Machito (December 3, 1909 – April 15, 1984), born as Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo in Havana, Cuba, was an influential Latin jazz musician. [1] His sister was the singer Graciela.
Machito played a huge role in the history of Latin jazz. His bands of the 1940s, especially the band named the Afro-Cubans, were among the first to fuse Afro-Cuban rhythms with jazz improvisation. Machito was the front man, singer, conductor, and maraca player of the Afro-Cubans and its successors. Machito's brother-in-law Mario Bauza, the musical director, influenced Machito to hire jazz-oriented arrangers. As a result Machito's music greatly inspired such North American jazz giants as Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Kenton. One of the most famous performances of the Kenton band is an idiomatic number called "Machito".
The son of a cigar manufacturer, Machito became a professional musician in Cuba in his teens before he emigrated to America in 1937 as a vocalist with "La Estrella Habanera". He worked with several Latin artists and orchestras in the late 1930s, recording with the bandleader Xavier Cugat. After an earlier, aborted attempt to launch a band with Bauza, Machito founded the Afro-Cubans in 1940, taking on Bauza the following year as music director where he remained for 35 years. Machito's son, Mario Grillo, later took over the position.
In 1983, Machito won a Grammy Award in the Best Latin Recording category for Machito & His Salsa Big Band '82. More recently, the song "Mambo Mucho Mambo" has featured on the sound track for the game Grand Theft Auto Vice City. In 2005, his 1957 album, Kenya, was added to the list of albums in '1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die'.