) The Netherlands (Latin)

Yumarya – Vernon Chatlein – Larc Alban Lotz – Gerardo Rosales

Africando “Viva Africando” 2013 (Sterms Music) France (Salsa)

Boncana Maiga – Oscar Hernandez – Doug Beavers – Luisito Quintero – Gerardo Rosales

Mezcolanza “Headbanger” 2015 (O.A.P Records) The Netherlands (Jazz)

Peter Wenk – Chistof May – David Barker – Mick Paauwe – Gerardo Rosales

Tango Extremo “ Havana” 2015 (JWA) The Netherlands (Latin)

Ben van den Dungen – Rob van Kreeveld – Tanya Schaap – Gerardo Rosales

Orquesta La Potente “ Potente “ 2018 (Independent) Colombia (Salsa)

Coco Ramirez – Guarnizo – Gerardo Rosales

Barry Hay & JB Meijers (Universal Music Group) 2019 The Netherlands ( Pop)

Barry Hay – JB Meijers – Gerardo Rosales

Estrella Acosta “Noche Cubana” 2020 (Independent) ( Cuban) Grammy Nominated

Carlitos Irarragorri – Pedro Luis Pardo – Gerardo Rosales

ChaChaChalina “Mira Antes de Saltar” 2021 (Independent) (Salsa)

Chalina Smit – Dani Brands – Gerardo Rosales

Actuaciones realizadas por Gerardo Rosales en diversos lugares del mundo:

Concerts & Events of Gerardo Rosales:

Poliedro de Caracas: Caracas – Venezuela

Centro Cultural BOD: Caracas – Venezuela

Feria de Cali: Cali -Colombia

North Sea Jazz: Rotterdam – The Netherlands

Toros y Salsa: Dax – France

SOBS: New York – USA

Club Babalu: New York – USA

Expo Sevilla 1992 : Sevilla – España

Festival Latinoamericando: Milano-Italia

Accessible Art Festival: Turquia – Mersin

Bimhuis: Amsterdam – The Netherlands

Melkweg: Amsterdam – The Netherlands

Concertgebouw: Amsterdam – The Netherlands

Paradiso: Amsterdam – The Netherlands

Oosterpoort: Groningen – The Netherlands

Glastonbury Festival: Glastonbury – England

Tabarka Jazz Festival: Tunesia

Music Haal: Berlin – Germany

Las Leyendas Vivas de la Salsa: Medellin – Colombia

Exit Festival: Serbia

La Topa Tolondra: Cali – Colombia

Punto Bare: Cali – Colombia

Cafe Libro: Bogota – Colombia

Bird: Rotterdam – The Netherlands

De Doelen: Rotterdam – The Netherlands

Paard van Troje: Den Haag – The Netherlands

Amazonico:Emiratos Arabes-Dubai

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April 7, 1917, Mongo Santamaría was born in the Jesús María neighborhood of Havana, Cuba.

Exceptional percussionist of Latin Jazz and related rhythms, whose first name was Ramón Santamaría.

Mongo left to continue playing his Congas hard in the sky on February 1st, 2003.

“I wanted to do something that sounded like home”. With these simple words, Ramón Santamaría Rodríguez “Mongo Santamaría” spoke of his essence.

The purpose of his music pursued a sonority and a memory, possibly located in Cuba, in Jesús María, a marginal neighborhood where he grew up and enjoyed a tradition attached to the drum, to religion, to the street and from where this great Cuban percussionist drank infinitely.

But surely those drums also came to him from far away, from the Congo, where his grandfather came from to be a slave on the island and who also filled his head with sounds full of meanings and colors, which he later masterfully spread around the world.

The name of Mongo Santamaría (Havana, April 7/1917 – Miami, Feb. 1/2003) is, for the glory of all music, an inevitable reference of Cuban percussion.

Since he was a child he knew that his thing was to play the drum and he was lucky enough to belong to a family of empirical musicians, singers and drummers who supported him in the learning and mastery of these instruments.

