Artists

Tito Puente Bio

Tito Puente (Ernesto Antonio Puente, Jr.)

He was born on April 20, 1923, in the section known as Spanish Harlem in New York City. Shortly after his birth, Puente’s parents had left their native Puerto Rico to settle in the east side of Harlem known as “El Barrio” for its large Hispanic population. While his father, Ernesto Antonio Puente Sr. worked as a supervisor at a shaving machine company, his mother, Ercilia Duente, was the first to notice her eldest son’s musical talent, signing him up for piano lessons for 25 cents when Tito was seven years old.

Tito also attended dance school and played baseball before severely injuring his ankle in a bicycle accident. Although Tito received his formal music training on the piano, he always took an interest in percussion. Wanting to emulate his idol, drummer Gene Krupa, Puente began studying drums and percussion at the age of ten.

I was always playing on snares and in the window of his house,” he once admitted in an interview with Edmond Newton of the New York Post. He was also a member of a quartet in school and grew up listening to a variety of music, including Latin artists such as Miguelito Valdez and jazz musicians such as Stan Kenton and Duke EIlington.

Early in his teens, Tito began playing on weekends near his home. “My dad would take me to the dances,” he said in an interview with Larry Birnbaum of Down Beat. I was asleep by midnight. At the age of 15, Tito dropped out of school to take a job in the winter with an orchestra in Miami Beach, where he played the Miami Beach, where he played Americanized Rumbas and a variety of Latin American rhythms, including Tango, Waltz, and paso doble.

When he returned to Manhattan, Tito got the opportunity to work playing drums with the orchestra of Moro Morales and Jose Curbelo, who later became Manhattan’s first Mambo King.

His career as a professional began in the Noro Morales Orchestra. His first big break came when the United States entered World War II; he became the regular drummer in Machito’s famous Afro-Cuban band and was then drafted into military service where he got the opportunity to showcase his talents. Tito showed early signs of his notorious sense of showmanship while playing in the band led by swing celebrity Charlie Barnet, revitalizing the band by playing drums standing up, instead of sitting down as usual.

Tito Puente - 1 discography — Tito Puente – discography

Tito’s touring with the band came to a temporary halt when he received his call-up to the armed forces; for the next three years. Tito served on a U.S. Navy carrier in the South Pacific. In 1945 Tito was discharged from the Naval Forces and received a commendation in recognition of being in nine battles.

His military stint, however, provided several positive experiences. Not only did he get the opportunity to learn the saxophone – which he learned on his own while on the ship – but he got the chance to further his education through the G.I. Bill.

In what was cited as one of the best decisions of his life, Puente enrolled at the Julliard School of Music, where he studied composition, orchestration, and conducting while working with a variety of Latin bands in New York.

He played and absorbed the influence of Machito, who was successfully combining Latin rhythms with progressive jazz. “My time with Machito was a very important time for my career, because they were one of the best groups at the time,” said Tito in an interview with New York’s Martinez de Pison. “I started with them in the early 40s, and I stayed with them until the late 50s, here in New York.

It was an orchestra where I got a lot of experience playing primarily the most popular Afro-Cuban rhythms of the time like the Mambo, the Cha-Cha-Cha, the Guajiras, as well as what they call today Latin Jazz. It was a great experience because it was a band that created many musical arrangements, and I learned a lot from recordings.

Puente quickly became known as a fabulous arranger. He was hired by promoter Federico Pagani after seeing him playing with a group of musicians from Pupi Campos’ band, and called them the Piccadilly Boys.

Forming the nine-piece Picadilly Boys arrangement in 1947 and then expanding it to a full orchestra two years later, Puente recorded for Secco, Tico and eventually RCA Victor, helping to grow the Mambo craze and give him the unofficial name that lasted his entire life, “El Rey del Mambo” or just “The King”. With his early hits on Tico Records such as Ran Kan Kan, Abaniquito, El Yoyo, and Picadillo, Puente “electrified dancers across America and catapulted him to the forefront of Latin bandleaders” according to Birnbaum.

