Join us at the Lake Stage in Polk Bros Park for a free concert featuring Chuchito Valdes, Ignacio Berroa, and the Chagua-Ruiz Belvis Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble, part of Water Colors presented by CIBC, a live jazz music series co-curated with the Jazz I

Chuchito Valdes’ father Chucho and grandfather Bebo are members of the Cuban Valdes musical dynasty.  Dionisio Ramón Emilio Valdés Amaro (October 9, 1918 – March 22, 2013), better known as Bebo Valdés, was a Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger. He was a central figure in the golden age of Cuban music, led two famous big bands, and was one of the “house” arrangers for the Tropicana Club.   To celebrate his centennial, his grandson Chuchito Valdes will write arrangements for Bebo’s music to be performed by him and the Chicago Latin Jazz Collaborative, an ensemble with a rotating roster of local Latin Jazz musicians.

Best known for his work with Dizzy Gillespie, Afro-Cuban and jazz drummer Ignacio Berroa was born in Havana, Cuba. In 1980 Berroa moved to New York. By the next year, Dizzy Gillespie had invited him to join his quartet, and he spent the next ten years playing in the trumpeter’s various groups. Equally adept in jazz and Latin percussion, Berroa recorded and performed with artists like Tito Puente, Charlie Haden, Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Chick Corea. Gillespie best defined Ignacio as: “… the only Latin drummer in the world in the history of American music that intimately knows both worlds: his native Afro Cuban music as well as Jazz.