Bebo Valdés

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Bebo Valdés (2008)

Dionisio Ramón Emilio "Bebo" Valdés Amaro (born October 9, 1918 in Quivicán , † March 22, 2013 in Stockholm ) was a Cuban musician in the field of jazz and Cuban music .

Live and act

Valdés did not begin to play the piano until he was twelve when a friend of his mother's gave him his first lessons. He made rapid progress and soon transferred to the National Conservatory in Havana . At the age of 20 he was already performing regularly as a pianist and arranger with a jazz orchestra, which had two concerts a day in dance bars and another on the radio. His breakthrough came in 1945 when he joined the band of trumpeter Julio Cueva, with whom he developed an innovative mix of styles from Cuban guaracha and American swing . From 1948 he was musical director of the Tropicana nightclub in Havana - the most important venue for modern music in the country, where American artists such as Woody Herman and Nat King Cole performed (he can be heard on the album Cole Español (1958) , among others ). As musical director he was arranger and accompanying pianist for the star singer of the Tropicana, Rita Montaner . At the same time, equally versed in mambo , bolero and Latin jazz , he wrote arrangements for Beny Moré and Pío Leyva . With the Batá drum, he introduced a ritual instrument of the Santería to popular music . In 1952, under Valdés' direction, Con Poco Coco was the first record of an Afro-Cuban descarga ( jam session ) made in Cuba . In 1959 Valdés founded his own orchestra, Sabor de Cuba , to which his son Chucho also belonged.

Due to the increasingly restricted individual freedoms after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 under Fidel Castro and after he had resisted pressure from the new rulers to denounce his friend and musician colleague Humberto Suárez, he emigrated to Mexico in October 1960 and then to the USA while his family stayed in Cuba. During a concert tour with the Lecuona Cuban Boys in Europe, he fell in love with the Swedish Rose Marie Pehrson in 1963, who became his second wife and at whose side he settled in Stockholm. There he worked as a little-noticed pianist in restaurants, hotels and on excursion boats.

The Cuban exiled jazz musician Paquito D'Rivera helped him to a late restart of his international career at the end of 1994 when he pulled him out of oblivion and convinced the Frankfurt music publisher Götz Wörner to record the album Bebo Rides Again with Valdés on his label Messidor with Valdés' first album in 34 years. For the recordings, D'Rivera had planned to include Bebo's son Chucho, who had already produced several albums for Messidor. Chucho canceled his already promised participation shortly before his planned departure from Havana. With the help of the guitarist Carlos Emilio Morales and the drummer Amadito Valdés (no relatives), the album was the first music production since the Cuban revolution to be carried out together with Cuban exiles and musicians living in Cuba. The first joint recordings by Bebo and Chucho Valdés were finally made in 1996 in Berkeley (USA) for D'Rivera's album Cuba Jazz: 90 Miles to Cuba . The documentary Calle 54 produced in 2000 by Spanish Oscar winner Fernando Trueba about Latin Jazz , in which Bebo Valdés appeared alongside other greats of the genre, made him known to an even larger audience. Between 2002 and 2009 he won a total of three Grammy Awards and six Latin Grammy Awards for his albums El arte del sabor , Lágrimas negras , Bebo de Cuba and Juntos para siempre . The album Lágrimas negras , recorded with the Spanish flamenco singer Diego el Cigala , was named "Best Album of the Year" by the New York Times in 2003 .

With his first wife, the singer Pilar Rodríguez, he had the sons "Chucho" (Jesús), Raúl and Ramón and the daughters Miriam and Mayra. Both his son Chucho and his grandson Chuchito are also internationally successful jazz pianists. He saw his son for the first time since 1960 when he was giving a concert in New York in 1978. In 2008, Bebo and Chucho Valdés released the jointly recorded album Juntos para siempre ("Together forever"), and then went on a concert tour together. The sons Raymond and Rickard come from his second marriage. Since 2007 Valdés has lived in Benalmádena near Málaga ( Andalusia ), Spain , where his son Chucho, who still lives in Cuba, has spent a lot of time with him in recent years. Since emigrating in 1960, Bebo Valdés has not returned to Cuba once. According to his own statement, he only wanted to do this after the end of Castro's rule, because he “couldn't stand dictatorships”. Despite his clear political rejection, it was only after his death that the Communist Party- controlled media on the island recognized him as a great Cuban artist. Chucho Valdés had already expressed his anger to the international press after winning the Latin Grammy for their joint album Juntos para siempre in 2009 that he himself, but not his father, was mentioned by the Cuban media. The “Festival Internacional Jazz Plaza 2013” ​​was then expressly dedicated to father and son with the consent of the cultural authorities.

