José Manuel "Lico" Jiménez Berroa was born in Trinidad, Cuba, Las Villas province into a musical family.
He was the son of Maria Andrea Berroa and violinist Jose Julian Jiménez and was baptized in 1852 at the Parochial Church of the Santísima Trinidad.
Jiménez studied music as a child with his father and grandparents and his aunt, Cuban musician and composer Catalina Berroa, and at the age of 15 was hired as an accompanist for a concert at Palacio Brunet by visiting German violinist Karl Werner.
Adolfo married Elisabeth Neubauer and they had one daughter, Carmen, who became a foreign language teacher in New Jersey and California, teaching German and Spanish after getting her Master's degree from New York University.
[6] He toured the island and worked for a while as a music teacher in Cienfuegos and Trinidad de Cuba, but in 1890 returned to Germany and settled in Hamburg, where he became active at the Weimar court.