Ray Barretto, the towering Puerto Rican percussionist who straddled the occasionally conflicting worlds of salsa and Latin jazz during a career that spanned more than half a century, died Friday. He ...

A true jazz giant, Ray Barretto, who died Friday at 76 in New Jersey, made his name playing conga drums on jazz and salsa records since the late 1950s. Today, he will be buried at Riverside Memorial ...

On many levels, The Conga Kings’ Jazz Descargas is authentic Afro-Cuban jazz. For starters, Carlos “Patato” Valdes and Candido Camero have been Afro-Cuban music pioneers for decades. Patato is ...

In 1917, Ramon Santamaria Rodriquez was born into poverty in Havana, Cuba. Nicknamed “Mongo” (a tribal chief in Senegal), he began playing the conga drum at an early age and as a teen, Mongo ...

Carlos Valdes, better known as “Patato,” whose melodic conga playing made him a giant of Latin jazz in Cuba and then for more than half a century in the United States, died on Tuesday in Cleveland. He ...

Want a great conversation-starter with a jazz fan? Ask, "What's your favorite pairing of bass and drums?" Count Basie's Walter Page (bass) and Jo Jones (drums)? Miles Davis' Jimmy Cobb and Paul ...

“It is hard to imagine contemporary Afro-Cuban percussion minus these three legendary congueros... The Conga Kings bears repeated listening just to comprehend the nuanced interplay of this unrivaled ...

After the death of percussionist and bandleader Tito Puente several years ago, Poncho Sanchez was dubbed the “new king of Latin jazz,” a title the Grammy winner doesn’t take too seriously. “I don’t ...

Latin percussionist, composer and bandleader Bobby Sanabria — whose most recent album, Big Band Urban Folktales, is the winner of a Jazz Journalists Association award for best Latin jazz album of 2008 ...

Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Jazz Band. (Photo via Jazz at the Lobero) Jazz at the Lobero will present Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Jazz Band at 8 p.m. Friday, April 21, at the theater, 33 E. Canon ...