Nachito Herrera

Flights & Sounds of Summer

August 7, 2009, 8:00 PM
Free Dance Instruction at 7:30 PM
Free Admission, $8 Parking (Map)

Ignacio “Nachito” Herrera is likely be too busy pounding the keys to blow his own horn, but if he did, he might tell you that he was the pianist and bandleader with the acclaimed Cubanismo!, and before that manned the keys in the equally acclaimed Afro-Cuban All-Stars, and that well before that, at age 12, he thrilled audiences in his native Cuba by performing the Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 2 with the Havana Symphony Orchestra.

Schooled in the classics, young Nachito learned Cuba’s distinctly percussive jazz stylings from the Buena Vista Social Club’s Ruben Gonzalez and other masters. In his 20s, he became the music director of Havana’s famed Tropicana, so he knows a thing or two about keeping a dance floor percolating. When Herrera and his empathetically swinging combo play, it’s nearly impossible for audiences not to dance, but with their ears wide open to catch every note of his rambunctious piano style. Artist Website