Sammy Figueroa
Encyclopedia
Sammy Figueroa is an American percussionist born in The Bronx
, New York. At 18 he joined the band of bassist Bobby Valentín
and also co-led the Brazilian/Latin fusion group Raices.
Discovered by jazz flautist Herbie Mann
, Figueroa became a well-known session
and studio musician appearing on tours and albums with the Brecker Brothers
, Average White Band, Morrissey - Mullen
, John McLaughlin
's Mahavishnu Orchestra and Miles Davis
.
He has also appeared with Blondie
, Sonny Rollins
, Dave Sanborn, Quincy Jones
, Dave Grusin
, George Benson
, Chet Baker
, Stanley Clarke
, Grover Washington, Jr.
, Al Jarreau
, Lena Horne
, Joe Williams
, Mark Murphy
, Mike Mainieri
, Nestor Torres
, Chico O’Farrill, Mike Stern
, Dave Grusin
, Chuck Loeb
, Bobby Watson
, Dave Valentin
, Arturo Sandoval
, Paquito D’Rivera, Rubén Blades
, Eddie Palmieri
, Bobby Valentín
, Tania Maria
, Mariah Carey
, James Taylor
, Dr. John
, Mick Jagger
, David Bowie
, Celine Dion
, Blues Traveler
, Natalie Merchant
, David Lee Roth
, Hall & Oates
, Joe Cocker
, Rickie Lee Jones
, Annie Lennox
, Whitney Houston
, Anita Baker
, Grace Jones
, James Ingram
, Diana Ross
, Roberta Flack
, Aretha Franklin
and many others.
Some of the R & B hits he appears on include Sister Sledge
's "We Are Family", Luther Vandross
' "The Night I Fell In Love" and Ashford and Simpson's "Solid (Like A Rock)
", as well as most of the Nile Rodgers
and Bernard Edwards disco hits by Chic
and Sister Sledge
.
Michel Camilo
wrote the song "And Sammy Walked In" in his honour, and which was also recorded by Giovanni Hidalgo
.
Two of his CD's, And Sammy Walked In and The Magician, have been nominated for Grammys in the "Best Latin Jazz Album" category.
Figueroa hosts a Latin jazz music program on WDNA-FM
in Miami, Florida.
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, New York. At 18 he joined the band of bassist Bobby Valentín
Bobby Valentin
Bobby Valentin, also known as "El Rey del Bajo" , is a musician and salsa bandleader.-Early years:...
and also co-led the Brazilian/Latin fusion group Raices.
Discovered by jazz flautist Herbie Mann
Herbie Mann
Herbert Jay Solomon , better known as Herbie Mann, was a Jewish American jazz flutist and important early practitioner of world music...
, Figueroa became a well-known session
Session musician
Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...
and studio musician appearing on tours and albums with the Brecker Brothers
Brecker Brothers
The Brecker Brothers was the musical duo of Michael and Randy Brecker , who recorded commercially successful jazz fusion albums together in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. They had a notable hit single with "East River" in 1979...
, Average White Band, Morrissey - Mullen
Morrissey - Mullen
Morrissey Mullen was a British jazz-funk/fusion group of the 1970s and 1980s.Considered one of the most popular jazz groups in London, the band was led by Dick Morrissey on tenor and soprano saxes and flute, and Jim Mullen on guitar, who joined forces in 1975, their playing together for sixteen ...
, John McLaughlin
John McLaughlin (musician)
John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...
's Mahavishnu Orchestra and Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
.
He has also appeared with Blondie
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
, Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
, Dave Sanborn, Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
, Dave Grusin
Dave Grusin
David Grusin is an American composer, arranger and pianist. Grusin has composed many scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, including an Academy award and 12 Grammys...
, George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....
, Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
, Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke is an American jazz musician and composer known for his innovative and influential work on double bass and electric bass guitar as well as for his numerous film and television scores...
, Grover Washington, Jr.
Grover Washington, Jr.
Grover Washington, Jr. was an American jazz-funk / soul-jazz saxophonist. Along with George Benson, John Klemmer, David Sanborn, Bob James, Chuck Mangione, Herb Alpert, and Spyro Gyra, he is considered by many to be one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre.He wrote some of his material and...
, Al Jarreau
Al Jarreau
Alwin "Al" Lopez Jarreau is a seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer.- Background :Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, the fifth of six children. His web site refers to Reservoir, Inc., the name of the street where he lived. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist Church minister and singer, and...
, Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
, Joe Williams
Joe Williams (jazz singer)
Joe Williams was a well-known jazz vocalist, a baritone singing a mixture of blues, ballads, popular songs, and jazz standards.-Early life:...
, Mark Murphy
Mark Murphy
Mark Murphy may refer to:*Mark Murphy , American ice hockey player who plays for the DEG Metro Stars *Mark Murphy , retired American football player, now President and CEO of the Green Bay Packers...
, Mike Mainieri
Mike Mainieri
Michael T. Mainieri, Jr. is a vibraphonist best known for his work with the jazz fusion group Steps Ahead....
, Nestor Torres
Nestor Torres
Nestor Torres is a jazz flautist who was born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico in 1957. He took flute lessons at age 12 and began formal studies at the Escuela Libre de Música, eventually attending Puerto Rico’s Inter-American University. At 18, he moved to New York with his family...
, Chico O’Farrill, Mike Stern
Mike Stern
Mike Stern is an American jazz guitarist. After playing for a few years with Blood, Sweat & Tears, he landed a gig with Billy Cobham and then broke through with Miles Davis' comeback band from 1981 to 1983, and again in 1985. Since then, he launched a solo career, releasing more than a dozen albums...
, Dave Grusin
Dave Grusin
David Grusin is an American composer, arranger and pianist. Grusin has composed many scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, including an Academy award and 12 Grammys...
, Chuck Loeb
Chuck Loeb
Chuck Loeb is a guitarist who performs numerous styles of music, most notably jazz. Loeb's own solo projects have generally been commercially successful crossover jazz, which has "contemporary" or "smooth" jazz....
, Bobby Watson
Bobby Watson
Bobby Watson is an American post-bop jazz alto saxophonist, composer, producer, and educator. Watson now has 26 recordings as a leader. He appears on nearly 100 other recordings as either co-leader or in a supporting role...
, Dave Valentin
Dave Valentin
Dave Valentin is a jazz flutist.He learned latin percussion first when he was a teenager, and then switched to flute. Valentin's teacher, Hubert Laws, suggested that he not double on saxophone because of his attractive sound on the flute. He studied at the Bronx Community College...
, Arturo Sandoval
Arturo Sandoval
Arturo Sandoval is a jazz trumpeter and pianist. He was born in Artemisa, in the newest renamed Artemisa Province, Cuba....
, Paquito D’Rivera, Rubén Blades
Rubén Blades
Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres...
, Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Palmieri , is a Grammy Award winning Puerto Rican pianist, bandleader and musician, best known for combining jazz piano and instrumental solos with Latin rhythms.-Early years:...
, Bobby Valentín
Bobby Valentin
Bobby Valentin, also known as "El Rey del Bajo" , is a musician and salsa bandleader.-Early years:...
, Tania Maria
Tania Maria
Tania Maria is a Brazilian artist, singer, composer, bandleader and piano player, singing mostly in Portuguese or English. Her Brazilian-style music is mostly vocal, sometimes pop, often jazzy, and includes samba, bossa, Afro-Latin, Pop and Jazz fusion.-Biography:Born in São Luís, Maranhão,...
, Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She made her recording debut with the release of her eponymous studio album in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, whom she later married in 1993...
, James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
, Dr. John
Dr. John
Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr. , better known by the stage name Dr. John , is an American singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist, whose music combines blues, pop, jazz as well as Zydeco, boogie woogie and rock and roll.Active as a session musician since the late 1950s, he came to wider...
, Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, Celine Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...
, Blues Traveler
Blues Traveler
Blues Traveler is a rock band, formed in Princeton, New Jersey in 1987. The band has been influenced by a variety of genres, including blues-rock, psychedelic rock, folk rock, soul, and Southern rock...
, Natalie Merchant
Natalie Merchant
Natalie Anne Merchant is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She joined the alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs in 1981 and left it to begin her solo career in 1993.-Early life:...
, David Lee Roth
David Lee Roth
David Lee Roth is an American rock vocalist, songwriter, actor, author, and former radio personality. Roth was ranked nineteenth by Hit Parader on their list of the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Singers of All Time....
, Hall & Oates
Hall & Oates
Hall & Oates are an American musical duo composed of Daryl Hall and John Oates. They achieved their greatest fame in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s. Both sing and play instruments. They specialized in a fusion of rock and roll and rhythm and blues styles, which they dubbed "rock and soul."...
