An extraordinary percussionist, Giovanni Hidalgo has brought his own brand of the Latin flavor to both jazz music and to music education.

Hidalgo was born March 9, 1963, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His father, José Manuel Hidalgo (or “Mañegue”) was a noteworthy conga player and his grandfather also had been a musician. So the boy was surrounded from birth by drums, bongos, congas and timbales. For his eighth birthday, Giovanni received a handmade conga from his father. He honed his skills and speed on that conga and other instruments in the house, drumming a tune with sticks and then playing the same passage with his hands.

Hidalgo got his big break when he successfully auditioned for the Batacumbele Band in 1980. He traveled with that band to Cuba a year later. There he met a musician named José Luis Quintana (aka “Changuito”) and together they created a unique style of rhythm that ushered in a new era of Latin music.

Known as “Mañenguito,” Hidalgo began performing with Eddie Palmieri at the Village Gate in New York City during the mid-1980s. While there, jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie stopped by and took in a set and left so impressed with Giovanni that he told the drummer that someday they must play together. In 1988, Hidalgo became part of the Dizzy Gillespie United Nations Jazz Orchestra.

In 1992, Hidalgo released an album titled “Villa Hidalgo,” and was also hired as an adjuct professor at the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston. He taught four years at Berklee, instructing students in Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Reggae, African and jazz percussion.

In 2001, Hidalgo recorded “Jazz Descargas” with the Conga Kings. His most current project is a DVD issue entitled “Traveling Through Time.”