Miguel Angá Díaz

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Miguel Angá Díaz

Miguel Aurelio "Angá" Díaz Zayas (born June 15, 1961 in San Juan y Martínez , † August 9, 2006 in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia (Spain)) was a Cuban percussionist and conga player .

Life

Díaz grew up in a family of musicians, his father was a saxophonist and clarinetist, his brother is the Barcelona-based singer Juan Miguel "El Indio" Díaz Zayas . He inherited his nickname "Angá", by which he became known, from his father. Díaz first learned to play the conga from a teacher who played regularly in the neighborhood. At the age of 10, he left his hometown of San Juan y Martínez in the province of Pinar del Río , as he was selected for professional music training in the capital Havana due to his exceptional talent. As a teenager he studied at the music faculty of the National Art School. Díaz first played with the Latin jazz band Opus 13 and entered the international stage in 1987 when he was accepted into the band Irakere , led by pianist Chucho Valdés . In 1994 he recorded the album Pasaporte with the old conga star Tata Güines (1930-2008) in Havana , which was awarded the Gran Premio EGREM as the best album of the year by the state music label .

In 1995 he left Cuba and initially settled in Paris , before moving to the vicinity of Barcelona in 2003 . In 1998 he won the international music award " Grammy " for the album Habana in the category "Best Latin Jazz Performance" with the band Roy Hargrove 's Crisol . He has worked with various prominent musicians, including Herbie Hancock , Tito Puente , Steve Coleman , Omar Sosa , Rubén González , Ibrahim Ferrer , Ry Cooder , Omara Portuondo , Orlando "Cachaíto" López , Mark Alban Lotz and the bands Afro-Cuban All Stars , Cubanismo , Orishas and Buena Vista Social Club .

In 2005 he released his first solo album with Echu Mingua on the world music label World Circuit . In 2006 he started a project in which he played with artists from the fields of hip-hop , jazz and funk .

His last solo can be heard on the CD Rumba pa 'Angá . The band Companyia Catalana de Latin Jazz led by trumpeter / arranger Esteve Molero invited Angá and his brother Juan as guest musicians and recorded several pieces with them. Shortly after the recordings, Angá died of a heart attack in his home town of Sant Sadurní d'Anoia near Barcelona.

Angá is the father of the twins Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Díaz (born 1995), who as a duo under the name Ibeyi , which means "twins" in the Yoruba language , follow in their father's footsteps. Angá's eldest daughter Yanira, half-sister of the twins, died in 2013.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Vorreyer: Calling the Gods and Searching for Meaning , the daily newspaper from February 12, 2015
  2. ^ Finding a Balance Between Two Worlds , The New York Times, February 6, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Díaz, Miguel Angá
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Angá (stage name); Díaz, Miguel; Díaz, Miguel Aurelio; Díaz Zayas, Miguel Aurelio (full real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban percussionist and conga player
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH San Juan y Martínez , Cuba
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 2006
Place of death Sant Sadurní d'Anoia , Spain