Armando de Sequeira Romeu

Armando de Sequeira Romeu, is a Cuban musical director, composer, arranger, violinist, drummer and bass player. In 1972 he co-founded the Grammy Award group Irakere, one of Cuba’s best-known Latin Jazz Bands, together with Chucho Valdes, a Cuban pianist. His mother, Zenaida Romeu Gonzalez, known as a pianist and a composer, performed for the Havana Symphony Orchestra and worked at her father’s radio station CMBN. His great uncle, Antonio Maria Romeu Marrero, was the most famous "Danzon" Music Composer, a style of music that represents the nation and the country of Cuba and later Mexico. Radio music pioneer who founded CMBN, was the leader of the French charanga band. His uncle, Armando Romeu Jr., a Jazz musician and the nephew of one of Cuba’s early classical composers, was the bandleader who was asked by Victor de Correa to assemble the house orchestra for the Tropicana Club. In 1954, De Sequeira, joined his uncle’s orchestra as a drummer performing at the Tropicana Club and recorded with Nat King Cole En Español.

• 1979 Grammy Irakere. Columbia/CBS JC-35655. Areíto LD-3769

The Cuban post office awarded the Romeu family with a special stamp, with the Romeu Family name in it and a photograph of Antonio Maria Romeu on the piano to represent the country internationally.