By the mid-1950s, Puente had been successful in winning a large Hispanic and Anglo fan base. In 1956, in a poll conducted by the New York newspaper El Diario La Prensa, Puente was selected as “El Rey De La Música Latina” (The King of Latin Music), beating out his competitors Prado and Rodriguez. Two years later, RCA released Dance Mania, which became a perennial international best seller. “It was the dance explosion,” Puente said. “Remember, the Palladium was a great place to dance.

I’ve always said that without a dance the music couldn’t be popular people started to know about this new dance – El Mambo – that it was fashionable to learn to dance Mambo no matter what part of society you came from. And then here we would have a place the Palladium, where many people could come to dance or learn to dance the Mambo.

Dance studios would send their students to the Palladium, where they could learn and see great ballet star dancers, Broadway stars, expert Mambo dancers – all in one place – and I would direct my music to these people.”

Tito Puente Photo2 — Photo 2 of Tito Puente

Puente also helped popularize the cha-cha-cha during the 1950s, and he was the only non-Cuban to be invited to a government-sponsored “50 Years of Cuban Music” celebration in Cuba in 1952. Among the high caliber conteros who played in Puente’s band in the 50’s were Mongo Santamaria, Willie Bobo, Johnny Pacheco and Ray Barreto which resulted in some explosive percussion performances. Tito hosted his own show, “El Mundo de Tito Puente” on Spanish-language television in 1968 and he also served as the Grand Marshal of the Puerto Rican Parade.

Puente unexpectedly entered another genre of music in 1970, when California rocker Carlos Santana turned one of Puente’s old songs, “Oye Como Va” into a top 40 hit. “Oye Como Va is a composition of mine that Santana recorded 12 years after me,” Puente said in an interview with New York’s Javier Martínez de Pisón, “But he did it with the rhythms of the time, which were rock with organ, drums, and guitar, and it was a sensational piece that made it very popular worldwide.

“Seven years later the two came together for a memorable concert in Manhattan. As Pablo Guzman described it in the Village Voice, “Puente led his orchestra ole fifteen pieces, while playing timbales, with rapid head gestures and arm signals; at one point, when he signaled with his characteristic gesture of putting the stick above his head, the entire brass section, spread out in a line to his left, and went up to the beat and played in opposition to each other. The audience was in an uproar.”

Tito Puente - Photo 3 — Photo 3 of Tito Puente

Among the best musical periods of all time was his collaborative work with Celia Cruz, whom he considered to be the most important figure in Latin music in the world. Equally well known was his work with La Lupe, a singer who had a gypsy-like passion. With La Lupe, he recorded songs such as Puente Swings, My Fair Lady Goes Latin, Tu y Yo (Tito Puente and La Lupe) or a tribute to Rafael Hernandez, a famous Puerto Rican composer.

Credited with introducing the timbal and vibraphone to Afro-Cuban music, Puente also played drums, congas, claves, piano, and occasionally, saxophone and clarinet. While Puente was perhaps best known for his best-selling 1958 album Dance Mania, his eclectic sound has continued to transcend cultural and generational boundaries.

Photo by Tito Puente and Celia Cruz — Tito Puente and Celia Cruz

In 1979 Puente won his first Grammy Award with a Beny Moré tribute, Homenaje a Beny. That same year, he established a scholarship fund organization at Juilliard to recognize Latin percussionists in the United States.

The Tito Puente Scholarship Found Foundation “gives young Latin percussionists a chance to get an incentive or learn how to read the music, so when you go into a recording studio, you know what you’re doing,” as Puente explained to Birnbaum. “Puente continued to strengthen his commitment to the future of Latin Music by performing regularly at colleges and universities across the country.

The new generation of students from Central and South America want representation,” Puente told Fred Bouchard of Down Beat.

As he continued to produce solid albums, including the unparalleled 100th album in 1992, Puente became more visible or a more mainstream audience. In addition to performing at the White House since the administration of President Jimmy Carter, who introduced him as “The Ambassador of Latin American Music”, Puente became the first Latin artist to perform on the popular television program “The Bill Cosby Show”, made several appearances on “The David Letterman Show” and appeared in such films as Woody Allen’s “Radio Days” and “Armed and Dangerous” with the late John Candy, and played his own musician in the film The Mambo Kings, an adaptation of Oscar Hijuelos’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, and was honored with a star in the Hollywood Hall of Fame.

