MADRID, Spain.- The Cuban pianist, arranger and composer Felipe Dulzaides Badía (1917-1991) is little known among Cubans, despite having been one of the promoters of jazz on the island.
His name is not usually included when mentioning the exponents of the genre in Cuba, such as Chucho Valdés, or Bobby Caracassés. Perhaps the reason is that, after the triumph of the Revolution, in January 1959, he was imprisoned for two years.
According to his son Felipe Dulzaides Jr., in an interview with The country, it was all due to a misunderstanding: “It turns out that Dulzaides, who was a handsome and seductive man and had a knack for the most beautiful lovers, lent one of them his convertible Buick, the one Santo had given him. Trafficker. Apparently, both (she and the car) ended up arrested for participating in a “counterrevolutionary” activity and Dulzaides was arrested on rebound one night after appearing in El Nacional. They threw him six years in jail, but he served two, after someone realized the mistake ”.
According to the page Vintage CubaHe was considered a political prisoner. And during his years in jail he had to “mourn only the death of his mother.”
Dulzaides had been born into a family of intellectuals; he was the brother of the poet Fina García-Marruz Badía. His early music was influenced by English pianist George Shearing, whom he met on one of his trips to the United States.
Felipe Dulzaides was the founder of Los Armónicos (1955), a group that had great repercussions at the time and performed in nightclubs such as Sans-Souci, Montmartre, Tropicana, Internacional de Varadero and Bar Elegante del Hotel Riviera. Among its members were the guitarist Pablo Cano, the trumpeter Luis Ortellado and the singers Doris de la Torre and Lucas de la Guardia. He also worked with Pablo Cano, Sergio Vitier, Jorge Luis Valdés Chicoy, Bobby Carcassés Armando Romeu (Jr.), Lázaro Manuel Morúa and Regino Tellechea, among others. With the same success Los Armónicos played jazz, bosanova, popular dance music or rock.
In addition, it was a reference and school for many young Cuban jazz players; as well as founder of Jazz Square Festival.
Felipe Dulzaides died in 1991, due to a second hemiplegia that occurred while he was playing at the Elegant Bar of the Riviera Hotel.
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