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Saturday, April 30 | 6-8 p.m.

The Detroit Jazz Festival will be announcing its line-up for their 2022 event on Saturday, April 30.  This special announcement event will feature a live performance Cuban pianist and composer Chucho Valdés, the most influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz and this year’s DJF Artist in Residence.

Watch the April 30 livestream starting at 6 p.m. on the Detroit Jazzfest Facebook page.

DPTV will also livestream the Detroit Jazz Festival, held in Downtown Detroit September 2-5.

About The Detroit Jazz Festival

The Detroit International Jazz Festival was founded in 1980 by Robert McCabe and the Detroit Renaissance. Along with the Detroit Grand Prix and the International Freedom Festival, the Festival was intended to bring people into the city and to provide all segments of the population with world-class entertainment.

From 1980 to 1991, the Festival flourished through a partnership with the highly regarded international jazz festival in Montreux, Switzerland. In 1991, the Festival merged with Detroit’s Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts, where it resided until September 2005.

In March 2005, Detroit philanthropist and Mack Avenue Records Chairman Gretchen Valade emerged as a major sponsor of the Festival. With additional support from the Knight Foundation, the Festival expanded in all aspects. Its new footprint, covering three blocks, provided two additional stages and more space for food vendors and other activities.

Looking to attract new audiences to jazz and the Festival, in 2011, jazz musician Chris Collins was appointed as artistic director and has since taken on the role of president of the Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation. With Collins’ vision and the support of the Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation Board of Directors – led by Chair Gretchen Valade – the Foundation has continued to integrate new and exciting artistic elements and opportunities into the signature event, in addition to year-round programming.

The Detroit Jazz Festival is now managed and produced by the Detroit International Jazz Festival Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization formed in 2006. Through the generosity of Detroit philanthropist and Mack Avenue Records Chairman Gretchen Valade, the Foundation also established a significant endowment to support Festival operations. The staff and advisory committee continuously work to raise the balance of operating costs through corporate partnerships, contributions and earned-income opportunities.

About Chucho Valdés

Cuban pianist, composer, and arranger Chucho Valdés is the most influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz. In a career spanning more than 60 years, both as a solo artist and bandleader, Mr. Valdés has distilled elements of the Afro-Cuban music tradition, jazz, classical music, rock, and more, into a deeply personal style. Winner of six GRAMMY® and four Latin GRAMMY® Awards, Mr. Valdés, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Science last year and was also inducted in the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame. Mr. Valdés celebrated his 80th birthday on October 9, 2021, completing La Creación (The Creation) a three-movement suite for small ensemble, voices, and big band. The piece, the most ambitious work of his career, tells the history of creation according to the Regla de Ocha, the Afro-Cuban religion commonly known as Santería.

Born in a family of musicians in Quivicán, Havana province, Cuba, on October 9, 1941, Dionisio Jesús “Chucho” Valdés Rodríguez, has distilled elements of the Afro-Cuban music tradition, jazz, classical music, and rock into an organic, deeply personal style. His first teacher was his father, the pianist, composer, and bandleader Ramón “Bebo” Valdés. By the age of three, Mr. Valdés was already playing the melodies he heard on the radio at the piano, using both hands and in any key. He began taking lessons on piano, theory and solfege at the age of five and continued his formal musical education at the Conservatorio Municipal de Música de la Habana, from which he graduated at 14. A year later, Mr. Valdés formed his first jazz trio. In 1959, he debuted professionally with the band Sabor de Cuba. The ensemble, directed by his father, is widely considered one of the great orchestras in modern Cuban music.

Learn more about Valdés.

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