You hear Chucho Valdés and realize that there are areas of percussive energy that you have never heard of.

Cuban pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader Chucho Valdés, one of the most influential figures in modern Afro-Cuban jazz, was named a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. As noted in the NEA announcement, the distinction celebrates “a select number of living legends who have made exceptional contributions to the advancement of jazz.”

The NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship is the highest honor the United States bestows on jazz artists.

The recognition crowns a 60-year career that includes seven GRAMMY®, six Latin GRAMMY® Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, and being inducted into the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Meanwhile, Mr. Valdés, 83, keeps creating, still curious and restless.

In September 2024, he presented yet another brilliant ensemble, the Royal Quartet, featuring three generations of top Cuban musicians, including Horacio “El Negro” Hernández on drums; José A. Gola, bass; and Roberto Jr. Vizcaíno, percussion. The release of Cuba & Beyond (Innercat Music Group), which earned a Grammy nomination, marked the 60-year anniversary of Mr. Valdés’s recording debut, Jazz Nocturno (Areito, 1964).

Cuba & Beyond also served as a bookend for a year in which Valdés celebrated one of his most important achievements with Chucho Valdés: Irakere 50, a tribute to Irakere, the Cuban band he co-founded and led for more than three decades. With its bold fusion of Afro-Cuban ritual music, Cuban popular styles, jazz, rock, and classical music, Irakere opened new paths for Latin jazz.

Any list of notable events in Mr. Valdés’s career in recent years must underscore the world premiere of “La Creación” (The Creation), a three-movement suite for a small ensemble, voices, and a big band at the Adrianne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, on November 5, 2021. The piece was commissioned by the Arsht Center, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Chicago Symphony Center, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association. Following the premiere, “La Creación” was performed throughout the U.S. and Europe, including concerts at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, the Detroit Jazz Festival in Detroit, MI; the Monterey Jazz Festival in Monterey, CA; the Philharmonie de Paris and in Barcelona, Spain.

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.

Fittingly, Mr. Valdés made his early mark as the co-founder, pianist, and leading composer and arranger of another landmark ensemble in modern Cuban music: the small big band Irakere (1973-2005). Irakere’s self-titled debut recording in the United States won a Grammy as Best Latin Recording in 1979.

While he remained with Irakere until 2005, Mr. Valdés launched a parallel career in 1998 as a solo performer and small-group leader. It marked the beginning of a fruitful period highlighted by albums such as Solo Piano (Blue Note, 1991), Solo: Live in New York (Blue Note, 2001), as well as quartet recordings such as Bele Bele en La Habana (Blue Note, 1998), Briyumba Palo Congo (Blue Note, 1999), New Conceptions (Blue Note, 2003), and Live at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 2000), which won a Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album.

Cast: Chucho Valdés (Piano), Yelsy Heredia (Bass), Georvis Pio Milian (Drums), Pedro Pablo Rodríguez (Percussions)