In the 1980s, he received his first honorary doctorate from the College at Old Westbury.

In 1992, he received his second honorary doctorate from Hunter College in New York and was inducted into the National Congressional Record. He received an honorary degree from Columbia University in 1999, and the Latin Grammy Award for Best Tropical Traditional Performance for “Mambo Birdland” in 2000.

Despite being in his 70s in the early 1990s, Puente – who with his wife, Margie Asención, had three children – maintained a busy touring schedule that took him to Russia, Japan, and Puerto Rico. But in January 1994, he told Vionette Negretti of the San Juan Star newspaper that he planned to slow down: “There are a lot of young people who need to develop their talents and old people like me need to give them their space.

Tito Puente was internationally recognized for his contributions to Latin music as an arranger, bandleader, composer and percussionist. Tito Puente did more than just earn the top spot among Latin jazz musicians, working continuously from 1937 to 2000. Known as the Mambo King, he recorded more than 100 albums, released more than 400 compositions, and earned five Grammy Awards.

Tito Puente’s good will, talent and spirit led him to close racial, cultural and generational gaps.

Puente passed away after undergoing heart surgery on May 31, 2000, in New York. He was 77 years old.

Oscar D’ León Bio

Born in 1943, Oscar D’ León is one of the references when it comes to salsa music. In his beginnings, and influenced mainly by Benny Moré and by the Cuban sound that since he was a child was already part of his life because of the records his father listened to all day long; Oscar was an amateur singer while he earned his living working in his cab and in the General Motors factory in Caracas.

In 1973 he created with trombonist Cesar Monge his first band, La Dimensión Latina, where Oscar started singing and playing bass, and had a big hit: “Pensando En Ti”. In their first album the songs were not enough, so they had to record a shared album with El Clan de Victor Mendoza.

In 1976 he formed Salsa Mayor and then settled down with his big band Oscar D’ León y su Orquesta. Since then Oscar has not stopped performing all over the world, improvising on any line of any melody, and recording many of the best albums in the history of salsa.

Great singer, improviser of inspiration, stage beast, perfectionist: Venezuela’s greatest star combines musical talent and human qualities unanimously celebrated: the substance with which the greats are born.

It was at the wheel of his cab, or at the General Motors factory in Caracas, who employed him until 1967, or perhaps in the popular Antimano neighborhood of Caracas, where he saw the day for the first time on July 11, 1943, that Oscar Emilio León Dionisia, alias El Diablo de la Salsa, alias El León, launched his first songs, and sharpened his vocal cords.

Coming from a modest background, he is also a self-taught musician who starts on other strings, those of the double bass: watching the musicians play and playing over the records.

Still today, Oscar is faithful to him and his double bass is never far from him when he is on stage. He sometimes takes over a bar, a solo, a few dance steps or a turn on the dance floor, as if this old accomplice were a source of resources for him.

It is possible that the Latin Dimension project was born, founded in 1972 by Oscar D’Leon, percussionist Wladimir Lozano, percussionist José Rodríguez and trombonist Cesar “Albóndiga” Monge, where the arrangements will make the ensemble thunder.

The group sounds like a New York salsa, its impact is strong and Dimensión Latina quickly makes a name for itself in the clubs of Caracas. The success is so fast that there are only a few numbers left to record and the group has to share their first album with Victor Mendoza. It is also the time of the first hit number, Pensando en ti.

But it is in 1977 that Oscar D’ León truly emancipates himself and founds La Salsa Mayor: a group cut to his measurements, with which he records in 1977 his first real album.

His singing, influenced by the greatest Cuban soneros (and especially by Benny Moré, great among the greats) is supported by a brass section that evokes the good old New York salsa (dominated by Fania) and Puerto Rican (Gran Combo); a big gulp of swing learned from listening to the great Cuban orchestras of the 50s: now Oscar D’Leon’s style is forged and his talent is mature and preceded by his album El más grande (which covers such pearls as Mi bajo y yo, El baile del suavecito, Bravo de verdad), the Leon feels ready to challenge New York in 1978… who knows how to appreciate his courage.

