He started music as a child playing the accordion in Ciego de Avila, Cuba, his hometown. He was accepted at the National Art School of Cubanacan (ENA) in Havana. 
 “My father who did not sympathize with the communist government tried to secretly take me out of the island and the authorities caught us, clarifying that to leave Cuba, at that time, you had to have a government permit. They arrested and sentenced us, 5 years to my father and me, indefinitely, in a juvenile re-education center. Already serving my sentence you can continue in music in a small band that I joined ... ”, José Hidalgo tells us in detail. 
 After that, he provided military service, but thanks to the talent that God had put in him, he began to play and learn in a self-taught way the alto saxophone in his country's army band. Later, as a professional, he continued playing and studying with maestro Cesar Alberti, tenor saxophone and also general music and orchestration with maestro Jesús Lacerda, who still resides on the Caribbean Island and with which he maintains a relationship.