At age 14 he lived in El Cerro district of Havana and sang in coros de clave, the precursor ensembles of the guaguancó.
[4][5] Zayas became a collaborator of ethnomusicologist Fernando Ortiz and in 1941 he invited anthropologist Harold Courlander to an Abakuá ceremony in Guanabacoa.
[7] The first folkloric guaguancó to get popular through jukebox recordings was "El vive bien" by the conjunto of Alberto Zayas, based in Guanabacoa.
This recording and the consumer interest that it generated led to the national promotion of the Grupo Guaguancó Matancero, later known as the Muñequitos de Matanzas.
[5] Zayas would continue his career in theatre shows and radio broadcasts, and he toured abroad as director of the Grupo Folklórico Cubano.