Latin America

Mexican announcer Jesse ‘‘Chuy’’ Varela and the radio today

‘‘Chuy’’

Jesse ”Chuy” Varela is a famous radio host from the San Francisco Bay Area who currently works at KCSM Jazz 91 and constantly interviews all kinds of important figures of the present day such as artists, singers and musicians of all genres, but especially jazz. We had the opportunity to talk with the well-respected communicator to learn about his transition from musician to announcer and his history in general.

His career as a musician

He began his career as a musician in the entertainment world when he was just in high school in his native Mexico. He started playing the guitar at a very young age and his uncles taught him to play ”La Bamba” and other very famous songs in those years, which led him to continuing on this path. That’s why it did not take long for him to start playing grupera music in Mexican groups in Oakland.
However, a great passion for jazz came over him, which made him learn to play this genre with the guitar. One of his greatest inspirations during those years was Carlos Santana and the great work he was doing in the Bay Area. Varela did imitations of Santana and played his songs, which generated a great deal of interest in the circle in which he developed and helped him to get much work in groups that saw potential in his talent. About these years, he commented that, on one occasion, the singer’s father, Don José Santana, went see him play, which was a source of great pride for Jesse and his budding career.
Although the Mexican artist was one of his major influences, there were other big names from other genres that helped him expand his horizons, such as Eddie Palmieri and other salsa singers who already had a recognized career.
As he pursued his professional career, he began to be part of jazz groups at Diablo Valley College and other schools, until he realized that this set of activities was financially unprofitable, so he began working as a volunteer at KPFA in Berkeley and later at KJAZZ. ”I managed to show my qualities as a volunteer and intern, so they decided to give me a part-time job and I became a reporter at KPFA. At KJAZZ, I started doing shows and I was given The Latin Jazz Show, which continues to air.
His first big break came during the promotion of some shows by Tito Puente, whose tickets were not selling well, so the artist needed all possible support to arouse public interested in his shows. That made the owners of the club where the shows were being held decide to use this station to broadcast commercials to publicize them. It was then when the programming manager wanted Varela to interview Puente, who gladly accepted.
After interviewing the artist and putting the material on the air, many listeners contacted the station because they were fascinated by the work done by the announcer, to the point that the timbalero himself asked the programming manager to give a chance to this young communicator, since he saw great potential in him. That is when he was given the space dedicated to Latin Jazz, something for which Varela will always be grateful to Tito Puente.

Cuban composer, arreglist, and pianist Chucho Valdés and Jesse ''Varela'' Varela — Cuban composer, arreglist, and pianist Chucho Valdés and Jesse ”Varela” Varela

Announcer of the first bilingual program in the U.S.

Jesse told us that he began working as a volunteer in a bilingual program called ”La Onda Bajita”, which was entirely focused on a young audience. What it is looking to do with that program was to make young people see that violence and gangs were very negative for their lives and that difficulties overcame with education and effort. He also liked to play ”oldies”, Chicano music, salsa, Latin rock, among other genres.

Throughout his career, most programs hosted by him were in English, although he also served as public affairs director and reporter at KPFA in Berkeley, where he did a lot of bilingual work. At the same time, he worked for Radio Bilingüe in Fresno, which led him to use both languages in his reports and expand his audience. At that time, he covered controversial topics such as discrimination towards Latinos, farm worker leader Cesar Chavez, the situation with crime and guerrillas in Central America, among others.

These reports took him to visit these countries and many other places where he discovered typical music and rhythms. This interest he has always had in music led him to become the music director of KPFA for a while until he moved to KCSM, where he has been working for 22 years.

Multifaceted

Although today he works as an announcer, he says he always wanted to be a sound engineer to have his own salsa groups, but ended up learning a lot about mixing, editing and much more. What he liked most in this world of radio was the possibility to interview artists and he considers this to be one of the best talents he has to offer. Getting the story or report from interviewees is a pleasure for him and helps him understand this business better.

Many veteran announcers adviced him and helped him a lot to perfect his skills and improve his work as much as he could. Some of them even gave him their record collections so he could learn more about music and soak up more the topics he had to cover in his programs.

Jesse is also dedicated along with other colleagues to give classes to young people who wish to train for this career and be part of the new generations of announcers with all the knowledge of the old school.

Jesse ''Chuy'' Varela and bandleader, percussionist and singer Poncho Sánchez — Jesse ”Chuy” Varela and bandleader, percussionist and singer Poncho Sánchez

What does a radio station need to work properly?

