Chico O’Farrill, Grammy-nominated composer and arranger was a pioneer in Afro-Cuban jazz.  Most of his career was spent in obscurity, writing and arranging music for Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Stan Getz, and others.   He wrote “The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite,” first performed in 1950 by Machito, Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips, and Buddy Rich.  Born to an Irish father and Cuban mother, O'Farrill spent much of his career as an industry secret, known only to the cognoscenti among players and fans. Only in the last decade of his life did he get the recognition he deserved, with a series of scorching big band Latin jazz recordings.

O’Farrill cut his teeth by arranging for local bands in Cuba in the 1940’s.  In 1948, upon moving to New York City, he was hired by Benny Goodman.  O'Farrill’s compositions for Goodman, like "Undercurrent Blues" and "Shiskabop," gained attention among other Latin jazz artists, and he went on to work for Machito, Stan Kenton, Noro Morales, and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1950, he recorded his seminal Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite, with Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich and Flip Phillips among others. This was a groundbreaking amalgam of Latin and be-bop, an ambitious work that took a set of contrasting themes and sophisticated harmony and infused them with a strong Latin rhythm that built up to a climactic crescendo. His best-known piece of the period, "Manteca," was written with Dizzy Gillespie and has become perhaps the signature number of Latin jazz.