John Santos
Seven-time Grammy-nominated percussionist, US Artists Fontanals Fellow, and 2013-2014 SFJAZZ Resident Artistic Director, John Santos, is one of the foremost exponents of Afro-Latin music in the world today. Born in San Francisco, California, November 1, 1955, he was raised in the Puerto Rican and Cape Verdean traditions of his family, surrounded by music. The fertile musical environment of the San Francisco Bay Area shaped his career in a unique way. His studies of Afro-Latin music have included several trips to New York, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Brazil and Colombia. He is known for his innovative use of traditional forms and instruments in combination with contemporary music, and has earned much respect and recognition as a prolific performer, composer, teacher, writer, radio programmer, and record/event producer whose career has spanned five decades. He illuminates and illustrates the historical and evolving intersection of Jazz and traditional Afro-Latin music.
John has performed and/or recorded with acknowledged, multi-generational masters such as Cachao, Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Bebo Valdés, Max Roach, Eddie Palmieri, Patato Valdés, Lázaro Ros, Bobby Hutcherson, Zakir Hussein, Manny Oquendo, Chucho Valdes, Airto, Paquito D’Rivera, Buenavista Social Club, Chocolate Armenteros, John Handy, Billy Cobham, Hermeto Pascoal, George Cables, Generoso Jimenez, Joe Henderson, the SFJAZZ Collective, Gonzalo Rubalcava, Ernesto Oviedo, Regina Carter, Chester Thompson, Francisco Aguabella, John Faddis, Ed Thigpen, Giovanni Hidalgo, Steve Turre, McCoy Tyner, Batacumbele, Poncho Sanchez, Omar Sosa, Mel Martin, Ignacio Berroa, Danilo Perez, Los Pleneros de la 21, Jose Luis “Changuito” Quintana, Armando Peraza, Pancho Quinto, Tootie Heath, Art Farmer, Pupy Pedroso, Jacqueline Castellanos, Malonga Casquelord, CK Ladzekpo, Pancho Terry, Juan De Dios Ramos, Carlos Aldama, Yosvany Terry, Dafnis Prieto, Oscar Castro Neves, Mark Murphy, Orkestra Rumpilezz, Larry Coryell, Lázaro Galarraga, Regino Jimenez, Luis Daniel “Chichito” Cepeda, Modesto Cepeda, Guillermo “Negro” Triana, Lázaro Rizo, Raul “Lali” Gonzalez, Amado DeDeus, Pedrito Martinez, Jose Lugo, Jerry Medina, Orestes Vilató, Kamau Daaood, Johnny Rodriguez, Sonny Bravo, Arturo Sandoval, Nestor Torres, Anthony Carrillo, Paoli Mejías, Raul Rekow, Andy Gonzalez, Jerry Gonzalez, Jovino Santos Neto, Lalo Schifrin, Gema y Pavel, Pete Escovedo, Claudia Gómez, Maria Márquez, Jon Jang, Wayne Wallace, Mark Levine, Elio Villafranca, Bruce Forman, Buster Williams, Linda Tillery, Charlie Hunter, Joyce Cooling, Bobby Matos, Mark Weinstein, Roberto Borrell, Sandy Perez, Jesus Diaz, Roman Diaz, Pablo Menendez y Mezcla, Yma Sumac, Rhiannon, Larry Vukovich, Kenny Washington, Faye Carol, Kellye Gray, Destani Wolf, Kimiko Joy, Kenny Endo, Abhijit Banerjee, Kahil El’Zabar, Bobby McFerrin, Babatunde Lea, Stefon Harris, Scott Amendola, Alvon Johnson, Terrie Odabie, Jamie Davis, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Lee Oscar, and Carlos Santana, among many others.
John is widely respected as one of the top writers, teachers and historians in the field and was a member of the Latin Jazz Advisory Committee of the Smithsonian Institution. He is also former faculty at the California Conservatory of Jazz (Berkeley, CA), San Francisco State University, and the College of San Mateo (CA). He has conducted countless workshops, lectures and clinics in the US, Latin America and Europe since 1973 at institutions of all types including the Smithsonian, the Adventures in Music program of the San Francisco Symphony, the Berklee School of Music in Boston, UCLA, Yale, Stanford, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Michigan, Temple University, Brigham Young University, Cal State Monterey Bay, Cal State Hayward, the University of Colorado, Yakima Valley Community College, Ohio Music Education Association, the Afro-Cuban Drumming and Dance Program at Humboldt State University (CA), Cal State Sonoma, Cal State Sacramento, Cal State San Jose, Tulane and Dillard Universities of Louisiana, Jazz Camp West, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Los Angeles Music Academy, the Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco), the Lafayette Summer Music Program (CA), the Oakland Public Conservatory, and La Universidad Inter-Americana in San Germán Puerto Rico. He has contributed to the international magazines Percussive Notes, Modern Drummer, Modern Percussionist, and Latin Percussionist.
