Alfredo De La Fe
b. 6 February, Havana, Cuba. Progressive salsa violin virtuoso, de la Fé began classical tuition at the age of eight at the Amaldeo Roldán music school in Havana, where he won a scholarship in 1964 to study in Varsovia, Poland. In 1965 he migrated with his family to New York. There, Alfredo performed Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky at Carnegie Hall and received a scholarship to the Juilliard School. While he was concert master first violinist with the Metropolitan Opera, he met the great Cuban flautist/bandleader José Fajardo, who helped him rediscover his Cuban musical heritage. He joined Fajardo's charanga (a flute and violin band) in 1966 and remained for six years. This was followed by stints with Eddie Palmieri (five years), Típica 73 (six years) and Tito Puente's Latin Ensemble. Alfredo experimented a great deal with electronic effects on his violin. He played and sessioned with many leading New York based artists and bands, including: Louie Ramírez, Israel ‘Cachao’ López, Grupo Folklorico y Experimental Nuevayorquino, Conjunto Libre, Típica Ideal, David Amram, Orquesta Broadway, Larry Harlow, Monguito, Roberto Torres, Papaíto. 
Alfredo started making solo albums while he was with Típica 73. ALFREDO was his debut, a mélange of styles, that included charanga, samba, funk, rock and disco. De la Fé co-produced the album and wrote three tracks. The follow-up was the superbly hard-edged PARA AFRICA CON AMOR by Alfredo and his Charanga Afro-Cubana (augmented by two trumpets), which contained some excellent solos by pianist Alfredo Rodríguez. In addition to handling production chores, he composed three songs and arranged two tracks. In 1979, de la Fé produced LA CHARANGA 1980 : ORCHESTRA RYTMO AFRICA—CUBANA VOL. 1, on which he also performed and contributed three compositions. In 1982, Alfredo wrote half the tunes and arrangements on TRIUNFO, with a standard charanga line-up, which he co-produced with Roberto Torres. He relocated to Colombia and settled in Medellin. His first release in 1985 was MADE IN COLOMBIA with a charanga augmented by trombone. VALLENATO was de la Fé’s adaption to vallenata, the popular accordion based music of Colombia. He sessioned on albums by the Latin Brothers. His electronic experimentalism within a typical salsa context—which he now dubbed Techno-salsa—was continued on SALSA!, with arrangements by Alberto Barros and lead vocals by Wilson Saoco (b. Wilson Manyoma Gil, 30 August 1951, Cali, Colombia). The record was produced by Alfredo and he composed the majority of the tracks. He took a backward step in terms of creativity on his next release, 16 Grandes Sucesos de Cuba(1990), which was a collection of re-worked Cuban standards.