José Curbelo (February 18, 1917, Havana - September 21, 2012, Miami) was a Cuban-born American pianist and manager. Curbelo was a key figure in Latin jazz in New York City in the 1940s and helped to popularize Mambo and the cha cha dance in the 1950s.
He was sometimes described as “The last mambo king.”Both of Curbelo's parents were born in Cuba, but his father had studied classical violin in the United States before returning to play with the Havana Philharmonic. He studied under Pedro Menendez as a child and graduated from the Molinas Conservatory at age 15. In the 1930s he played with Cuban orchestras and formed the Orquesta Havana Riverside before moving to New York in 1939.
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| Jose Curbelo (at piano) Riverside Orchestra 1939 |
There he played in the ensembles of Xavier Cugat, Juancito Sanabria, and José Morand early in the 1940s. In 1942 Curbelo formed his own band and played initially at La Conga. A year at New York's Havana Madrid (1943-1944) was followed by stints at Zanzibar and then an upstate gig at Grossingers Resort in the Catskills. The next couple of years he spent in Miami at the Clover
In New York, at times, Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, and Candido joined the band. Further engagements included in New York (La Martinique, Roseland, the Palladium, and the Savoy), in Miami (the Sans Souci and Ciros), in Las Vegas (the Sahara Hotel), and in Baltimore (the Chanticleer Club).
Starting in 1953, Curbelo worked with a sextet which included Al Cohn and Jack Hitchcock; this group was arranged by Cohn himself and Puente as well as Rene Hernandez and Chico O'Farrill. Curbelo's band recorded several albums in the cha-cha style for Morand's Fiesta Records in the 1950s.
Curbelo wrote unforgettable songs in this period ("La La la", "La familia", "La Runidera" (1946), "Sun Sun babae" (1952), "Mambo y cha cha cha"); these songs have since been sung by Ray Barreto and Oscar de Leon.
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Jose Curbelo, Noro Morales, Machito NY 50's |
Curbelo disbanded the group in 1959 and took up managing, founding an agency for Latin musicians called Alpha Artists. Throughout the 1960s, Curbelo managed most of the major Latin bands in New York and was successful in negotiating favourably with promoters on behalf of his artists.
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Curbelo invested in real estate later in life and moved to Miami in the 1980s, with his wife, Orchid Rosas, moved to where he continued booking artists for festivals and later retired.
He died of congestive heart failure September 21, 2012, after spending the last few months of his life at a hospice in Aventura, Florida. He was 95 years of age. (Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)