News & Updates — Sabu Martinez

Happy birthday to the great Cuban tres player and son montuno legend, one of the founding fathers of salsa and mambo, Aresnio Rodríguez!! His 1940's & '50s conjuntos were major building blocks in creating the mambo style, adding conga, multiple trumpets, piano and tumbao basslines to the son cubano format, leading the way to mambo, salsa and timba to come. Born Ignacio Arsenio Travieso Scull, he came from Matanzas, Cuba. His family were African descendants who practiced Palo Monte. He was blinded at 7 years old when a horse kicked him in the face. He was a professional musician by...

Happy birthday to the great left-handed conguero Louis "Sabu" Martinez, a star who burned out way too quick, much of it due to heroin addiction. NYC-born, he started playing professionally at the age of 11 after learning rhythm by playing tin cans. After a stint in Puerto Rico he was back in NYC, replacing the Cu-bop OG Chano Pozo in the Dizzy Gillespie orchestra in '48 (he got his "Sabu" nickname from Diz) and joining the Benny Goodman band the following year. He worked with Art Blakey off-and-on from 1946-59, appearing on his ground-breaking Afro-percussion records and several Jazz Messengers...