The continuation of his story is a flawless career and Oscar D’ León will be rewarded with the recognition of all. Cuba makes him triumph when he visits the island in 1986, the gold discs are chained one after the other and the honors are lined up… until that distinction of the city of New York, who dedicates him a day, March 15, 1998!

And on stage, the Lion roars even louder. It is there that his qualities of improviser find the measure and take all the forces, for concerts of high rank where the generosity and the energy deplored by Oscar D’Leon bring immediately the adhesion of the public.

Today Oscar appears on a good fifty albums and his name is affixed next to the greatest: Celia Cruz, Tito Puente… USA, Mexico, Latin America, Japan, Europe… the former General Motors worker conquered the world.

Willie Colon Bio

From his beginnings in music, Willie Colón’s image was associated with that of the intrepid, shrewd and reckless boy who – by force – carved out a space for himself among the big names of Caribbean music in the complex world of New York in the 1960s.

Before the astonished gaze of those responsible for the Latin sound at the time, the young neophyte was a “no name”, an unknown figure on the stages of popular song and, particularly, a small-time musician, strange, inexperienced and an outsider.

In his beginnings he was censured for his loud and strident style and was even accused of being inharmonious by those who were veterans in the Latin music scene.

It is said that his nickname “El Malo” was associated, in the first instance, with the epithet used to refer to his trombone playing ability when he made his first appearances in the music scene, at only fifteen years of age. Of Puerto Rican parents, William Anthony Colón Román, who was born on April 28, 1950 in the Bronx, learned very early in his adolescence to discern between the derogatory images and adjectives that were poured on the Latino community and the harsh reality of immigrants in the “Big Apple”.

Thus, he soon turned his artistic work into the most forceful social testimony clothed in sonority, with memorable lyrics that narrated the details of the incidences of marginality, prejudice, poverty and misery. Although other musicians of the time took the same line, no one knew better than him how to conjugate in harmonies the feeling of heartbreak and helplessness of the Diaspora.

His music reflects, at the same time, a traditional rhythmic lyric and the farewell to the weeping and hope of a new generation, forced to abandon their land to congregate in the U.S. city,” comments writer James Moreno.

Willie Colón is, without a doubt, a painter of the faces of his people, an artist who captured in his songs -especially in his strong sound- the conscience of a generation that demanded social respect and fought for the vindication of their living conditions. A sage among geniuses.

The musician and arranger Willie Colón took his first steps in the arts as a trumpet player until he discovered the fascination of Mon Rivera’s work and the uses he employed with the trombone for the interpretation of the bomba and plena.

His musical passion, on the other hand, was derived from his grandmother, who raised him by lulling him to sleep with the melodies of the Puerto Rican popular songbook, introducing him to the fascination of the typical rhythms of the country.

Early in 1965, this intrepid young man took to the streets to prove his talent, just at the time of the Latin music boom in New York, where Tito Puente, Charlie Palmieri, Eddie Palmieri, Larry Harlow and Ray Barretto, among others, dominated.

In 1967, when he was 17 years old, he joined the group of artists who formed part of Jerry Masucci and Johnny Pacheco’s group and who were responsible for driving the rise of the new record label that would unite the new Latin musical expression: La Fania.

Willie Colón photo flyer — Willie Colón flyer of photos of his beginnings

Willie Colón’s entry into the group marked the most significant moment in salsa, as it was the most impacting starting point that would develop the new salsa expression, in an attempt to homogenize the work that had been carried out for several years in the Latin world of New York, as part of a new sound proposal.

In this context, Willie Colón’s glory lay in his ability to elaborate the precise sound that identified the new rhythmic tempo, which in its sociological meaning meant the Latin representation. Nobody better than him could harmonize the musical tendencies of the Anglo-Saxon world with the “old” Latin school of mambo, son, pachanga, cha-cha-chá and guaracha, adding the nostalgia of the traditional Puerto Rican sound, inscribed in the jíbara music, bomba and plena.