During his time in Cuba, already a professional musician, he participated in numerous groups that little by little gave him a place among the most outstanding percussionists of the time. Some names of these groups are El Conjunto Boloña, Lecuona Cuban Boys, with whom he was able to participate in the recording of his first album, Conjunto Matamoros, Segundo Grupo de Arsenio Rodríguez, among others.

Each group had its own style and stamp, but in each of them Santamaría put his personal “touch”.

At the prestigious Tropicana cabaret he played with Chano Pozo as a member of Armando Romeu’s orchestra.

From that moment on, his career would not stop. Conjuntos, Septetos de Son were the perfect selection to complete the sap from which he would draw all his style and technique.

Later, from carnival to carnival, he would gather with other percussionists to play in the comparsas and experience the festive musical atmosphere par excellence of those years.

Alongside him played other friends who soon became a Cuban reference in the United States: Patato Valdés and Armando Peraza.

As part of the Tropicana orchestra and located in a show in Mexico, he decided to settle there as did many musicians of his time and came to play with Pérez Prado and Benny Moré.

It was precisely in the latter orchestra where he met Clemente Piquero “Chicho”, another Cuban percussionist whose style made him rethink the role of percussion in Cuban popular orchestras.

Mongo Santamaría belongs to the second wave of Cuban percussionists who arrived in New York in 1950.

His new idea of restructuring and designing his own style in the use of Cuban percussion was perfectly in tune with the reality that a few years earlier was being experienced in the music produced and sold in New York, after the arrival of the Cuban rumbero Chano Pozo.

“The rhythm produced by the conga organizes all the percussion of a band, from which melodies and counter-melodies can be experimented with.”

“I think percussion is the base from which things come out.”

Already in the United States, Mongo plays with Gilberto Valdés, again he is part of Pérez Prado’s orchestra and finally with Tito Puente’s, where he stayed for 7 years. Once in the line of Afro-Cuban jazz, so popular at the time, he joined George Shearing’s group and later the vibraphonist Cal Tjader.

With his own orchestra, he accompanied La Lupe, one of his favorite singers, and undertook projects of novel formats for the time, such as small formations of brass trio, piano, bass, percussion and drums, at a time when jazz bands predominated.

Mongo Santamaría, perhaps without the theatricality to which Chano had accustomed the New York public, focused all his strength on achieving his own sonority, with a fusion of Cuban styles and genres, perfected and deepened in the introduction of Afro-Cuban rhythms with a naturalness and using colorful timbre elements by using several tumbadoras in his set.

His creativity is highly demonstrated in the great amount of music that is part of his catalog of works and the quality becomes indisputable when seeing the amount of outstanding jazz interpreters that version and recreate his work.

In 1959 he recorded Tambores y cantos, which contains the song Afro blue, which over the years became “a jazz anthem of all times”, according to Nat Chediak, author of the Latin Jazz Dictionary.

His long recording career (50 albums), testifies to the musical activity that this great percussionist carried out throughout his professional career. He worked with American jazz legends such as Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, flutist Hubert Maws, Dizzy Gillespie, trumpeter Marty Seller, among other musicians who today still pay tribute to this Cuban conguero who was the architect of the fusion of rhythm & blues rhythms and Afro-Cuban music, recognized the connection of Cuban music to African roots and placed the congas in an indispensable instrument for the determination of Latin jazz.

In 1977 Mongo Santamaría received the American Grammy Award for “Best Latin Recording” for the work Dawn.

In 1999, Rhyno Record Company, based in Los Angeles, California, recognizing his contribution to Latin Jazz, released the “box set” (CD) Skin On Skin: The Mongo Santamaría Anthology (1958-1995), which includes 34 of his most successful pieces (from his rumba albums, his LP with La Lupe and his projects in the fusion of Jazz and Latin) and an extraordinary literature about his career written by actor Andy García, musician Poncho Sánchez and other connoisseurs of the Latin Jazz genre such as José Rizo, Luis Tamargo, Joel Dorn and Miles Pelich.

The legendary musician was extremely honored and grateful for the distinction Rhyno gave him by introducing this historic anthology to the world. As stated in the conversation with Jaime Torres, Mongo said:

“This is the fruit of many years of work, music made with taste and love.”

May he rest in peace and eternal glory to him.