Porfi Jiménez

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Porfirio Antonio Jiménez Núñez (b. February 16, 1928) is a Dominican-Venezuelan Latin music composer, arranger, and bandleader.

A native of Hato Mayor, Jiménez father died when he was three and he received his first trumpet, from his mother, at eight. He started playing at school in 1940 and two years later turned professional.

Jiménez was 26 years old when he arrived in Caracas, Venezuela. He began performing with a variety of orchestras, including Rafael Minaya, Pedro José Belisario, Billo's Caracas Boys, Los Peniques and Chucho Sanoja. In the early 1960s, he gained notoriety for his arrangements for bolero singers Felipe Pirela and Blanca Rosa Gil, starting his own Latin music dance band in 1963. With lead vocalists Kiko Mendive and Chico Salas, Jimenez' orchestra made its recording debut on Velvet Company. He made several albums for them in the late '60s and mid '70s, and helped popularize the salsa rage.

Jiménez enjoyed more success in the mid 1980s for Sonografica label, with albums combining salsa, cumbia, and the merengue of his native country as well. Some of his more popular songs are: La negra Celina, Se hunde el barco, Dolores and Culu Cucú, which reached number one on the Colombian, Dominican and Venezuelan charts. Beside this, he conducts a full 17 piece Jazz Orchestra to promote the big band tradition by featuring his own repertoire and selected works of Thad Jones and Chico O'Farrill, between others.

In January 2007, Jiménez was honored in New York City by the United Nations Orchestra, created by Dizzy Gillespie, for his long and storied career in Latin music, which continues to this day, at the age of 80. He still living in Caracas, Venezuela.