, Joe Cocker
Joe Cocker
John Robert "Joe" Cocker, OBE is an English rock and blues musician, composer and actor, who came to popularity in the 1960s, and is most known for his gritty voice, his idiosyncratic arm movements while performing, and his cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of The Beatles...
, Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones is an American vocalist, musician, songwriter, and producer. Over the course of a three-decade career, Jones has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, blues, pop, soul, and jazz standards.-Childhood:...
, Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox, OBE , born Ann Lennox, is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving minor success in the late 1970s with The Tourists, with fellow musician David A...
, Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston
Whitney Elizabeth Houston is an American singer, actress, producer and a former model. Houston is the most awarded female act of all time, according to Guinness World Records, and her list of awards include 1 Emmy Award, 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among...
, Anita Baker
Anita Baker
Anita Baker is an American R&B/soul jazz singer-songwriter. To date, Baker has won eight Grammy Awards, and has four platinum albums and two gold albums to her credit....
, Grace Jones
Grace Jones
Grace Jones is a Jamaican-American singer, model and actress.Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance-club hits. In the late 1970s, she adapted the emerging electronic music style and adopted a severe, androgynous look with square-cut hair and...
, James Ingram
James Ingram
James Ingram is an American soul musician. He is best known as a vocalist. He is also a self-taught musician who plays piano, guitar, bass, drums and keyboards...
, Diana Ross
Diana Ross
Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...
, Roberta Flack
Roberta Flack
Roberta Flack is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who is notable for jazz, soul, R&B, and folk music...
, Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
and many others.
Some of the R & B hits he appears on include Sister Sledge
Sister Sledge
Sister Sledge is an American musical group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, formed in 1972 and consisting of four sisters: Kim Sledge Debbie Sledge , Joni Sledge , and Kathy Sledge . They are granddaughters of the former opera singer Viola Williams. The sisters used to perform under the name of "Mrs...
's "We Are Family", Luther Vandross
Luther Vandross
Luther Ronzoni Vandross was an American singer-songwriter and record producer. During his career, Vandross sold over twenty-five million albums and won eight Grammy Awards including Best Male R&B Vocal Performance four times...
' "The Night I Fell In Love" and Ashford and Simpson's "Solid (Like A Rock)
Solid (song)
"Solid" is a hit single recorded by the husband-and-wife songwriting duo Ashford & Simpson. It was featured on their album, also titled Solid and released as a single in late 1984....
", as well as most of the Nile Rodgers
Nile Rodgers
Nile Gregory Rodgers is an American musician, producer, composer, arranger, and guitarist.-Biography:...
and Bernard Edwards disco hits by Chic
Chic (band)
Chic was an African American disco and R&B band that was organized during 1976 by guitarist Nile Rodgers and bassist Bernard Edwards. It is known best for its commercially successful disco songs, including "Dance, Dance, Dance " , "Everybody Dance" , "Le Freak" , "I Want Your Love" , "Good Times"...
and Sister Sledge
Sister Sledge
Sister Sledge is an American musical group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, formed in 1972 and consisting of four sisters: Kim Sledge Debbie Sledge , Joni Sledge , and Kathy Sledge . They are granddaughters of the former opera singer Viola Williams. The sisters used to perform under the name of "Mrs...
.
Michel Camilo
Michel Camilo
Michel Camilo is a pianist and composer from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He specializes in jazz, Latin and classical piano work...
wrote the song "And Sammy Walked In" in his honour, and which was also recorded by Giovanni Hidalgo
Giovanni Hidalgo
Giovanni Hidalgo a.k.a. "Mañenguito" is an educator and percussionist associated with Latin jazz.-Early years:Hidalgo was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico where he received his primary education. His grandfather had also been a musician as well as his father, José Manuel Hidalgo "Mañengue", who was...
.
Two of his CD's, And Sammy Walked In and The Magician, have been nominated for Grammys in the "Best Latin Jazz Album" category.
Figueroa hosts a Latin jazz music program on WDNA-FM
WDNA
WDNA is the callsign of a class C2 listener supported public radio station operating on 88.9 MHz in Miami, Florida, licensed in 1977 by the FCC to the Bascomb Memorial Broadcasting Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. WDNA is the market's first public radio station. It is affiliated with...
in Miami, Florida.