Willie Colón flyer - stereo — Willie Colón flyer

The take-off of Willie Colón’s musical project was due, to a great extent, to his union with the Ponce-born singer Héctor Lavoe, who came to him on the recommendation of veteran musician Johnny Pacheco, and with whom he created the most important duo in salsa music. Together with the so-called “Singer of Singers”, he elevated his proposal to the highest level of the music scene, especially because of his assertiveness in weaving a new musical concept that combined the mischievous and hurtful tone of Lavoe’s voice and his attachment to the melodies of traditional Puerto Rican song, with the interest of the daring trombonist to project in his work the nostalgic evocation of the sound of the roots of Puerto Rican music, in union with the strong and aggressive sound of the urban world that sheltered them. During the seven years that the union of Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe lasted, salsa triumphed. The recipe for success was to disrupt the established rhythmic patterns to mark the beat of the new time of salsa, armed with modern compositions and tinged with typical phrases and phrases of the Puerto Rican peasantry.

Photo #2 - Willie Colón — Photo #2 of Willie Colón

Willie Colón - Image of Too Much Heart — Willie Colón – Demasiado Corazon

Owners of the malice “EL MALO de aquí soy yo / porque tengo corazón” (I’m the BAD guy here / because I have a heart), thus ended the lyrics of Héctor Lavoe’s first hit with Willie Colón, which set the tone for the career of this neo-dynamic duo. This “bad guy” image accompanied them for more than a decade, helping them to create fame and serving, at the same time, as an image of identity of the Puerto Rican neighborhood in New York, creating problems in more than one corner.

Colón says that in the mid-seventies they had to move away from this perception, because everyone wanted to fight with them at the dances and, obviously, neither he nor Héctor had the physique to back it up. It was a funky image that caught on, because violence is part of the Caribbean culture. And there were many of Willie Colón’s compositions that touted violent competition in and for Latin spaces. But “El malo” is singular, although its reference was in one of the most remembered salsa couples of the salsa scene: Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe. In this song, which gave life to his first record production (1967), the idea was to set the tone for the career of a young man of little more than fifteen years of age in the tough commercial culture. Colón wanted to be strong and for others to lead the way. Singularly, he had to find a singer to record the number and here came Lavoe, joining in or competing for the bad guy image? According to the song, in the barrio there is no room for two bad guys; so it is suggested (that, at least at the beginning, Colón and Lavoe were competing for the reign this pairing was not just an image. This is the group that grew up with the Fania record label and with the popularization of the term salsa to name that musical project. This duo is the most characteristic of the genre, because none of them had been famous before, nor had they recorded with any big orchestra. The competition, perhaps, came from Larry Harlow, but more than the pianist of Jewish origin -who remained very attached to the Cuban sound- Willie Colón’s work was distinguished by its rhythmic mixture of calypso, bomba, plena, guaguancó, bugalú, guajira, mambo and jazz.

Interestingly, they are also known for their Jíbaro sound. This, in turn, facilitated their transition from New York to Puerto Rico. The ajibarado metal of Lavoe’s vocals and José Manual in the chorus gave these “locos” from New York a pass of authenticity for the music of the Nuyoricans to enter the Puerto Rican radio space.

Seen from the 21st century, the trip seems to have been easy, but we cannot forget the difficulty Puerto Ricans in New York had in those years to be recognized as authentic Puerto Ricans.

Willie Colón en escenario — Photo of Willie Colón on stage

They achieved their passport to the Puerto Rican market with the album “Asalto navideño” (1971), with which the musician “assaulted” the national culture, proclaiming salsa as typical Christmas music. With phrases such as “aquí traigo la salsa” and “esta Navidad vamos a gozar”, the so-called bad boys emphasized the displacement of a community and a genre, approaching the national culture with a language similar to the one used to “take” the New York streets. This time, they also told their audience that “if you hurry you die”, and with a little more humility, because “there are jíbaros who know better”.

