Judy Cantor-Navas is a music journalist and curator. She wrote for Billboard (in New York, LA, and Barcelona) for more than a decade and is now a regular contributor to the website of the Gladys Palmera Collection in Madrid. In 2020, she was nominated for a Grammy for the album notes for The Complete Cuban Jam Sessions, a box set reissue of five historic recordings originally released on Cuba’s Panart label; she served as a co-producer of the collection. Cantor-Navas has also been a reporter, critic, and staff writer for The Associated Press (New York City desk and Spain correspondent), Buenos Aires Herald, Miami New Times, and Miami Herald. She and her husband, artist and animator David Navas, created El Pequeño Circo de Asno y Camello, an illustrated children’s book. They also create nonfiction comics, which have been published in international magazines. Among Cantor-Navas’ most recent work was the translation of Cha-Cha-Cha (Gladys Palmera Collection), a beautifully illustrated chronicle that bears witness to the seemingly infinite ways three little words can be combined to spell out the onomatopoeic name of one of the world’s most infectious – and joyful – rhythms.
