He was born on October 9, 1941. Creator and conductor of Irakere (jungle), first and earliest group of Fusion Latin Jazz. His father is the pianist, composer and orchestra conductor Bebo Valdés. "Cachao" ,reminds Bebo, made him listening, being him back, "a young North American pianist". It was Chucho at the age of four, to whom his father later advised to lear how to play, first Cuban music, and later jazz, not mixing them before mastering both.
"He was harmonically formed listening to Bebo till dawn", remembers his cousin Guillermo Barreto, whose yard was next to the Valdés one. At the age of six he learned solfeggio with Oscar Boufartique, and at the age of sixteeen he made his debut as pianist with his father´s reputed orchestra Sabor de Cuba (Taste of Cuba), accompanying important singers of those days, like Rolando Laserie, Fernando Álvarez and Pío Leyva for three years. In 1963 he met with Paquito D'Rivera and Carlos Emilio Morales in the orchestra of the Teatro Musical de La Habana.
In 1967 he is invited to join the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna (Cuban Orchestra of Modern Music) conducted by Armando Romeu. But three years later, in Warsaw Festival, where he played in a quintet with D'Rivera and Orlando López "Cachaíto", the warm welcome received sealed his musical destiny. Dave Brubeck encourages him to keep on exploring Afro Cuban roots in Jazz. Back to Havana, Chucho recruits some of the leading soloists from Romeu orchestra in order to create Irakere, group where classical music, rock and Jazz elements merge with Cuban rythm, and nowadays keeps alive.
Valdés has kept on recording solo along his career, among which protrudes piano solos: Pianissimo (1994) which contains classicals from Cuba repertoire, hábilmente filtrados por el jazz. Lucumí (1988) is, up to the present, his masterwork. In it his father melodical richness indissolubly linked to Afro Cuban tradition is reflected. But we also hear his own voice in full colours; virtusism paving the way to a deep feeling. Acording to both were recorded in a little more than an hour. At all events it is obious.
In these reent years, he performs live with the best New York Latin musicians, he records Habana with Roy Hargrove´s Crisol (Crucible) group; also a zestful "Manisero" ("Peanut Vendor") at four hands with his father, and a bolero record with Omara Portuondo. He sponsors Cuban pianists who make solo debut, Ernán López-Nussa, Gabriel Hernández and Hilario Durán.