On october 19, 1961 in Portoviejo, Ecuador, Marco Bermudez Brito was born. Extraordinary Musician, Percussionist, Singer, Composer.

Nobody is a prophet in his own land. At the age of 23 he traveled to the United States as a singer. And in 2004, being a member of the Spanish Harlem Orchestra (SHO), he won the Grammy in the category Best Salsa Album for the album Across 110th street.

On a day like today, October 20, Marco Bermudez was born in Portoviejo, Ecuador. He is an excellent performer, composer and studio musician in all styles of Latin music.

He was born into a family with a rich musical heritage and has resided in New York for the past thirty-four years. Marco has toured the world with Latin music greats: Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Cheo Feliciano, Oscar D’ Leon, Tito Nieves, Domingo Quiñones, Jose Alberto and all the artists on the RMM Records label.

Marco’s discography includes: RMM All Stars 10th Anniversary CD/DVD Live at the Continental Arena New Jersey; Recorded a Selena (RMM) and Tropical Tribute to the Beatles CD/DVD recorded live at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

Marco is currently one of the singers of the Spanish Harlem Orchestra. As a performer and composer, Bermudez has collaborated in the record productions of the SHO, writing the lyrics of the songs Son de Corazón, Regalo de Dios, Qué Bonito, La Fiesta began.

(One more year of life for this Ecuadorian performer, composer and musician who has performed in different variations of Latin music.

Experiences with Isidro Infante y La Élite, Conjunto Clásico, Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Cheo Feliciano, Oscar D’León, Tito Nieves, Domingo Quiñones, José Alberto “El canario”, and Ralph Mercado’s RMM Records family in which he participated in productions such as “RMM All Stars 10th Anniversary – Live in Continental Arena of New Jersey”, “Recorded a Selena”, “Recorded a Selena”, “Recorded a Selena”, “Recorded a Selena”, “Recorded a Selena”, “Recorded a Selena”, “Recorded a Selena”, “Recorded a Selena”, and “Recorded a Selena”; the album “Recorded a Selena” (RMM) and “Tropical Tribute to the Beatles”, a CD/DVD recorded live at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

The pinnacle of his career came when he became part of the Spanish Harlem Orchestra’s line-up of singers, collaborating in different record productions and strengthening his facet as a composer through titles such as “Son de corazón”, “Qué bonito”, “Regalo de Dios” and “La fiesta empezó”.

He has also been part of The Mambo Legends project sharing microphones with Frankie Vázquez and Jorge Maldonado.His story is told to us when he was in Ecuador on vacation with his wife.

“From a very young age, I was always surrounded by music,” she says proudly. He refers to his parents, siblings and most of all to his uncle, the great singer Eduardo Brito.

Marco, at the age of 9, together with his brother Eduardo formed the duo Hermanos Bermúdez Brito, being the first to record the pasillo Romance de la tejedora manabita, lyrics by Paco del Casty and music by Filemón Macías, Marco’s uncle: “Con horma de esperanzas/y encajes de clavellina/ va tejiendo su sombrero/ la manabita más linda” (With a last of hopes/and lace of carnation/ she weaves her hat/ the prettiest manabita).

In the early eighties, brothers Mariano and Venancio Larrea invited him to join the Marfil group, from Guayaquil. That was when the group turned to salsa music, which was just becoming popular in these parts.

But his life and stage changed in 1984, when he and his brother joined the Manabita orchestra Los Profetas, which would perform in Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago.

With the illusion of succeeding in the north, Bermúdez stayed and formed El Combo de Nueva York, which was the staff orchestra of a chain of nightclubs in Queens.

At that time, Marco was concerned about his musical training, besides being a singer and composer, he was also a percussionist. His entry into the big leagues of salsa came when he was part of La Élite, led by maestro Isidro Infante, for 6 years.

There he achieved fame as the interpreter of the songs Santo, Militar and Montuno and for the album Tributo Tropical a Los Beatles.

He was also part of La Charanga de Johnny Almendra and Los Jóvenes del Barrio, and was one of the singers of the legendary Conjunto Clásico orchestra. “Even when there is a tour they call me because I know the repertoire and I know the routine”.

At the beginning of 2003 he made a great leap when he joined the SHO, an orchestra that besides winning the Grammy and achieving nominations for two of its albums, is considered “the best salsa orchestra in the world”, according to the Puerto Rican critic Jaime Torres Torres, who in referring to Bermúdez affirms: “He is the only recognized Ecuadorian salsa singer who dominates the difficult art of soneo and clave”.