Beni More Bio

Beny More – “El Bárbaro del Ritmo” Bartolomé Maximiliano Moré was born in Santa Isabel de las Lajas on August 24, 1919. Helio Orovio says in his Dictionary of Cuban Music: “Unanimously considered one of the most brilliant artists produced by our popular music, he shone in all genres” HIS ANCESTORS. -He descended from the king of a Congo tribe. His son, Gundo, was captured by slave traders. In Lajas he was sold to a landowner named Ramon Paredes and they called him Ta Ramon Gundo Paredes. He is the great-great-grandfather of Benny Moré. He was sold to Doña Susana Benítez. Later to the Count of More and is renamed Ta Ramón Gundo Moré. With Julia More (slave owned by the Count) they have a daughter named Julia. Gundo becomes mancipated and dies free at the age of 94.

Julia More has six children with Simeón Armenteros y Calvo, Colonel of the Mambí Army: Patricia, Bernabé, Tomás, Felipa, Chiquitica and Sofía. Patricia was the first of the daughters. She was not recognized by her father and carries her mother’s surname Moré. Patricia had relations with a wealthy Spaniard and had four children: Ofelia, Felipe, Julia and Virginia Secundina.

The father did not recognize them, so they carry their mother’s Moré surname. At the age of 18, Virginia Secundina has a son with Silvestre Gutiérrez: Bartolomé Maximiliano, who carries his mother’s surname, was the eldest of 18 siblings.

Beny More pensando — Beny More – Photo 2

Bartolomé himself assures that he always had a vocation for music: “I think I started singing when they took away my diapers, at least that’s how I see myself in my memories, singing since I was a child” His mother confirms that since he was a child he liked music. His mother says that when he was six years old he looked for a board and a spool of thread, tied the thread to the board and said that they were the strings of a guitar. This is how he made his first guitar at the age of six.

His brother Teodoro participated in the ensemble that Benny put together at a very young age, with machetes and nails as instruments. Condensed milk cans served as bongos. In 1935, at the age of 16, he was part of the first serious musical group.

He didn’t know anything about music, he bought a guitar but he didn’t know how to play it. He went with his brother Teodoro to cut cane at the Jaronú plant and met Castellanos and Víctor Landa, who helped him to start playing the guitar. With the money he earned and Teodoro’s savings, he bought his first quality guitar in Morón.

The following year, 1936, he goes to Havana. He lives by selling fruits and viands that are beaten or deteriorated and medicinal herbs. Six months later he returns to Las Lajas. He moved to the Jaguayal plant, near Ciego de Avila, to cut sugar cane with Teodoro.

Beny More - Photo — Beny More – The Essential

Later they go to Central Vertientes. In 1939 Bartolomé and Teodoro fall ill with malaria fever.

They alternate their work with serenades in the company of the Avance group (Horacio Landa, Enrique Benítez, Che Casonas, Mayombe and others. Benny was the singer). With two of the members of this group (Enrique Benítez and Cheo Casanovas), he later formed a trio of voices and guitars.

In 1940 he arrives in Havana for the second time. For four years he lives as he can, playing and singing in bars and cafes. He would pass his hat and say “Cooperate with the Cuban artist”. In the restaurants he was thrown out on the street so as not to disturb the clientele. At the beginning of the 40’s he started in the radio, in the CMQ radio station he started a program called “Corte Suprema del Arte” (Supreme Court of Art), in which all kinds of artists competed.

Those who succeed are hired by unscrupulous businessmen, who exploit them. Others are not so lucky and their participation in the contest is abruptly and humiliatingly cut short by the ringing of a bell. Bartolomé enters the contest. The program is presented by Germán Pinelli and José Antonio Alonso. As soon as he began to sing, they rang the bell. Later he participated again in this program and won the first prize.

Review: San Francisco Bay Area Scene

Orquesta Batachanga, “Mañana Para los Niños” CD
Mechete Ensemble, “Africa Volumen One” CD
Conjunto Cespedes, “Una Sola Casa” CD

The San Francisco Bay Area has long been an intermittent contributor of innovations in Latin music. What follows is a brief history of those contributions and three individual recordings in particular.