To tell you the truth, a radio station needs money to function properly. In the case of public and college radio stations, we are forced to ask our listeners to support us with their donations and subscribe as supporters. We have been fortunate to have a very generous audience in that regard,” said the announcer. He also added that the pandemic was to some extent beneficial for shows like his, as they got a great amount f audience due to the quarantine.

Varela mentions that one of the biggest problems facing most public broadcasters is communication. ”There is a division between the administrations and workers. The boards do not have the best ideas regarding the use of available resources. Many times, they start spending in an uncontrolled way without notifying the public about how they invest that money” said the communicator.

In the opinion of Varela, the most important thing for a station to maintain is public trust and to let people know that their money will be used in the best interests of the station. When administrators use those economic resources for trips, dinners and luxury hotels, listeners will consider it an abuse. I have seen this unfortunate situation on every station where I have worked,” the announcer continues.

Vicentico Valdés “The elastic voice” of Bolero in Cuba and the Caribbean

“The earrings that the moon lacks I have kept to make you a necklace”.

Vicente Valdés was born in the neighborhood of Cayo Hueso, Havana, on January 10, 1921. He was the younger brother of Alfredito Valdés (1908-1988), a versatile singer who performed with numerous sones groups, ensembles and orchestras in Cuba until, around 1940, he settled outside Cuba, mainly in New York and Mexico, where he continued his artistic career.

Two of Vicente’s other brothers, Marcelino and Oscar, stood out as percussionists, and the latter also as a singer in the Irakere group.

Also known as “La voz elástica” Vicentico is one of the most celebrated interpreters of the bolero with a great interpretative strength and dramatization in his performance for the benefit of couples in love who enjoy his songs to this day.

Valdés was part of “El Septeto Nacional”, the orchestra of Cheo Belén Puig, “La Cosmopolita”, the orchestras of Noro Morales, Arturo Núñez and Tito Puente,

In 1937, recommended by Alfredo, Vicentico sang for a short time with the Segundo Septeto Nacional, a group that had been founded to share the multiple artistic commitments that the renowned Septeto Nacional of Ignacio Piñeiro received at that time. He was also a member of the sones sextet Jabón Candado.

Vicentico Valdés La voz elástica del Bolero en Cuba

Later, he replaced Alfredo as a singer in the orchestra of Cheo Belén Puig, one of the most famous Cuban groups of the charanga format. Later, he joined the jazz band Cosmopolita, led by Vicente Viana and later by pianist and composer Humberto Suárez.

Together with Marcelino Guerra Rapindey and Cristóbal Dobal, among others, he was part of the sextet Los Leones.

In the mid-1940s, due to the difficult economic situation in Cuba after World War II, Vicentico, like many other Cuban artists of the time, went to Mexico to explore new horizons for his work in music.

In the Mexican capital he performed with Humberto Cané’s conjunto Tropical, and the orchestras of Arturo Núñez, Rafael de Paz and Chucho Rodríguez, with whom he later recorded with Benny Moré. In those years he received his first ovations on the stage of the Follies.

In Mexico, between 1946 and 1947, he made recordings for the Peerless label, backed by the orchestras of the Mexican Rafael de Paz and the Cuban Absalón Pérez.

The repertoire chosen for these records consisted almost entirely of guarachas, afros and sones montunos, which had been popularized in Cuba by Orlando Guerra Cascarita with the Orquesta Casino de la Playa.

Vicentico was hired as a singer of the musical group of the Puerto Rican pianist Noro Morales in New York at the end of 1947. In that city he had a successful season at the Hispanic Theater which, according to the chronicles of the time, “consecrated him in the taste of the Latin community”. He also performed at the Million Dollars, Park Plaza and Puerto Rico theaters.

In 1948 he joined Tito Puente’s orchestra as a singer, along with his brother Alfredo. With Puente he recorded his first boleros (among them “Quiéreme y verás”, by José Antonio Méndez) for the Seeco label. Until then he had been used mainly as an interpreter of upbeat numbers. With Tito Puente he made numerous recordings throughout his career.

In 1953, the Seeco record company promoted a group of recordings with the Sonora Matancera, which had great repercussion in Cuba, where he was hardly known, and in other Caribbean countries.