About the renowned SHO, Bermúdez says that in reality this orchestra “is the sound of the Harlem neighborhood, where urban salsa was born.

We are inspired by masters like Tito Puente and Mario Bauza, who left us that legacy”. And although every salsa singer is mistakenly called a sonero, very few are.

The soneo is an improvisation by the singer when the percussionist solos on the drums, he explains.

The next SHO album will feature three songs by Bermúdez: Son de corazón, Regalo de Dios and La fiesta empezó. “I like to write everything, romantic, jocular, nature and rumba songs,” says Marco who is currently selecting songs for his solo album which he hopes will be released this year. It will include a recording with Las Leyendas del Mambo, Tito Puente’s legendary orchestra.

These are his plans. His dream: “to come to Ecuador as a soloist or with SHO because I have had recognition abroad, but it must be nice to be recognized in your country”. Although they say that no one is a prophet in his own land, Bermúdez, the sonero, will surely be.

At the age of 9, together with his brother Eduardo, he formed the duo Hermanos Bermúdez Brito, being the first to record the pasillo Romance de la tejedora manabita.

In the early eighties, the brothers Mariano and Venancio Larrea invited him to join the Marfil group, from Guayaquil.

In 1984, together with his brother, he joined the Manabita orchestra Los Profetas, which would perform in the United States. He stayed in New York and formed El Combo de Nueva York, which was the staff orchestra of a chain of nightclubs in Queens.

Later he was part of La Élite, led by maestro Isidro Infante, for 6 years.

He was also part of La Charanga de Johnny Almendra and Los Jóvenes del Barrio, and was one of the singers of the Conjunto Clásico orchestra.

At the beginning of 2003 he joined the “Spanish Harlem Orquestra” of Maestro Oscar Hernandez. He has collaborated, among others, with the band of “Mister Moña” Jimmy Bosch and “La Mambo Legends.

You can read: Héctor “Bomberito” Zarzuela Calidad y Tuning en la Maquinaria Fania All-Star

Marco Bermudez

Last Sunday, September 22, 1974 (On a day like today, Fania All-Stars made history by performing for the first time in Africa in front of 80 thousand spectators.

A magical night that included wonderful moments. This is their story.

In mid-1974, American boxing promoter Don King organized a fight in Kinshasa, Congo, for Muhammad Ali to regain the crown against the then heavyweight champion of the world, George Foreman, a bout that was called ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’.

Parallel to the boxing match, musician Hugh Masekela and renowned producer Stewart Levine scheduled a series of concerts at the 20 du Maipara stadium in Kinshasa (Zaire) as part of a 3-day festival (September 22-24, 1974) that would later become one of the most important musical events of the century in Africa, which the organizers called ‘Zaire 74’Unfortunately, an injury suffered by George Foreman while training forced the fight to be postponed for almost six weeks, but the music festival did take place.

The event was attended by 31 groups (17 local and 14 foreign) and featured artists such as James Brown, BB King, Bill Withers, Manu Dibango, Miriam Makeba, Fania All-Stars, among others.

The Fania musicians who traveled to Africa and performed at the festival were: Johnny Pacheco (flute), Larry Harlow (piano), Bass: Bobby Valentin (bass), Nicky Marrero (timbales), Ray Barretto (congas), Roberto Roena (bongos), Yomo Toro (Cuatro), Pupi Legarreta (Violin) Jorge Santana (Electric Guitar), Victor Paz, Kurt Ranno, Luis ‘Perico’ Ortiz (Trumpets), Lewis Kahn (Violin and Trombone), Ed Byrne (Trombone), and 6 singers: Celia Cruz, Ismael Miranda, Jose ‘Cheo’ Feliciano, Hector Lavoe, Santitos Colon, Ismael ‘Pat’ Quintana (vocals and backing vocals).

Everything was ready to return to the Big Apple, New York but a major misfortune forced Johnny Pacheco and company to stay.

Although it may seem incredible, musicians and singers had to stay 11 additional days due to a political and social problem in that country, unable to leave the hotel where they were staying. This is how Bobby Valentín tells it in an exclusive interview to Rafael Vega Curry, journalist of elnuevodia.com

“We couldn’t get out. (Jerry) Massucci had to pay an extra $18,000 because we would gather in the rooms to order food and empty the coolers (laughs). There was always someone who said “tomorrow we’ll play in my room”, says the well-known ‘King of Bass‘.

