Attila Zoller

"José Fajardo was born in 1919 in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, and played the traditional five-keyed wooden flute in a family band led by his father Alberto Fajardo, a clarinetist, and named Orquesta Hilda after his sister Hilda, its pianist. He worked as a policeman in Havana before joining a leading charanga group of the early 1940's, Arcaño y Sus Maravillas, when its leader, the flutist Antonio Arcaño, could no longer play flute. A few years later he started his own group, Fajardo y Sus Estrellas in 1949. His recordings for the Panart label were hits, and soon, his group grew so popular that Mr. Fajardo led three bands by the same name, sometimes taking a helicopter to play sets in different cities on a single night."Read More