John was the director of the San Francisco Bay Area’s first Cuban charanga style orchestra, La Orquesta Tipica Cienfuegos (1976-1980) and directed the award-winning Orquesta Batachanga (1981-1985) that released two self-produced albums. He was founder and director of the internationally renowned, Grammy-nominated Machete Ensemble (1985-2006), that released nine CDs with special guests from Puerto Rico, Cuba, NY, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, mostly on John’s Machete Records label that was founded in 1984 and continues today.
He currently directs the highly acclaimed John Santos Sextet Latin jazz ensemble with five of the brightest artists on the Latin Jazz scene – Dr. John Calloway, Marco Diaz, Saul Sierra, David Flores and Charlie Gurke. It began as a Quartet in 2003, Quintet by 2005 and Sextet in 2008. They have eight full-length CDs under their belt to date: Papa Mambo (2007) features Ray Vega, Jerry Medina, and Maria Márquez. Perspectiva Fragmentada with living legends Johnny Rodriguez and Nelson Gonzalez was nominated by the Jazz Journalists Association (NY), and by Cubadisco (Cuban Grammys) as one of the top Latin Jazz releases of the year, and selected as one of the five top Latin Jazz CDs of 2008 by New York’s All About Jazz magazine. Filosofía Caribeña Vol.1 (2011) received a 4.5 star review from Downbeat Magazine! Filosofía Caribeña Vol.2 was released in 2013. Siempre Clásico (2014) features amazing special guests Ernesto Oviedo and Orestes Vilató. Art of the Descarga features a spectacular list of special guests including Jerry Gonzalez, Orestes Vilató, Orlando “Maraca” Valle y Tito Matos was released in 2020 on the Smithsonian Folkways label. Filosofía Caribeña Vol. 3: A Puerto Rico del Alma (2023) features 26 special guests including Giovanni Hidalgo, Christian Nieves, Tito Matos and Fito Reinoso. Vieja Escuela (2023) includes Jerry Gonzalez, Orestes Vilató, Anthony Blea, and Rico Pabón. Horizontes (2025) features Jerry Medina, Tito Matos, and Elena Pinderhughes.
John has also produced four full length CDs with his Afro-Caribbean Folklóric Ensemble, El Coro Folklórico Kindembo since 1994, two of which were Grammy-nominated. They all feature a multi-generational cast of giants in the field from Cuba, Puerto Rico including Francisco Aguabella, Armando Peraza, Cachao, Chocolate Armenteros, Pancho Quinto, Carlos Aldama, Juan de Dios Ramos, Giovanni Hidalgo, Anthony Carrillo, Modesto Cepeda, Orestes Vilató, and Sandy Pérez. La Esperanza (2011), garnered a four-star review in Downbeat Magazine!
The San Francisco Bay Area community in which John still lives and works has presented him with numerous awards and honors for artistic excellence and social dedication. John received the Community Leadership Awardfrom the San Francisco Foundation in 2011. He was presented with the San Francisco Latino Heritage Award in 2012 that included a Certificate of Honor signed by Mayor Edwin Lee, and Certificates of Recognition from the State Assembly, a Certificate of Recognition from the State Senate, and a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the US House of Representatives. He was selected for the Man of the Year Award by Brothers on the Rise (Oakland, CA) in 2013. He also received a Most Influential Jazz Musician Award from the Buddy Montgomery Annual Awards ceremony in September of 2016 in Berkeley, CA. A photo of John from 1987 by pioneering Puerto Rican photographer/activist Frank Espada was on display in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC in 2016! John’s image also appears in several murals around the Bay Area.
John’s work has been recognized and supported by the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Smithsonian Institution, the California Arts Council, United States Artists, the Zellerbach Family Fund, the Fund for Folk Culture, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlitt Foundation, the East Bay Community Foundation, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, the Creative Work Fund, South Arts, the Jazz Coalition (NY), the San Jose Jazz Festival, and the City of Oakland. The City of San Francisco issued a mayoral proclamation declaring November 12, 2006 John Santos Day. He was featured prominently in the PBS American Masters documentary, Cachao: Uno Mas (2008), and is the subject the documentary Santos: Skin to Skin by Searchlight Films (Oakland, CA), that made its debut in 2022 in Washington DC, at SXSW (Austin, TX), the Mill Valley Film Festival (CA), and at SFJAZZ. In 2016, he performed at the American Folklife Festival and the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, both in Washington DC. In 2023 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, CA and a Legend of Latin Jazz Award from the Jazz Education Network at their conference in New Orleans.