Starting in the late 1950s,

Cal Tjader created a West Coast “cool” version of Afro-Cuban jazz

Willie-Bobo

Carl-Tjader

His group incluyed Willie Bobo and Afro-Cuban percussion virtuosos Mongo Santamaria and Arnaldo Peraza. At the end of the sixties, the band Santana appeared on the scene with a new sound that became known as Latin Rock. After Santana two other Latin Rock groups gained notoriety: Malo (featuring Carlos Santana’s brother Jorge and master drummer Francisco Aquabella), and Azteca (containing members of the percussive Escovedo family: Pete, Coke and Sheila). During the decade of the 70s, the Bay, Area was home to top-notch salsa, jazz and percussion based funk bands. The members played all the genres. This phenomenon created a large pool of players who could adeptly fuse idioms such as salsa and funk.

Mongo Santamaria and Arnaldo Peraza

The 1980 Mariel boat lift brought great numbers

of Cuban musicians

into the United States

The professional and folkloric Latin music scenes in New York City and Miami were forever changed by this new influx of musical talent and knowledge. The San Francisco Bay Area was also enriched by this Cuban migration. For nearly two decades, many practitioners of Cuban music in the U.S. had little contact with actual Cuban musicians, learning their craft instead mostly from records. That method is fine, but it does not compare to person to person contact.

Many Bay Area musicians made the pilgrimage to Cuba in the 1980s seeking the many masters of Cuban music: Pello El Afrokan, Cha Cha, Lazaro Ros, Los Van Van) etc. Bay Area musicians returned home with their knowledge of Cuban music greatly augmented (and often corrected).

The 80s also saw the beginning of the Ba Area’s samba schools and San Francisco’s caranaval. Carnaval is in its 13th year now and includes not only the cities five samba schools but music and dance from many different countries and cultures.

The San Francisco Carnaval is a wonderful celebration of ethnic diversity. This year Eddie Palmieri and Olodum were the out-of-town featured guests.

Today in the Bay Area there are many local salsa bands playing actively in clubs. Some of the more notable groups include Conjunto Cespedes, The Machete Ensemble, Pete Escovedo’s group and Orestes Vilato’s Los Kimbos.

Truco y Zaperoko – Orquesta Batachanga Mañana para los Niños

The cultural mix in the clubs is very diverse. Blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians are found all dancing together. Some are exquisite salsa dancers, while others try to move in time as best they can. Latin music here depends on the support of a non-Spanish speaking audience for its survival.

The sound of these groups is different from what one would hear in New York City. Besides the borrowing of funk and jazz that I mentioned earlier, Bay Area bands have often looked to the contemporary music of Cuba for inspiration.

Orquesta Batachanga (a precursor to the Machete Ensemble), was the first dance band in the continental U.S. I’m aware of that regularly played the contemporary Cuban rhythm songo. Songo is a post-revolutionary rhythm that has blended folkloric rumba and funk into the son. Check out Los Van Van and Orquesta Ritmo Oriental if you’re interested in hearing great songo music. Batacumbele and Zaperoko (both from Puerto Rico), were exciting interpreters of songo. However, the Latin music capitals New York City and Miami have produced little music other than jazz that has utilized this infectious Cuban rhythm.

This fact is due most likely to the taste of the domestic audience and the political issues surrounding Cuba.

Orquesta Batachanga

Released two records, the second of which Mañana Para Los Niños was reissued on CD by Earthbeat! records in 1990. It remains one of the strongest works in the genre to come out of San Francisco.

Rebeca-Mauleon

John Santos

Co-fed by Rebeca Mauleón and John Santos, Batachan played an exotic blend of ancient roots and cutting edge contemporary sounds. Yambata is one such example of this blend. It the Cuban tres guitar, cajones (wooden boxes used in t rumba known as Yambú), batá (double-headed drum of the Yoruba people of Nigeria and their descendants in Cuba known as Lucumi) chekere (Lucumi headed gourd instructs), and gankoquis (Ghanaian double iron belts). This experimental Afro-Cuban folklore is my favorite on the whole record. Guest artist Orestes Vitato demonstrates the proper way to play pailas on En Mi Casa o En La Rumbas, a piece originally recorded by the Conjunto Matamoros around 1950. Libre alumni Dan Reagan provides some inspiring trombone playing on Mañana Para Los Niños as well.

