Graciela Grillo Pérez

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Graciella Grillo with her brother Machito (1947). Photo William P. Gottlieb

Graciela Grillo Pérez ( Graciela Pérez Gutierrez ; born August 25, 1915 in Havana , † April 7, 2010 in New York City ), known as Graciela , was an Afro-Cuban singer of Latin jazz .

Grillo Pérez began her musical career as a singer in various bands, including those of Maria Teresa Vera and Ignacio Piñeiro . She also played maracas and claves, and in 1933 she joined the women's band Anacaona (led for a time by flautist Alberto Socarras ) as a percussionist and singer , with whom she toured Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico and performed in New York. When her stepbrother Machito joined the US Army in 1943 , she brought Mario Bauzá , her brother-in-law, to New York, where she became the Afro-Cuban singer alongside Galito Polindez .

She had her first hit three years later with the title Si, Si, No, No. Other of her most successful songs were Esta es Graciela , Intimo y Sentimental and Esa Soy Yo, Yo Soy Así . From 1986 she was solo singer in Bauza's Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra . After his death in 1993 she only performed occasionally. In total she worked on more than 50 albums. Her last one, Inolvidable - Candido y Craciela (2004), with conga player Cándido Camero , was nominated for a Grammy . In 2006 she was honored with the Latin Jazz USA Chico O'Farrill Lifetime Achievement Award . When she died in New York in 2010 at the age of 94, she was considered "The First Lady of Latin Jazz".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Sofrito For Your Soul, April 8, 2010: Graciela Grillo-Perez, The First Lady Of Latin Jazz Passes Away
  2. ↑ Alicia Castro (together with Ingrid Kummels and Manfred Schäfer): Anacaona. From the life of a Cuban musician. Munich: Econ, 2002
  3. ^ The Network Journal, May 27, 2010 Afro-Latin Jazz: The legacy of Graciela Grillo-Perez
personal data
SURNAME Grillo Pérez, Graciela
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pérez Gutierrez, Graciela; Graciela
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban jazz singer
DATE OF BIRTH August 25, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Havana
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 2010
Place of death New York City