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2008 NEA Jazz Master
"I have no words to express how honored and proud I am. I feel extremely happy to be recognized with such important distinction after 60 years in my professional career. It is seeing an impossible dream come true." Credited with being the first percussionist to bring conga drumming to jazz, Candido Camero is also known for his contributions to the development of mambo and Afro-Cuban jazz. Born in Havana, Cuba in 1921, Candido Camero first began making music as a young child, beating rhythms on empty condensed milk cans in place of bongos. He came to the United States when he was 25 years and very soon after was playing with NEA Jazz Master Dr. Billy Taylor. By the early 1950s, Camero was a featured soloist with the Stan Kenton Orchestra with whom he toured the U.S. playing three congas (at a time when other congueros were playing only one.) in addition to a cowbell and guiro (a fluted gourd played with strokes from a stick). He created another unique playing style by tuning his congas to specific pitches so that he could play melodies like a pianist. He has recorded and performed with such jazz luminaries as Charlie Parker; Lionel Hampton; Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan; and NEA Jazz Masters Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Clark Terry, Slide Hampton, and Tony Bennett. Among his many awards are Latin Jazz USA Lifetime Achievement Award (2001) and a special achievement award from ASCAP as a “legend of jazz” (2005). He is the subject of the 2005 documentary, Candido: Hands of Fire. < Back to Index of 2008 Recipients National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal
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