Eddie Palmieri, legendary rumba, Latin jazz pioneer, dies at 88

Eddie Palmieri, the groundbreaking musician celebrated as one of the most innovative figures in rumba and Latin jazz, passed away at the age of 88.

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Fania Records confirmed his death on Wednesday evening. Palmieri’s daughter, Gabriela, told The New York Times that he died earlier that day at his home in New Jersey following “an extended illness.”

The pianist, composer and bandleader was the first Latino to win a Grammy Award and would win seven more over a career that spanned nearly 40 albums.

Palmieri was born in New York's Spanish Harlem on December 15, 1936, at a time when music was seen as a way out of the ghetto. He began studying the piano at an early age, like his famous brother Charlie Palmieri, but at age 13, he began playing timbales in his uncle’s orchestra, overcome with a desire for the drums.