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Joe Cuba was born Gilberto Miguel Calderon to Puerto Rican parents on April 22, 1931 in Spanish Harlem in New York City. Playing in his father’s organized stickball club “the Devils”, Cuba broke his leg and his attention shifted to the conga. Practicing every free moment between school, after graduating from high school he joined a band.

In 1950, when he was 19 years old, he played for J. Panama and also for a group called La Alfarona X. The group soon disbanding, Cuba enrolled in college to study law. While at college he attended a concert in which Tito Puente performed. He went up to Tito and introduced himself as a student and fan and soon they developed what was to become a lifetime friendship. This event motivated Cuba to organize his own band and in 1954, his agent recommended that he change the band’s name from the Jose Calderon Sextet to the Joe Cuba Sextet, making their debut at the Stardust Ballroom.

In 1962, Cuba recorded “To Be With You” with the vocals of Cheo Feliciano and Jimmy Sabater, Sr. The band became popular in the New York Latin community. The lyrics to Cuba’s music used a mixture of Spanish and English, becoming an important part of the Nuyorican Movement.

In 1965, the Sextet got their first crossover hit with the Latin and soul fusion of “El Pito” (I Never Go Back To Georgia) a chant taken from Dizzy Gillespie’s intro to the seminal Afro-Cuban tune, “Manteca”. Sabater later revealed, “None of them had ever been to Georgia.

Along with fellow Nuyorican artists such as Ray Barretto and Richie Ray, Cuba was at the forefront of the developing Latin soul sound in New York, merging American R&B styles with Afro-Cuban instrumentation. Cuba was one of the key architects behind the emerging Latin Boogaloo sound, which became a popular and influential Latin style in the latter half of the 1960s.

By 1966, his band which included timbales, congas, bongos, bass, vibraphones and piano among its musical instruments scored a U.S. “hit” on the National Hit Parade List with the song “Bang Bang”, kicking off the popularity of the boogaloo. He also had a Billboard #1 hit that same year with “Sock It To Me Baby” .

Inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame in 1999, Joe was named Grand Marshall of the Puerto Rican Day Parade celebrated in Yonkers, New York in 2004; and was also the director of the Museum of La Salsa, located in Spanish Harlem, Manhattan, New York.

Joe Cuba, conga player and Father of Latin Boogaloo was hospitalized for a persistent bacterial infection and passed away on February 15, 2009 in New York City, after being removed from life support.

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