Musician david valentines biography

Addresses: Record company--Concord Records, P. It may have been love for a girl that caused former percussionist Dave Valentin to start playing the flute, but it was love for the instrument that has kept him playing. Valentin gained attention early on as a versatile musician who was able to play in Latin jazz groups but found professional success by exploring the sounds of world music with his flute.

He was adept at Latin and straight-ahead jazz, but was also known for combining Latin rhythms with pop sounds in his original music. He was the first artist signed to the GRP jazz label in and released 18 world music albums on the imprint. Born on April 29, , in New York's Bronx borough to parents who were from Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, Valentin was surrounded by the music his parents listened to.

He picked up bongos and congas as a child, and by his early teens, had joined a Latin group as a timbales player. He performed with the group in New York City's Latin nightclubs on the "cuchifrito" circuit, the working-class dance halls of New York.

Gpr band

Sunday morning and seeing the people in Harlem going to church as I'm going home to sleep. A girl he wanted to meet played the flute, so Valentin borrowed one and asked her to show him a few things. A month later, he played for her, but had become so good that she got jealous, and his plan backfired. He didn't get the girl, but continued to study the flute with Hubert Laws, a popular jazz flutist known for his classical technique, and with a classical player, Hal Bennett.

He took up the saxophone for a while, but Laws convinced him to drop the saxophone and focus his energies on the flute. Aside from a few lessons with Laws and Bennett, Valentin is a mostly self-taught flutist.

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The young artist worked as a schoolteacher to pay the bills but continued to play music, becoming one of New York's up-and-coming musicians. In the early s, Valentin was playing with some of the hottest Latin bands in the city, but it was his ability to cross over and play with big-name jazz artists like singer Patti Austin, guitarist Lee Ritenour, and pianist Dave Grusin that got him noticed.

Valentin made his recording debut with Ricardo Marrero's group in