In March 2013, Bebo Valdés, suffering from Alzheimer's disease for some time, died at the age of 94 in Stockholm. His children from his second marriage had brought him there a good two weeks before his death after his health had deteriorated.

Bebo Valdés (2008)

Discography (selection)

  • Chico & Rita (Soundtrack, 2011)
  • Juntos para siempre (with Chucho Valdés, 2008)
  • Live at the Village Vanguard (with Javier Colina , 2007)
  • Sabor de Cuba (archive production 2007)
  • Bebo and Cachao (with Israel "Cachao" López , 2007)
  • Bebo de Cuba (2005)
  • Lágrimas negras (with Diego el Cigala, 2005)
  • Descarga caliente (with the Havana All Stars, archive production 2004)
  • We Could Make such Beautiful Music Together (with Federico Britos, 2004)
  • El arte del sabor (2001)
  • Mucho sabor (1995)
  • Bebo Rides Again (1994)
  • Todo ritmo (archive production 1992)
  • Mambo Caliente, Mambo Reef (1955)
  • Con poco coco (1952)

literature

  • Mats Lundahl: Bebo de Cuba. Bebo Valdés y su mundo. 494 pp., RBA 2008, ISBN 978-8498672596 (Spanish)

Movies

  • Fernando Trueba : Calle 54 (music film, 2000)
  • Fernando Trueba: Blanco y negro: Bebo y Cigala en vivo (concert film, 2004)
  • Fernando Trueba: El milagro de la Candeal (Documentation, 2006)
  • Carlos Carcas: Old Man Bebo (Documentary, 2008)

Web links

Commons : Bebo Valdés  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jesse Varela: Bebo Valdés , in: Jazz Times from April 2002, accessed on March 26, 2012 (English)
  2. ↑ a b c Obituary Jazzthing
  3. ↑ Patrick Jarenwattananon: Bebo Valdés, Giant Of Cuban Music, Is Dead , in: NPR Music of March 22, 2013, accessed on March 26, 2013 (English)
  4. ↑ Bebo Valdés, candidato al Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes. In: La Vanguardia, April 17, 2012, accessed April 24, 2014 (Spanish)
  5. ↑ Luc Delannoy: ¡Caliente! Una historia del jazz latino. P. 384f, Mexico 2002, ISBN 968-16-5219-3 (Spanish)
  6. ↑ Paquito D'Rivera: My Sax Life: A Memoir. P. 107, Northwestern University Press 2005, ISBN 0-8101-2218-9 (English)
  7. ↑ Paquito D'Rivera: My Sax Life: A Memoir. P. 109f, Northwestern University Press 2005, ISBN 0-8101-2218-9 (English)
  8. ↑ GRAMMY Winner Bebo Valdés Dies , message on the Grammy Awards website of March 22, 2013 (English)
  9. ↑ a b Cuban pianist, composer Bebo Valdes, father of musician Chucho Valdes, dies in Sweden at 94 ( Memento from March 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) in: Washington Post from March 23, 2013 (English)
  10. ↑ a b Mauricio Vicent: Muere Bebo Valdés, el mago de los ritmos cubanos . In: El País . 22th of March 2013.
  11. ↑ 'No volveré a Cuba porque no soporto las dictaduras' , in: Diario de Cuba of March 22, 2013, accessed on March 23, 2013 (Spanish)
  12. ↑ Muere Bebo Valdés , in: Granma of March 23, 2013, accessed on March 23, 2013 (Spanish)
  13. ↑ El regimen 'perdona' a Bebo Valdés ... después de muerto. In: Diario de Cuba of October 1, 2013 (Spanish)
  14. ↑ Homenaje a Bebo y Chucho Valdés en Jazz Plaza 2013. ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Cubarte of September 23, 2013, accessed October 1, 2013 (Spanish)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cubarte.cult.cu
personal data
SURNAME Valdés, Bebo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Valdés Amaro, Dionisio Ramón Emilio (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Quivicán , Cuba
DATE OF DEATH 22th of March 2013
Place of death Stockholm , Sweden