HOWARD (HUMBERTO) LÉDER

Producer/arranger/pianist

Mr Leder has produced and documented recordings as well as live performances with award winning and critically acclaimed master musical artists and composers since 1975.

Partial list:

BB King; Luther Vandross; Ron Carter; Hilton Ruiz; Geri Allen; Jon Lucien; Peter Washington;

Grady Tate; Cy Coleman: Chris Botti; Romero Lubambo; Cyro Baptista; Nilson Matta;

Bakhiti Kumalo; Anton Fig; Nana Vasconcelos; David Sanchez; Doc Powell; Horacee Arnold;

Buster Williams; Antoine Roney; Kojo Roney; George Colligan; Vic Juris; James Cammack;

Rashann Carter; Spaceman Paterson; The N.Y. Virtuosi Chamber Symphony Orchestra;

The Paul Price Percussion Ensemble; Concert pianist Joshua Pierce (Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances for Two Pianos)

SEE ARTISTS page for full list

NYC native, Howard was 19 when he met Danny Carillo, the musical director for Harry Belafonte and Hugh Masekela. Carillo introduced Howard to his first professional gigs with Latin orchestras in the South Bronx and Spanish Harlem. Band members purchased a Farfisa organ out of an Eighth Avenue pawn shop. The music was derived from neighborhood clubs and street corners…. a mix of Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Dominican rhythms with big band and improvised jazz.

He began to study music theory, history, and orchestration under mentorship of Charlie Mingus’ pianist/composer Jaki Byard. Other teachers included Jazz Encyclopedia author Ira Gitler; electronic music composer Mario Davidovsky; Latin pianist Charlie Palmieri; music critic/author/historian, Andre Hodeir; and “third stream” creator Gunther Schuller. In 1975 he took a job to teaching music for the Boston Public Schools.

His first recording sessions were large and small ensembles for private labels, musicians and institutions in Atlanta, Boston and New York. He then worked for Kevin Eggers’ Tomato Records (Albert King, John Cage, Clifton Chenier and Townes Van Zandt), while securing studio downtime at Electric Lady Studios and reconnecting with the city’s cultural scene, particularly its African, Caribbean, S. American and jazz communities.

He is the founder of World Blue Music and Penumbra Productions and Producer of the Jazz Masters series at the Friars Club in NYC which featured tributes to Tony Bennett, Robert DeNiro , Carlos Slim and many others including performances by Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Sting, The New York Latin All Stars, and Paquito D’Rivera.

Mr Léder is a Harvard University Fellow with post graduate studies at Emory University and the New England Conservatory of Music.