Among the pieces recorded in Havana in November of that year were two boleros (“Una aventura”, by Elisa Chiquitica Méndez and “Decídete mi amor”, by José Antonio Méndez), a genre in which he achieved the greatest triumphs of his career.

From then on, in New York, with great studio orchestras conducted by René Hernández, Joe Cain, and later Charlie and Eddie Palmieri, he made new recordings that were quickly distributed throughout Latin America.

Their repertoire during this stage (early 1960s) included boleros and songs by authors of different tendencies and styles; the Cubans René Touzet, Javier Vázquez, José Antonio Méndez, Piloto y Vera, Pepé Delgado, Juan Pablo Miranda, Marta Valdés and the Rigual brothers; the Puerto Ricans Silvia Rexach, Myrta Silva and Rafael Hernández; the Dominicans Rafael Solano and Manuel Troncoso; and the Mexicans Manuel Prado, Luis Demetrio and Armando Manzanero.

Vicente Valdés y La Oquesta de Bobby Valentin

La Sonora Matancera among others no less important. He also excelled in other genres such as Mambo, Guaguancó, Son and Guaracha.

He was an exceptional singer with a particular style that set the standard and also spread the best Latin American bolero composers, particularly those of the Cuban Feeling, of which he was a valuable promoter at an international level. His career as a soloist was impeccable.

He died in a New York hospital on the morning of June 26, 1995, according to a heart attack.

Source: En Caribe

Sonora Matancera

Tata Güines known as Manos de Oro, Cuban rumbero and percussionist

Known as Manos de Oro, he modernized the tumbadoras and played with the most important musicians of the island of Cuba.

He was born in Güines, Havana on June 30, 1930, in the bosom of a family of musicians, son of Joseíto “El tresero” and Niñita, who from a very young age used to play a boot-cleaning box in the corner of the Chapel of Santa Bárbara, in the legendary neighborhood of Leguina, where so many congas and bembés have been made and will continue to be enjoyed.

Artistic trajectory

Saying Federico Arístides Soto Alejo may not say anything to some music neophytes, but when you say Tata Güines, things change radically and everyone thinks: That is the tumbadora made soul and flavor.

Tata Güines conocido como Manos de Oro, modernizó las tumbadoras y tocó con los más relevantes músicos de la isla de Cuba

He became attached to percussion instruments, especially the tumbadora, which, as a Cuban, groaned under the effect of his prodigious hands. Under the influence of Chano Pozo, whose touches bewitched him and gave him the key to create his own style.

He was formed as a musician among the drums and the religious festivities of his neighborhood. He adopted his nickname as a child -el Tata-, and as a surname the name of the town where he grew up. Music was in his blood: his father and uncles made music with their hides.

He played double bass in the group Ases del Ritmo. He was part of the Partagás group, led by his uncle Dionisio Martínez, and later founded the Estrellas Nacientes orchestra and performed with the Swing Casino orchestra in Güines.

In 1946 he performed in his hometown with the Conjunto de Arsenio Rodríguez.

Tata Güines, rumbero y percusionista cubano

}In 1948 he moved to Havana, where he was a member of the orchestras La Nueva América, led by Pao Domini; La Habana Sport led by José Antonio Díaz, Unión, led by Orestes López, La Sensación led by Belisario López, and in 1952 he joined Fajardo y sus Estrellas, with which he traveled to New York in 1956.

He joined Los Jóvenes del Cayo, with which he appeared on the radio station La Voz del Aire; later he performed with the ensembles Camacho and Gloria Matancera.

He accompanied the trio Taicuba as a bongo player, and worked with Guillermo Portabales, Celina y Reutilio, and Ramón Veloz. He participated, along with Chano Pozo, in the comparsa Los Dandys de Belén; also, Los Mosqueteros del Rey, Los Mambises and Las Boyeras.

He recorded with Arturo O’Farrill (Chico) and with Cachao y su Ritmo Caliente, Frank Emilio, Guillermo Barreto, Gustavo Tamayo and others. He was part of the Quinteto Instrumental de Música Moderna (later Los Amigos), led by pianist Frank Emilio; Guillermo Barreto, timbal, Gustavo Tamayo, güiro, Israel López (Cachao) and Orlando Hernández (Papito), double bass.

In 1955 he travels to Caracas, Venezuela, to participate in the carnivals of that city. He traveled to New York with the Fajardo y sus Estrellas orchestra, with which he performed at the Palladium, where he coincided with Machito y sus Afro-Cubans and Benny Moré, whom he accompanied on the tumbadora; he also performed at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where he worked for the first time as a soloist.

