GRAMMY Award winner Eddie Palmieri has died at the age of 88.

The rumba and jazz musician died at his home in New Jersey on Wednesday.

He died following an “extended illness,” his daughter, Gabriela, told The New York Times .

Music legend Palmieri, coined as the "Madman of Salsa," was the first Latino artist to win a Grammy Award.

During his illustrious career, he picked up another seven Grammy Awards .

Palmieri, from Harlem, New York , was a highly-revered pianist and first learned to play the instrument when he was a child.

He started learning at the age of eight, and his brother Charlie, was a professional pianist. Charlie, known as the Giant of the Keyboards, died in 1988.

"It was my mother who put my brother on the instrument and I came along nine years later," Palmie

See Full Page