Latin jazz legend Eddie Palmieri calls himself an eternal student

Eddie Palmieri is one of the most renowned Latin jazz band leaders of the last century. The 10-time Grammy winner has created musical magic on stages around the world for the past seven decades.

Palmieri describes himself as “a bandstand warrior.” He grew up in New York during the surge in popularity of Latin dance music. As a kid in the Bronx in the 1940s and 50s, he worked at his parent’s luncheonette that he named El Mambo, as he loaded the jukebox with mambo songs.

His first love was playing timbales, but his mother insisted on piano. And he followed his older brother, the famed Charlie Palmieri, to study with renowned African American composer and pianist Margaret Bonds at her studio in Carnegie Hall.

“I always say my brother was the pianist,” Palmieri says. “I was just a piano player.”