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Miguel Diaz

Acclaimed as the most original and dynamic Cuban conguero of his generation, Miguel "Angá" Díaz Zayas was the spiritual descendent of Latin jazz immortals like Chano Pozo and Pancho Quinto. Born June 15, 1961, in the western Cuban town of San Juan de Martinez, Díaz was the son of a professional saxophonist who bequeathed him the nickname "Angá," derived from the name of a Yoruba prince. Díaz began playing percussion at the age of 15 while a student at the Pínar del Río arts boarding school. A lifelong follower of the Afro-Cuban religion Santería, he held fiercely to its tenet that drums serve to mediate between humans and their gods, and as he expanded his fluency across a growing number of percussion instruments, adapting and refining their respective techniques to hone his own distinctive style, his spiritual fervor grew more and more intense. While a student at Havana's National School of Arts, Díaz moonlighted as a member of the Latin jazz combo Opus 13. He also tenured under percussion masters including Cesar Ribero, Luís Lopez Nussa, and Tata Guines, and collaborated with Sergio and Jose Marie Vitier. In the wake of the tragic death of Irakere drummer Lazaro Alfonso, Díaz was named his replacement by leader Chucho Valdés, continuing the five-conga technique pioneered by Alfonso, Díaz emerged as the premier percussionist in contemporary Afro-Cuban jazz, and with Irakere won a series of Grammy Awards. He relocated to Paris in 1993 but made regular returns to Havana, and in the years to follow collaborated with acts as diverse as American avant-jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove and Cuban hip-hop outfit Orishas. Díaz's international profile grew exponentially via his contributions to Juan de Marcos Gonzalez's groundbreaking 1996 LP with the Afro-Cuban All Stars and the subsequent Buena Vista Social Club spin-off projects headlined by Rubén Gonzalez, Ibrahím Ferrer and Omara Portuondo. In 2000, he also released a much-celebrated instructional video, Angá Mania!, which Drum magazine named the best percussion video of the year. No less significant was Díaz's work on bassist Orlando "Cachaíto" Lopez's 2001 solo effort Cachaíto a revolutionary fusion of jazz, funk, reggae, and hip-hop that was instrumental in earning the percussionist his own record deal with the London-based World Circuit label, and in the fall of 2005 he issued his boldly eclectic debut effort Echua Mingua, so named in honor of his patron saint Elugguá. Months after relocating to tiny San Sadurní d'Anoia, Spain, Díaz suffered a fatal heart attack on August 9, 2006. He was just 45-years-old.
© Jason Ankeny /TiVo
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Discography

11 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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