"I'm the very first local bongo player, conga player, and timbales player . . . Nobody played those before me." So says the veteran entertainer Freeman 'King' Trott. Young Freeman heard the music of ...

Of all the surprising developments to come out of San Francisco rock during the Fillmore/Avalon era in the late '60s, none was richer in cultural wealth than the emergence of Latin rock after the ...

Salsa music is a big mix of sounds and styles — Afro-Caribbean rhythms, configurations that mix blasting brass, flashes of spirited improvisation, and driving percussion — bells, congas, timbales and ...

Not that many people know that Marlon Brando was a huge tropical latin music fan. Herman Leonard, the great jazz photographer knew that, and he and Brando became close because they were both ...

HUNTSVILLE, AL. - A violin, tenor saxophone, keyboards, drums, upright bass, the congas and timbales constitute a unique blend of sounds, but surprisingly, it works. That's why Chip Gulbro and his ...

I’ve written about pianists who transcended physical disabilities and you can read about here. I want to add to this with a musician who plays the timbales: José Papo de Leon. His nickname is “El Tuco ...

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 ...