Dec. 16, 2002 – Given the appeal of seven-time Grammy Award winner Eddie Palmieri, dubbed "the superman of salsa," the Reichhold Center for the Arts has put together tickets, travel and accommodations packages for his Jan. 25 concert at the St. Thomas venue for fans on St. Croix and in Puerto Rico.
The packages range from $172 to $395 per person. They include:
– A ticket to the concert.
– Round-trip travel on Cape Air or Mermaid Fast Ferries.
– Accommodations at the Renaissance Grand Beach Resort, Best Western Emerald Beach or Carib Beach Resort, Island Beachcomber Hotel, Palms Court Harborview Hotel or Bella Vista Scott Hotel.
– Ground transportation to and from the airport.
– Ground transportation to and from the concert venue.
To learn more or to book by charge card, call 693-1559.
Afro-Caribbean pianist Palmieri's show promises to be a fitting sequel to last year's Celia Cruz spectacular at the Reichhold Center. He'll be performing with an eight-piece ensemble that includes timbales, congo and bongo percussion and his trademark trombone brass section.
Born in New York, Palmieri studied classical piano as a child and performed at Carnegie Recital Hall at the age of 11. But the Latin rhythms of his heritage could not be denied, and two years later he began his professional music career playing timbales in his uncle's Latin band.
At his mother's urging, he soon returned to the piano, if not to the classics. For nearly four decades, he has been tapping into his salsa, charanga and instrumental mambo roots and pounding out what's there on the grand piano. He won Grammy Awards in 1974, '75 and '76 while based in New York. In the '80s, he took up residence in his ancestral homeland, Puerto Rico, going on to collect another three Grammies in 1984, '85 and '87.
In 1994, Palmieri convinced the National Association for the Recording Arts and Sciences to establish the Latin Jazz Grammy. "I preferred Afro-Caribbean musical structures to jazz for years," he said in an interview a year later, "but found they have to be equally met to lead me into the albums I'm recording now!"
Most recently, Palmieri recorded the >Obra Maestra" ("Masterpiece") album with his lifetime idol, Tito Puente. Released shortly after Puente's death in 2000, it was their first and only collaboration, and it won them last year what became Palmieri's seventh Grammy — in the Salsa category, not Latin Jazz.
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