MADRID, Spain.- Bebo Valdés, one of the great Cuban pianists, although “forgotten” on the Island for years for having decided to emigrate, was born on October 9, 1918 in Quivicán.
Full name Ramón Emilio Valdés Amaro, he founded the Valdés-Hernández Orchestra very young, together with a friend. From that moment he worked as a pianist, arranger and composer. And in Havana in the 1940s he played in the Tropicana Cabaret big band, where he shared the stage with Rita Montaner and Nat King Cole, among others. At that same time he composed one of his first mambos, “La Rareza del Siglo”.
Nicknamed “Caballón” among his friends, in 1952 he created the batanga rhythm, which he made known with a band of 20 musicians that included Beny Moré among its singers. This rhythm had a great influence on the evolution of Cuban jazz.
In 1960, with the arrival of the Cuban revolution, he left Cuba and never came back. He lived for a time in Mexico, the United States and Spain, until settling in Stockholm, where he married the Swedish Rose-Marie Perhson, who died in 2012.
There he worked for years as a hotel accompanying pianist; until, in 1994, Paquito D’Rivera, who was a child when he met Bebo but never forgot his music, went looking for him to record the album Bebo Rides Again, a collection of classic Cuban pieces and original Bebo songs. At 76 years old he returned to the stage.
In 2000, the Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba invited him to participate in his documentary film Calle 54, thanks to which he was reunited with his son Chucho Valdes. After finishing the documentary, Trueba recorded the album El Arte del Sabor, in which Bebo Valdés, Israel López Cachao and Patato Valdés took part. The album won the Grammy for Best Traditional Tropical Album in 2001.
The Spanish director also brought Bebo together with flamenco singer-songwriter Diego el Cigala to record ¨Lagrimas Negras¨, an album of Cuban songs with a gypsy soul. achieved three Grammys, an Ondas Award, five Amigo Awards, three Platinum Records in Spain and one in Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela.
Together with his son he recorded his latest album, Bebo y Chucho, together forever, which received nine Grammys.
Bebo Valdés spent his last years in Benalmádena, a town in Málaga, Spain. Shortly before his death, his Swedish children took him to Stockholm, where he died on March 22, 2013 at the age of 94.
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