The Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz/Jazz Album is an honor presented annually at the Latin Grammy Awards, a ceremony that recognizes excellence and creates a wider awareness of cultural diversity and contributions of Latin recording artists in the United States and internationally. The award has been given to artists since the 1st Latin Grammy Awards in 2000 for vocal or instrumental albums containing more than half of its playing time of newly recorded material in Spanish or Portuguese. Latin jazz is a mixture of musical genres, including Afro-Caribbean and Pan-American rhythms with the harmonic structure of jazz. Other jazz genres may also be considered for inclusion by the Jazz Committee.
Two-time winner Gonzalo Rubalcaba.
Michel Camilo received the award in 2000 for his album Spain and in 2013 for What's Up?
Bebo Valdés, awarded twice in this category and in the same field for the Grammy Awards
Francisco de Jesús Rivera Figueras, known as Paquito D'Rivera, is a Cuban-American alto saxophonist, clarinetist and composer. He was a member of the Cuban songo band Irakere and, since the 1980s, he has established himself as a bandleader in the United States. His smooth saxophone tone and his frequent combination of Latin jazz and classical music have become his trademarks.
D'Rivera in 2022
Paquito D'Rivera at the Village Gate
Paquito D'Rivera with the Trio Corrente at the 2015 Horizonte World Music Festival at Ehrenbreitstein Fortress
D'Rivera (third from left) stands alongside other recipients of the 2005 National Medal of Arts, and U.S. President George W. Bush, in the Oval Office on 9 November 2005.