He prepared a show and shared the stage with Josephine Baker, Frank Sinatra, Maynard Ferguson and Los Chavales de España, with whom he recorded the piece “No te puedo querer”.

In 1960 he returned to Cuba. Four years later he founded Los Tatagüinitos. He offered a concert with the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Manuel Duchesne Cuzán, with which he performed his work Perico no llores más. He accompanied the guitarist and composer Sergio Vitier in his work Ad Libitum, danced by Alicia Alonso and Antonio Gades.

International tours

He toured California, Chicago, Miami, Puerto Rico, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Martinique, Monte Carlo, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Hungary, where he participated in the Jazz Festival; Soviet Union, Finland, Spain.

Musical Validity

Tata Güines was a master of masters of Cuban percussion. His death represents a notable loss for Cuban culture. Nobody like him in Cuba to make percussion an art.

In front of Tata Güines, the leather of the drum seemed the most delicate and expensive silk. He would place his agile hand on the tanned skin stretched by the fire, and with his fingernails he would achieve the saddest of laments as well as the most contagious smile.

Few knew him as Federico Arístides Soto Alejo, but everyone knew that he had modernized the tumbadoras, that he was a master at placing the “loose” beats in a song, as if “carelessly”, but that the piece could not survive if it lacked that imprint of someone who let himself be carried away by the rhythm of the claves, by his very fine ear and by the demands of a body accustomed, since he was almost a child, to music.

He died on February 4, 2008 in Güines, Havana.

Federico Arístides Soto Alejo Tata Güines

Awards and recognitions

National Music Award 2006

Félix Varela Order 2004

Alejo Carpentier Medal 2002

Tataguines Soto Martinez

Jesús “Chuito” Narváez the Atheist of La Guaira and the pianist of the golden age of the Latin Dimension

Jesús Chuito Narváez was born in Margarita on August 26, 1950. He began his musical career as a player of stringed instruments such as the guitar, cuatro and bass.

On Monday, January 16, 2006, at 6:00 a.m., Jesús “Chuito” Narváez, pianist of the golden age of the Latin Dimension, died in La Guaira at the age of 55 due to a liver disease.Especially for the guitar instrument with which he debuted with “Los Tremendos” in La Guaira and under the tutelage of Edgar Evers in the late sixties and early seventies.

Jesús “Chuito” Narváez el Ateo de La Guaira

Precisely in 1971, the famous Estrellas Latinas of composer Cheo Palmar (a group that included Canelita Medina, Joe Ruiz, Calavén, El Flaco Bermúdez, Cheo Navarro, among others), made a record in which Chuito recorded the guitar on one of the sides of the 45 rpm.

In that group Los Tremendos bought a piano so that Chuito could learn to play it, and it is when he had the opportunity to replace Nano Ladera, pianist of Los Satélites and they recorded the LP: “Saltando el Muro” in 1972, an album that reached the first places in NY especially for the song: “Traicionera”.

Cheché Mendoza’s Satélites, after jumping the wall to fame in other yards, constantly traveled to achieve the success that in their own land they were denied, one of those frequent travelers was Chuito himself, a fact that prevented him from recording the first album of Dimensión Latina in its entirety, where there was the need in the song Julia to use the piano of Professor Franklyn Stuart or Eddie Frankie or rather Tony Monserrat, who like a serious madman leaves that string of madmen who were the members of the Latin Dimension, so when Chuito returns from his trip to Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire he must make the difficult decision to choose between the Satellites (with whom he had recorded another album : “Cheché himself, disillusioned by the little affection in his homeland, encourages him to go with the Dimension, where he begins a fruitful career of 14 long durations.

In 1979, Dimensión Latina had already suffered the loss of Oscar D’León in July 1976, in February 1978 Wladimir to go with Oscar, until after a series of rumors Chuito together with Rodrigo Mendoza also left the group fulfilling contracts until March 15, when he was replaced by the excellent Colombian pianist Samuel Del Real.

Chuito Narváez and Rodrigo Mendoza formed the Orquesta Amistad in April 1979, recording three albums: “Presente y Pasado” in 1979, “El Poder de la Amistad” (1979), and “Calavén y Yo” in 1981, with the legendary Negrito Calavén replacing Rodrigo who had left with La Salsa Mayor.

