John Santos is one of the foremost exponents of Afro-Latin music in the world today. His ground-breaking work brings together styles, rhythms, concepts and artists from different generations.
Santos is Founder and Director of The Machete Ensemble, a premier San Francisco Bay Area Latin-Jazz ensemble. Machete’s completely original repertoire features compositions and arrangements by group members John Calloway, Wayne Wallace and Santos, and the group has collaborated with Afro-Latin jazz greats from Cachao to Carlos Santana.
Santos has performed, recorded and studied with acknowledged masters of the Afro-Latin and Jazz idioms including Cachao, Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Orestes Vilató, Max Roach, Eddie Palmieri, Cal Tjader, Francisco Aguabella, Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson, Batacumbele and Chocolate Armenteros, as well as Grupo Mezcla (Havana, Cuba), Santana, Yma Sumac, Ignacio Berroa and others. As a respected writer, teacher, and historian in the field, Santos is currently on the faculty of the Stanford Jazz Workshop and the Jazz Camp of Rhythmic Concepts.
In Spring 2002, John Santos will be an Arts Institute Interdisciplinary Artist in Residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his residency co-sponsored by the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program (LACIS) and the School of Music with the Afro-American Studies Department and the Dance Program. Community partners include Luther’s Blues, WORT Community Radio, [Isthmus], the Madison-Camagüey Sister City Association, the Cardinal Bar, and Centro Hispano of Dane County. The Santos residency is part of the year-long LACIS series: "Multiple Caribbeans: Performance, Displacement and Identities."
Santos will teach an Advanced Percussion Ensemble, present “The Anatomy of Jazz Latino”—a unique course, public lecture and performance series featuring such prominent musical artists as Giovanni Hidalgo and Los Muñequitos de Matanzas—as well as participate in campus and community outreach activities with the Sin Fronteras project and UW-Madison PEOPLE (Pre-College Enrichment Opportunity) Program for middle-school students. Santos’ residency will culminate in late April with a keynote lecture for the Multiple Caribbeans International Conference and a special performance of The Machete Ensemble.
“Following the Spring 2001 residency of Grammy-Award winning Cuban percussionist and Tinker Professor Roberto Vizcaino Guillot, the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program (LACIS) and School of Music have teamed up again to host the legendary Latin percussionist John Santos. By inviting the world's premier Afro-Caribbean percussionists and clinicians, this collaboration among LACIS, the School of Music, the Arts Institute and other partners is intended to stimulate broader interest and understanding of the roots of Latin music among students and faculty on the University campus as well as the Madison and Wisconsin communities.” Willie Ney, Assistant Director/Outreach Coordinator, LACIS, and Anthony Di Sanza, Assistant Professor of Percussion, School of Music, UW-Madison.