(Prensa Latina -Cumbancha) New York, USA - Legendary Cuban singer Graciela Pérez, who performed with the orchestra of Latin jazz forerunner Machito will be paid homage by her colleagues this coming August 27, on her 87th birthday.

According to entrepreneur Charles Carlini, a group of outstanding jazz and salsa musicians, including Ray Barreto, Cándido Camero, Carlos "Patato" Valdés, Larry Harlow, Bobby Sanabria, Steve Turre, Mike Collazo, Ray Mantilla and Arturo O'Farrill Jr., will take part in the tribute to take place at the Birdland center.

Graciela Pérez had a long and successful career that made her famous as "the queen of bolero." She accompanied her brother Francisco Pérez, who had to change his identity to Frank Grillo, and made history with his band, called Machito and his Afro-Cubans, which once enlisted such music myths as Mario Bauzá and Chano Pozo. According to most experts, the fusion of Be Bop with Cuban music, the creation of Cu Bop, and, consequently, Latin jazz was precisely led by Machito's orchestra and the encounter of this band with Dizzy Gillespie in the mid-1940s.