Jazz St. Louis Presents Paquito D’Rivera & Chucho Valdés, Together Again! at the Sheldon

Jazz St. Louis is thrilled to announce the 2024 fundraising event Together Again! at the Steward Center, home of Jazz St. Louis, on September 18, 2024, and at The Sheldon on September 19, 2024. This two-night fundraising event supports Jazz St. Louis and helps secure the future of Jazz St. Louis’ impactful programs for people in the St. Louis area. The organization’s programming has established an extensive record of developing future leaders in music, while also preserving and advancing the treasured American art form of Jazz through community engagement efforts and transformative live jazz experiences.

Valdés and D’Rivera first met in 1962. Both were child prodigies, and both were sons of musical families. They worked together in Havana’s Musical Theatre Orchestra, and in the Cuban Orchestra of Modern Music. They also made their first professional recordings together. They’ve both won multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy awards for their recordings. This reunion between the two has been bubbling in recent years, including the release of the album I Missed You Too in 2022, and a 50th anniversary performance of iconic Afro-Cuban jazz band Irakere earlier this year, which D’Rivera and Valdés formed in 1973 with Arturo Sandoval. The band’s sound was revolutionary for Cuba and revelatory for the Americans who would hear them on the band’s first tour in the United States in 1979. This particular reunion in St. Louis offers two exceptionally rare opportunities to see them in two of the most revered venues in the city.