Jorge Moreno

Jorge Moreno is an American musician of Cuban descent.

Moreno won much critical acclaim for his debut album and was awarded a Latin Grammy award for "Best New Artist", Early the next year he nominated in the (Anglo) Grammy's for "Best Latin Album" and was one of the first artists to perform in Spanish on Good Morning America.

He also received much praise and a Univision Nomination for his avant gard Self Directed Video for his track "Mi Sufrimiento", in which Moreno Humorusly confesses that the record company would not pay for another video so he did it himself.

After the dissolution of Maverick, Moreno went indie and was soon asked by Clive Davis to record a track "Satellite" with none other than Carlos Santana for the movie soundtrack Miramax film "Havana Nights" produced by Moreno's first producer Lester Mendez (Shakira).

Moreno then proceeded to release his second album cleverly titled "El Segundo" which started to gather more critical acclaim but was lost at radio in a wave of Reggaeton fad.

Soon after he performed his signature version of Babalu' on the Victoria Secret Fashion show broadcast worldwide and seen by over 40 million people.

In 2011 Moreno won the International Songwriters contest as best Video for his song "Thank you" and came in as first runner up for the composition.

Moreno can also add TV Producer to his many talents, he opened a Production company on South beach named Beach Pictures which focuses on Docu-Reality content. He has produced content for MTV, CURRENT TV, TLC and the CW. He was creator and Executive producer of the summer series "The Catalina" based on the real life employees of the popular South Beach hotel. The Catalina was a one-hour show on the CW network.

Most recently Moreno opened a restaurant "Moreno's Cuba" a 1950's style speakeasy bar and cafe at the Riviera Hotel and Suites on South Beach.

Early life

Jorge Moreno was born on April 23, 1975 in Miami, Florida. His parents emigrated from Cuba to Miami during the dictatorship of "Fidel & Raul Castro". In the 1970s and 1980s, his father Antonio "TONY" Moreno was a well known and respected executive producer whom operated several well-known salsa labels. His mother, Melba, was a huge fan of 1950s and 1960s pop and rock acts such as Frankie Valli, Elvis Presley, and Dion.

As a teenager, he was most interested in punk and alternative American rock music. "Then I had my gothic phase, and I still love a lot of those bands", he told Hispanic Magazine. "But, the thing is, I was rebelling against conformity and commercial music. But the time came when I realized I was becoming as closed-minded as the people I was rebelling against." In his late teens, he began to discover classic Cuban crooners such as the legendary Beny Moré. This renewed interest in Latin music would yield an unusual mix that wasn't necessarily welcome on Miami's conventional Latin music scene.

Education

The list of schools Moreno has attended start with Dade Christian, Palms Springs Elementary, Immaculate Conception, Edison Private, Hialeah Gardens Academy, Miami Lakes Jr, Belen, Miami Aerospace Military (Boarding School), Pace High, Miami High and Finally Coral Gables Sr. High. In his junior year of high school, Moreno joined two friends in a musical trio that melded all of these musical influences into "a Latin Beatles-ish sort of rock." The band broke up three years later and Moreno left to study film and photography at New World School of the Arts and then Later University of Miami. In the meantime, however, he continued to compose and improve upon his guitar-playing skills. In 1996, upon deciding that he wanted to dedicate his life exclusively to music, he began recording demos---off-the-wall creations. He spent the next five years making demos, which he reportedly sent to record executives in pizza boxes in order to get their attention. Experimentation over this period forged a new sound that mixed these varied musical interests with the sounds of the 1950s that he had grown up with. ""If you take [sic] Beny Moré, Paul McCartney, and Radiohead, placed them in a car, and shook it up a bit, that would be my sound", Moreno would later tell LatinStyleMag.com.

Career

Moreno got a break when EMI Music Publishing took him on as a songwriter. It was then that he caught the attention of Madonna's Latin music label, Maverick Música, and hooked up with established producers Lester Méndez, A.T. Molina, and Andrés Levin. The result was Moreno's slickly produced debut album in 2001. One review referred to Moreno as "a fascinating, occasionally almost surreal melding of traditional and modern Latin styles, '60s Top 40, B-movie soundtrack music, '90s synth pop, alternative rock, and even a little hip-hop, the album defies easy categorization." The album's bicultural mix of disparate musical influences took the United States-based Latin music industry by storm.

"Not since Santana has a U.S.-based Latin performer captured bicultural sensibilities in such a seamless, accessible and original way", stated a review in the Los Angeles Times. "Moreno might even manage to put Miami on the musical map after decades of mediocrity from the so-called capital of Latin music."

Using his training as a film student, Moreno produced his own music video for the pop ballad "Mi Sufrimiento", consisting of a single shot of the artist lip synching at home, with the streaming subtitles "Madonna owns my label .. Maybe I can get her to be in my video." The video became one of MTV Es biggest hits of the year and showed that Moreno was not your typical pop artist.

After years of relative anonymity, Moreno became an overnight sensation with an alternative version of the song "Babalú", popularized for American audiences by the late Cuban-born artist Desi Arnaz, who was best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the 1950s television comedy I Love Lucy, in which he starred alongside his wife, the famous actress and comedian Lucille Ball. Moreno knew that he wanted to pay tribute to the song on his first album, and he later appeared on the CBS I Love Lucy's 50th Anniversary Special,^[1] hosted by the children of Arnaz and Ball. His appearance on the program sparked public interest in an artist previously unknown to the greater public.

In 2002, Moreno won the 2002 Latin Grammy Award for Best New Artist, and in 2003 his album Moreno received a Grammy nomination for Best Latin Pop Album. Despite mainstream success and the "pretty-boy pouty" look of his album cover, Moreno has often used the word "alternative" to categorize his music. "I consider myself part of the Latin alternative music movement" he told Hispanic Magazine.

In late March 2005, Moreno's released his second CD was "EL SEGUNDO", with the song "Avión" expected to rule the airwaves but was lost with the new reggaeton fad.. In the meantime, he had live performances all across Universities in the U.S. and started to build a grass roots fan base. Soon after he recorded the title track for the Havana Nights Sound track with Santana.

In 2008, Moreno performed as Special Music Guest along with Usher in the Victoria Secret Fashion Show, reportedly seen by hundreds of millions of views worldwide. Later that year he started another business venture Beach Pictures, a Miami based television, film and web production company represented by William Morris Endeavor.

Most recently, Moreno is taking music at his own pace and has released a string of singles. The first being "Thank You" released late 2010 (on iTunes) and won the prestigious International Songwriters Contest "ISC" award for "Best Video" and placed as a semi finalist for "Best Song".

As per other projects Moreno also has a television production company named Beach Pictures, based in Miami Beach. Together with partners Adrian Baschuk (CNN, CURRENT TV) and Nathan Lieberman (South Beach Group) Beach Pictures has produced various non-scripted programs, including the Reality Show "The Catalina" on the CW network. Jorge Moreno is creator and Executive Producer.

In 2013, Moreno and partner Nathan Lieberman opened a bar restaurant called Moreno's Cuba, located in the Riviera Hotel on South Beach. The restaurant has been voted in top 5 Cuban restaurants in Miami by Haute Living magazine and voted "Best hidden gem on South Beach" by New Times Magazine. Moreno's Cuba offers premium live music every night and Moreno frequently jumps up on stage.

Additionally Moreno is founder of the new social media video app named "Videoo".

References

External links

• http://www.jorgemoreno.com/