PASSINGS: Bebo Valdes, Harlon Hill

Bebo Valdes

Pianist and bandleader who fled Cuba

Bebo Valdes, 94, a renowned Cuban pianist who recorded with Nat King Cole, was bandleader of Havana’s Tropicana nightclub during its glittering heyday and was considered the last luminary from the golden age of Cuban music, died Friday of pneumonia in Sweden. His death was confirmed by the agent for his son Chucho Valdes, a well-known pianist in his own right.

Valdes, who enjoyed a remarkable late-career resurgence after he was coaxed out of retirement in the 1990s, was a classically trained musician with a strong interest in American jazz. From his post at the Tropicana in the 1940s and ‘50s, he played a key role in creating the pulsing, jazz-influenced Afro-Cuban music that became the soundtrack for Havana’s night life.

He helped invent the mambo in the 1940s and later created a rhythm known as batanga, based on the sound of the two-headed drum used in Afro-Cuban religious rites.

Dionisio Ramon Emilio Valdes Amaro was born Oct. 9, 1918, near Havana. His parents realized his musical potential at 8, when the boy saw a piano performance, then arranged rocks as imaginary keys, playing and singing along.

He began playing professionally at 16. In 1956, when Cole went to Havana to record an album called “Cole Espanol,” Valdes did the musical arrangements and helped the American star with his Spanish.

In 1960, a year after Fidel Castro came to power, Valdes fled Cuba with other musicians, leaving his family behind. He moved to Mexico and later Sweden, where he stayed after meeting and marrying Rose Marie Pehrson. He spent the next three decades playing piano in Stockholm hotel lounges.

In 1994, Paquito D’Rivera, an associate of Valdes’ Cuban-born son Chucho, talked Valdes into recording again. In 2004, Valdes recorded “Lagrimas Negras” or “Black Tears” with Spanish flamenco singer Diego El Cigala, which sold more than a million copies.

Valdes won three Grammy awards as well as six Latin Grammys, all for his later albums.

He never returned to Cuba.

Harlon Hill

Namesake of college football trophy

Harlon Hill, 80, the former star receiver for the Chicago Bears whose name adorns the NCAA Division II college football player of the year trophy, died Thursday at a hospital in Florence, Ala., after a lengthy illness, according to Jeff Hodges, chairman of the National Harlon Hill Award Committee.

Hill, who attended what is now the University of North Alabama, was the NFL rookie of the year in 1954 after being drafted in the 15th round by the Bears, and became the first winner of the Jim Thorpe Trophy as the NFL’s most valuable player in 1955. In nine seasons with the Bears, Pittsburgh Steelers and Detroit Lions, he had 233 receptions for 4,717 yards and 40 touchdowns. The 6-foot-3, 200-pound end averaged 20.2 yards per catch.

The Harlon Hill Trophy has been presented in Florence for the last 27 years on the eve of the Division II championship game.

Harlon Junious Hill was born May 4, 1932, in Killen, Ala. He received a bachelor’s degree in education from Florence State Teachers College in 1955. After retiring from pro football, he became a public school teacher and principal in Alabama, and returned to his alma mater for a master’s degree in education.

Times staff and wire reports

news.obits@latimes.com