Alex Acuña

Alex Acuña has built a career as a drummer, percussionist, composer, and bandleader that encompasses more than 900 recording credits. His early work featured tours with Perez Prado throughout the 1960s and appearances alongside Elvis Presley during Las Vegas engagements in the early 1970s, after which he joined Weather Report from 1975 to 1978 and contributed to Black Market and Heavy Weather. Session and road work followed with an extensive roster that includes Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Andre Crouch, and Blondie. His first release as a leader, Thinking of You, arrived in 1990, with Rumbero's Poetry in 1999 and Bongó De Van Gogh in 2002 both recorded in partnership with Tolú and Justo Almario. Jungle City appeared in 2009 and Barxeta in 2012 with his jazz-funk trio. After further sessions with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Moby in 2021, Acuña issued the solo album Gifts in 2022.

Born Alejandro Neciosup Acuña in the farming town of Pativika, Peru, 100 miles north of Lima, he grew up in a musical household where his father and five brothers all performed. Self-taught on drums from the age of four, he advanced rapidly, performing festival dates with his family and joining several local groups by age ten. As a teenager he left school for Lima, where he established himself as one of Peru’s leading session drummers on film and television scores as well as on recordings by the area’s popular artists. His name reached across South America, leading Perez Prado to hire him for the touring ensemble. Acuña worked throughout the United States before emigrating to Puerto Rico later that year. Over the next several years he continued touring with Prado, performed with local bands, started a family, and studied at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, where he played classical percussion in the orchestra directed by Spanish cello master Pablo Casals.

In 1974 Acuña relocated with his family to Las Vegas. He remained with Prado’s show band while also performing in Elvis Presley’s Las Vegas residencies and in backing groups and orchestras for Olivia Newton John and the Temptations. Drummer and percussionist Don Alias caught one of the latter performances and encouraged him to explore jazz, arranging an audition that led Acuña to join Weather Report for its 1975 tour. He settled in Los Angeles, appeared on the band’s two most commercially successful studio albums, Black Market and Heavy Weather, and remained until 1978; during this period Weather Report also supported Joni Mitchell on Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter.

Following his departure from the group, Acuña began collaborations with guitarist Lee Ritenour, saxophonist John Klemmer, and vocal ensemble the Manhattan Transfer, among many others. The association with Ritenour extended into the 1990s and yielded such albums as The Captain’s Journey, Lee Ritenour in Rio, and Rit. Between 1978 and 1990 he maintained a constant studio presence across hundreds of dates spanning Latin, R&B, jazz, blues, gospel, CCM, and new wave, including Blondie’s “The Tide Is High.” Additional highlights from those years include Los Lobos’ Will the Wolf Survive?, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Antonio Carlos Jobim Song Book, Ute Lemper’s Crimes of the Heart, and Wayne Shorter’s Atlantis. In 1988 he took part in Roy Orbison’s large ensemble for A Black and White Night Live.

Acuña’s debut leader project, Thinking of You, credited to Alex Acuña & the Unknowns, surfaced in 1990; issued only in Japan, it featured guest appearances by Carlos Santana. Touring proved impossible at the time because of ongoing studio commitments. That same year he recorded on Dave Grusin’s score for Havana, and in 1991 he worked with Richard Thompson, Lalo Schifrin, the Meat Puppets, Crowded House, and the Cult, as well as reuniting with Mitchell for Night Ride Home. The remainder of the decade followed a comparable pattern. In addition to Los Lobos’ Kiko and Rodney Crowell’s Life Is Messy, he recorded with Joe Zawinul, Lindsey Buckingham, Tracy Chapman, Don Grusin, and Michael Franks, among many others.

Acuña reunited with Tolú and Justo Almario in 1999 for the Latin fusion album Rumbero's Poetry. The following year he released the solo percussion collection Su Acuarela De Tambores and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album; the set incorporated a range of Latin, South American, and African percussion traditions. He rejoined Tolú and Almario for Bongó De Van Gogh in 2002. Latino, recorded with Abe Laboriel and Otmaro Ruiz, and No Accent, credited to the Unknowns, both appeared in 2005. The next year he participated in Zawinul’s Brown Street alongside Victor Bailey and the WDR Big Band.

In 2009 Acuña assembled a jazz-funk trio with pianist and keyboardist Jan Gunnar Hoff and bassist Per Mathisen that released Jungle City. He appeared on albums by Seal, Vince Mendoza, and Opeth in 2011. The trio followed with Barxeta in 2012, a year that also included sessions with Randy Newman, Bette Midler, Chris Botti, and Micky Dolenz.

In subsequent years Acuña concentrated on film and television scoring, working with composer Michael Giacchino on the soundtracks for Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek Beyond, Jurassic World, Rogue One, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Coco, Bad Times at the El Royale, War for the Planet of the Apes, and The Incredibles 2. He played a prominent role on Brian Bromberg’s Thicker Than Water and on Rupert Gregson-Williams’ Aquaman soundtrack in 2018, and on Harry Gregson-Williams’ Mulan the following year. In 2020 he contributed to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score for Soul. The decade’s recording activity also permitted time for teaching; Acuña produced four solo instructional videos and conducted seminars at UCLA, Berklee School of Music, and additional institutions.

Acuña participated in the studio recording of the revival of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s West Side Story in 2021, as well as on Lin-Manuel Miranda and Germaine Franco’s Encanto. He also appeared on Gregory Porter’s Still Rising and with Moby’s ensemble on Reprise. In 2022 Moby called on him again for several remix EPs, and Giacchino enlisted him for the Spider-Man: No Way Home soundtrack.

September brought the release of Gifts on Le Coq, Acuña’s first leader album in 17 years. Rejoined by the Unknowns—Venezuelan keyboardist Otmaro Ruiz, Peruvian guitarist Ramón Stagnaro, and Nuyorican bassist John Peña—plus new member Peruvian tenor saxophonist Lorenzo Ferrero, the ten-track set traverses funk, fusion, soul-jazz, ambient, and Latin- and Brazilian-inflected jazz while also presenting covers of Zawinul’s “Mercy Mercy Mercy” and Herbie Hancock’s “One Finger Snap.”