Win Tickets to See Jazz Musician Chucho Valdes

Get out your party dress and put on your dancing shoes, Cuban jazz musician Chucho Valdes is coming to town.

The winner of the Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album of 2011 will be bringing his smooth piano sounds to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on Sunday, Jan. 22.

And Patch wants you to be there. 

Be there when Valdes and the Afro-Cuban Messengers light up the stage at 3 p.m. Also performing will be Japanese jazz/pop pianist Hiromi and her Trio Project, featuring Anthony Jackson and Simon Philips.

Valdes, a pianist, composer, arranger, band leader and music professor, has recorded more than 80 CDs, has won five Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards. He was born in Havana, Cuba in 1941 to a muscial family- his mother, Pilar Rodriguez, was a singer and piano teacher, his father, the great band leader and pianist Bebo Valdés.

Valdés formed his fitst band at the age of 15 and in 1973 formed the Cuban genre-defining band Irakere. With its blend of jazz, rock, traditonal Cuban music and classical, the band had a major influence on Cuban music. In 2009 Valdés formed Chucho Valdés & the Afro-Cuban Messenger. The group tours internationally and recorded Valdes' most recent Grammy-winning release, "Chucho's Steps," in 2011.

Patch will be giving away five pairs of tickets for the show – to enter you need to send an email by 4 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 19 to your local Patch editor with a one paragraph explanation of why YOU deserve to win the tickets. Send along a photograph too – perhaps of you in your coolest jazz ensemble. Paragraph is required... photo is optional.

We'll put your beautiful face on our site so everyone can see just how cool our readers are.

Winners will be notified by email and can pick up their tickets on the day of the show.

If you're not one of the lucky winners, don’t despair. Tickets are still available for sale. They are $29-$80 and are available by phone at (888) 466-5722, at the NJPAC Box Office at One Center Street in downtown Newark, and at njpac.org. To purchase tickets for groups of 10 or more, call (973) 297-5804.

The show is part of NJPAC's Wells Fargo Jazz Series and is made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and Discover Jersey Arts.