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 ...

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 ...

Terry "Doc" Handy discovered the congas when he was 12. Actually, it was more like he connected with them - because when he began playing the Cuban drums, he began activating the musical links woven ...

What: Vail Jazz joins Vail Symposium to present professor Michael Davison and members of Afro-Cuban band ¡Cubanismo! in a performance and demonstration of the fundamentals of Afro-Cuban jazz. Where: ...

FLANKED BY HIS beloved conga drums, Ray Barretto was fondly recalled yesterday as a giant of Latin music who fused the worlds of jazz and salsa. “Ray was good, always – good as a person and good as a ...

PORT JERVIS - Emedin Rivera has played conga drums and percussion around the world, whether funk and soul, jazz, Afro-Irish or background music for a wolf documentary. He has played with Larry Coryell ...

Long before he became a Latin jazz legend, before he toured alongside the great Cal Tjader, Poncho Sanchez was another kid in Griffith Park carrying a conga drum and looking for someplace to play.

He brought Afro-Cuban influences to American ensembles and dazzled audiences with his virtuosic multiple-drum technique. By Neil Genzlinger “When you talk about percussion, particularly the evolution ...

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 ...