Apply for a 2026 John Stites Jazz Award February 15!
Honoring the memory of John Stites and his passion for jazz music
Honoring the memory of John Stites and his passion for jazz music
Posted April 25, 2026
To celebrate six years of collaboration with The Gilmore, the John Stites Jazz Artist Organization will present jazz icon and NEA Jazz Master Chucho Valdés May 9, 2026. The concert will be held at Chenery Auditorium at 7:30 pm and will feature Chucho’s Royal Quartet. Valdés Royal Quartet premiered in 2024 and includes three generations of Cuban musicians: Horacio El Negro Hernández on drums, José Amando Gola on bass, and Roberto Vizcaíno Jr. on percussion.
Chucho Valdés is a living legend with a 60-year career as a pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He has received seven GRAMMY® awards, six Latin GRAMMY® Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, and been inducted into the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame. As the co-founder of Cuban band Irakere, which he led for more than 30 years, he is renowned for creating a new Latin jazz genre which fused Afro-Cuban music with popular Cuban music, jazz, rock, and classical music. Irakere was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie in 1977 while visiting Havana on a jazz cruise. The band also introduced the world to two other iconic jazz figures – Paquito D’Rivera and Arturo Sandoval.
Valdés is also known for his innovative jazz piano trio, which featured batá drums in place of a standard drum kit. He received a Latin Grammy in 2018 for Jazz Batá 2, which was a follow-up to his 1972 album, which introduced the batá drum, an unusual drum shaped like an hourglass. Valdés fascination with the batá drum stemmed from what he called “looking for the sound of our roots”. John Stites was a big fan of Afro-Cuban jazz and had an extensive collection of Afro-Cuban drums and percussion instruments in his recording studio, so that percussionists recording with him could reproduce authentic Afro-Cuban rhythms and sounds. John’s collection included a batá drum, so we can be certain that John would have been honored to present Afro- Cuban legend Chucho Valdés and the Royal Quartet at the 2026 Gilmore Piano Festival. Tickets are available at The Gilmore website here.
Photo credit: Martin Espino Garcia.
John loved music with all his heart and was the ideal recording engineer – a profession into which he poured all his considerable talents and artistry.
Dan Gustin
The John Stites Jazz Awards (JSJA) are funded by the John Stites Jazz Artist Organization.
The organization funds advanced studies for emerging jazz musicians, as well as personal development projects which enhance their career opportunities.