Verna writes for Billboard, "The return of veteran composer/arranger Chico O'Farrill should earn an enthusiastic welcome for devotees of swinging, straight-ahead Latin jazz." Few glowing records exist of O'Farrill's works from before the 1990s, but Peter Watrous, writing a review of a 1998 Afro-Cuban jazz concert featuring O'Farrill's older work (specifically, the Manteca Suite composed for Dizzy Gillespie and the Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite) for The New York Times, calls O'Farrill "a gifted musician who stands as one of jazz's great cultural translators", lauding the concert as "[making] the case for [his] brilliance." While he was an important behind-the-scenes figure in earlier life in composing and arranging for more notable names, his band did not achieve significant fame until this period. Discography Jazz (Clef, 1953) Afro-Cuban (Clef, 1953) 2nd Afro Cuban Suite (Norgran, 1954) Mambo Dance Session (Norgran, 1954) Latino Dance Session (Norgran, 1954) Chico's Cha Cha Cha (Panart, 1956) Music from South America (Verve, 1956) Mambo Latino Dances (Verve, 1958) Nine Flags (Impulse!, 1966) Spanish Rice with Clark Terry (Impulse!, 1966) Married Well (Verve, 1967) Cuban Jazz King (Eco 1973) Latin Roots (Philips, 1976) Super Chops (Versatile, 1977) Guaguasi (Kim, 1984) Pure Emotion (Milestone, 1995) Heart of a Legend (Milestone, 1999) Carambola (Milestone, 2000) The Complete Norman Granz Recordings (Malanga Music, 2016) Chico O'Farrill (Calle Mayor, 2017) References External links Official site Article about Chico O'Farrill Chico O'Farrill at the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University 1921 births 2001 deaths American jazz bandleaders American jazz composers American male jazz composers American music arrangers Cuban people of Irish descent Cuban people of German descent Bebop composers Bebop arrangers People from Havana Musicians from New York City Latin jazz trumpeters Latin jazz composers Milestone Records artists Impulse! Records artists Verve Records artists 20th-century trumpeters 20th-century American composers Jazz musicians from New York (state) 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century jazz composers Cuban emigrants to the United States