John Calloway

Africa Volume One by the Machete Ensemble can’t really be called a salsa album per sé. It’s really the hub where the spokes of jazz, salsa, and Afro-Cuban folklore intersect. The group is led by Bay Area percussionist /scholar John Santos with help from Rebeca Mauleón and John Calloway. For those who aren’t aware of it, I should mention here that Ms. Mau Leon has recently come out with an excellent book entitled The Salsa Guidebook for Piano and Ensemble. She is currently spending a lot of her time in Cuba.

Africa Volume One features the talents of Orestes Vitato, Dan Reagan, the great Cuban master percussionist Armando Peraza, and trombonist Steve Turre (who also plays conch shells). Another strong presence in the Machete Ensemble is trombonist/arranger Wayne Wallace. An impressive 46 musicians perform on this record.

The title cut Africa is centered around the guaguancó rhythm) and at times contains juxtaposins melodies layered over each other, reminding me of some of the compositions by the late composer Charles Ives. On the song “Africa” one also hears Armando Peraza singing lead and playing the quinto (the lead drum in guaguancó).

“Oba Lube” and “Asesit” are based on Lucumi call and response chants, beautifully orchestrated by John Callaway’s arrangements. This style defies conventional classification. If you enjoyed Jane Bunnett’s Spirits of Havana, which came later, or Group Folklorico y Experimental Nuevoquino’s records, which preceded it, then I would certainly recommend to you Africa Volume One by the Machete Ensemble.

Conjunto Cespedes

Was founded in 1981 by Gladys “Bobi” Cespedes, her brother Luis Cespedes, and their nephew Guillermo Cespedes. This transplanted Cuban family has been honing their craft over the years, now the Conjunto is a word class act.

Recorded at Oakland’s High Note Studios and produced by John Santos, the Cespedes’ 1993 Una Sola Casa is without a doubt one of the Lest CD’s of the Year.

I should confess right now that Bobi is one of my all-time favorite female vocalists. As John Santos says in the liner notes: “Much of the magic of the Conjunto revolves around lead singer Bali. She is a first class Sonera, Rumbera, Guarachera, Bolerista, composer and Akpwon (lean singer in the Yoruba-based liturgical music). The youthful exuberance of her voice belies the profound depth that only a Lifetime of immersion in the folklore and tradition of her native Cuba could provide. Her elegance, presence and strength are anchored in the fact that she is a priestess in the Afro-Cuban Lucumi tradition with over twenty-five Nears as a “daughter of Obatala”. The power Bobi draws upon is dramatically evident throughout this project as she leads us into other realms beginning with the opening prayer. It is this same timeless power (which has guided rituals for centuries) that drives the irresistable rhythm and rhyme of Conjunto Cespedes.

Bobi is adamant that the Conjunto plays son and not salsa. I take this to mean that they play a more authentic sound. After all, the term salsa for the most part means Cuban son from anywhere but Cuba. Salsa is what’s played in New York, Venezuela, Colombia and Puerto Rico.

Bobby

Cespedes Rezos

You can bear and feet the beep roots on Una Sola Casa with Cuban classics from the 20s, 30s and 40s and folkloric rhythms such as chenche kuruku (batá), guaguancó and bembé. However, this is by no means an old-fashioned sounding recording. The sound quality is crisp and bright and the arrangements are hip and modern. “We played some real songo”, bass played Rob Holland enthusiastically told me. The congas, timbales and bass all worked together to puff off the very syncopated feel that is Songo. Jesus Diaz took care of the percussion arrangements and Wayne Wallace did the born arrangements.

Every song here is a gem. However, my particular favorite is “Respecto A La Tierra” which carries the message “respect humanity, respect life”. All the songs are sung in Spanish, but the bilingual lyric sheet that accompanies this CD makes the message accessible to a wider audience. Perhaps we will be seeing more bi-lingual liner notes in the future. I hope so.

No matter what, you can expect to bear fine work to come out of the San Francisco Bay Area in the future.

David Peñalosa is a student, teacher, and performer of folkloric and modern Afro-Cuban music. Currently he is helping Earthbeat records develop a new fine of Cuban-based music.