May 26, 2026 11:08 AM
Sonny Rollins Passes Away at 95
Sonny Rollins, the iconic saxophonist, composer and improviser whose career stretched from the origins of bebop to 21st…
Carlos Valdéz, the melodic percussionist who played with the likes of Herbie Mann, died Tuesday of respiratory failure in New York. He was 81.
Born in La Habana, Cuba, Nov. 4, 1926, Valdéz fashioned himself as a chef and was known for feeding dozens of fellow musicians and close friends in his Brooklyn home after gigs. He helped develop the tuneable congas and showed Bridgette Bardot how to dance the mambo in the closing moments of the 1956 film And God Created Woman.
In Cuba, Patato played with bands starting out as a teenager in the 1940s, he created the “penguin dance” while with the Conjunto Casino in the ‘50s. When Valdéz appeared on a daily Cuban television show, he would jump on top of the congas and do a penguin dance.
In 1955 his friends Cándido Camero and Mongo Santamaría sponsored his immigration to New York. Santamaría, who was with the Tito Puente band at the time, got some of his bandmates and others to go to the SMC/Coda studios and record two 78 rpms as a demo to demonstrate the skills of Patato. Those records led to his work with Kenny Dorham on the Afro-Cuban date for Blue Note, from there he went on to play with Herbie Mann for many years.
Onstage, Rollins would move about restlessly, thrusting his tenor sax in the air as he blew.
May 26, 2026 11:08 AM
Sonny Rollins, the iconic saxophonist, composer and improviser whose career stretched from the origins of bebop to 21st…
To the world, James Blood Ulmer was a legend, a visionary and a musical force whose sound was distinctive and unique. To his family, he was their teacher, their storyteller and a source of strength.
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How best to mark Miles Davis’ centennial? By allowing the stories to flow, and cross-discussions to happen.
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Ibrahim was an early jazz acolyte, studying the music via 78s he would buy from soldiers stationed in South Africa — who also gave him the nickname “Dollar.”
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