The Conga Kings

In the late '90s, three heavyweights of Afro-Cuban conga playing -- Candido Camero, Carlos "Patato" Valdes, and Giovanni Hidalgo -- came together and billed themselves as the Conga Kings. All of them have impressive resumés in the Afro-Cuban and jazz fields -- especially Camero and Valdes, both of whom are regarded as elder statesmen of Latin jazz and what is now known as salsa (a convenient umbrella term that has been used to describe son, cha cha, mambo, guaguancó, danzon, and countless other rhythms that came out of Cuba). Born in Havana, Cuba, on April 22, 1921, Camero mov...