With the Orquesta Amistad Chuito changed his structure with the dimension and incorporated three and four trumpets, two trombones and the flute of the young Natividad Martínez.

Chuito himself once declared: I am not pedantic, because I don’t like that, but my aspirations are to have one of the best orchestras and to be able to alternate with those who are said to be the best. In his first album, the vocalists Rodrigo and Tito Gómez compete with one of his greatest hits: Ritmo de Azúcar (1979).

Fuente:

Herencia Latina

Alberto Beltrán “A mí me llaman el negrito del Batey” and Bailar medio apreta’o con una negra bien sabrosa

Alberto Amancio Beltrán (Palo Blanco, La Romana, May 5, 1923 – Miami, February 2, 1997) was a Dominican singer, known in the Latin American musical world as “El Negrito del Batey”.

Early years

Beltrán was born in the town of Palo Blanco, in the province of La Romana. As a child, he barely had a basic education because his family’s economic situation forced him to sell candy on the streets. At the age of fourteen he was attracted to music and debuted as an amateur singer on the radio. This first artistic incursion led him to take singing lessons.

Alberto Beltrán “A mí me llaman el negrito del Batey”

From 1946 to 1951 he belonged to several groups in his country, such as “Brisas de Oriente”. Later, he formed his own group called “Dominican Boys”.

International projection

In 1951 he emigrated to Puerto Rico. There, he recorded with “Los Diablos del Caribe”, a group led by Mario Hernández, the song “El 19”.

He then traveled to Cuba, first to Santiago and then to Havana on July 15, 1954, to work with the Puerto Rican composer and singer Myrta Silva on Radio Mambí.

On August 16 of that same year, he was requested by the Sonora Matancera and recorded the composition Ignoro tu existencia by Rafael Pablo de la Motta and Aunque me cueste la vida by the Dominican Luis Kalaff. Both songs, in bolero rhythm, were recorded on the same 78 rpm disc.

On November 16, he recorded the merengue El negrito del batey composed by Medardo Guzmán, which catapulted him internationally as it became a sales hit.

From there came the nickname with which he became popular. That same day he also recorded the boleros Todo me gusta de Ti by Cuto Esteves, Enamorado de la inspiración by José Balcalcer and, for the second time, El 19 by Radhamés Reyes Alfau.

Beltrán nació en la localidad de Palo Blanco en Cuba

On January 18, 1955 he recorded his last pieces with the Orquesta Sonora Matancera. Then, he spent some time in Venezuela where he left phonographic records with the orchestras “Sonora Caracas”, Los Megatones de Lucho and the Orquesta de Jesús “Chucho” Sanoja.

Hired by the Dominican musician settled in Venezuela, Billo Frómeta, he participated in two albums recorded in Cuban studios: “Evocación” (1956) in which he performed as a soloist and “La Lisa-Maracaibo”, in which he shared credits with the Cuban singer Carlos Díaz.

What does El negrito del batey mean?

In the Dominican Republic the batey smells of black and the black often smells of batey. Both evoke in their generality misery and human abandonment, fruit of injustice and discrimination. This is so, although it pains us to say it

The Negrito of the Batey

They call me the little black man of the batey

Because work for me is an enemy

To work I leave everything to the ox

Because work was made by God as a punishment

I like the merengue apambicha’o

With a black woman who is a retrechera and a good girl

I like to dance de medio la’o

I like to dance half tight with a tasty black girl

Hey!

Get your ass out of here!

There!

They call me the little black guy from the batey

Because work for me is an enemy

To work I leave everything to the ox

Because God made work as a punishment

I like the merengue apambicha’o

With a black woman who is a retrechera and a good girl

I like to dance de medio la’o

I like to dance half tight with a tasty black girl

Hey, there!

And you tell me if it’s not true

Merengue much better

And you say if it’s not true

Merengue much better

Because that of working

It’s a pain for me

Because that of working

To me it causes me pain, it sounds!

The meek ox works hard

But he never gets dengue fever

The meek ox works hard

But he never gets the dengue

I’ll dance with a good black woman

I’ll dance to a good merengue

But I never get tired

To dance a good merengue, it sounds!

There, candela!

Finbroso, hey!

The gentle ox works hard

But he never gets the dengue

A lot of work the gentle ox works hard

But he never gets the dengue

But I never get tired

Of dancing a good merengue

But I never get tired

Of dancing a good merengue, it sounds!

There!

Dominicanize!

Sonora Matancera