With the concert in Zaire, Fania All Stars had become the first tropical orchestra to set foot on African soil. The show, held at the Statu Hai stadium in Kinshasa, was attended by more than 80 thousand spectators.

It was part of the “Zaire 74” event held from September 22 to 24 of that year, and also featured R&B and Soul artists such as James Brown, Bill Withers and BB King.

In 1974, salsa was at its peak in New York. However, its top representatives were confined within four walls.

Among the musical geniuses were Johnny Pacheco, Ray Barretto and many others who made this orchestra the most important salsa orchestra in its history. Héctor Lavoe could not be missing in that directory.

Important Note:

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, also popularly known as D. R. Congo, Democratic Congo, Congo-Kinshasa or Eastern Congo, and called Zaire between the years 1971 and 1997, is one of the fifty-four countries that make up the African continent. Its capital and most populated city is Kinshasa.

Between October 27, 1971 and May 17, 1997, the African country currently known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo was known as the Republic of Zaire (in French, République du Zaïre).

The name Zaire was given to it during the rule of Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled it with an iron fist during a long dictatorship, and from whom emanated the political system and the characteristic ideology of the State.

The instability and rebellions that plagued the Congo until 1965 culminated in the seizure of power by Lieutenant General Mobutu Sese Seko, then Commander-in-Chief of the Congolese Army.

Mobutu proclaimed himself president for five years and in 1970 consolidated his power by being elected president without opposition.

In 1971 the new name of the State was adopted, with the official proclamation of the denomination: Republic of Zaire. This name and the new national symbols would remain until 1997, when at the end of the First Congo War Mobutu was overthrown and fled the country.

Upon assuming the presidency of the country the guerrilla leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Congo, recovering its own name.

Sources:

Bobby Valentín

Salserisimo Peru

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaire

You can read: Fania All Stars

Luis María Frómeta Pereira, better known as Billo Frómeta, was born on November 15, 1915 in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. However, this Caribbean man has more of a Venezuelan feeling than other compatriots, since he was very grateful to Caracas, that is where he made his life, both professionally and personally.

Despite his love for the Venezuelan lands, he never lost his Cibao smile, specifically from Quisqueya. But his gestures, his affection and tenderness, the details with which he acted, and his musical stamp are very Venezuelan. Perhaps we say goodbye to Billo very soon and he could not see his tribute in his lifetime, that only adds more strength to his career. Read all about his life with the following lines .

The beginnings of Billo Frómeta as Luis María

Although he was born in Santo Domingo, the Frómeta family moved to San Francisco de Macorís, where Billo spent his childhood and met the friends with whom he would embark on the musical adventure of his life: Rafael Minaya and Francisco Simó Damirón. As Billo recounted in his last interview before losing him to a brain stroke in 1988:

“There couldn’t be a birthday that we knew about because the three of us from San Francisco de Macorís were there playing and brightening up the evening. I always keep that in mind when I go to a special event”.

It can never be denied that Luis María was born with an innate talent for music, which he polished during his basic education, since rhythms and sounds were a compulsory subject in the Dominican Republic. As he already said, it was something he continued to do during his adolescence, although this was already in Santo Domingo where he moved back in 1933. There he is part of the firefighters, where with the rank of captain he founded and became director of the Band of the Fire Department of the capital.

Here he also gives guitar lessons, which leads him to meet the young saxophonist and violinist Freddy Coronado, through him Billo enters the world of dance orchestras, forming a group and working on the radio. Some time later, when they are already university students, Billo meets up with his childhood friends and introduces them to Freddy. They form the Santo Domingo Jazz Band, whose activities and presentations are carried out along with their studies.

However, Damirón moved to Puerto Rico, leaving Billo in charge of the management, but his medical studies were interrupted since at first it was difficult for him to comply with both things, then in his third year he began an internship at the military hospital but his ideas collide with those of the regime of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, so he abandons his studies and decides to devote himself entirely to music.

Arrival in Venezuela and its success in Caracas

The Santo Domingo Jazz Band received the opportunity to play on December 31, 1937, at the Roof Garden, an important local in Caracas. The journey to reach those Venezuelan lands was an adventure full of many sacrifices. However, on the day of the presentation, without the teacher Billo being consulted, the name of the band was changed to Billo’s Happy Boys, which generated discontent in the Dominican Republic, especially from Trujillo’s regime.

Due to this discontent and the growing popularity of the band in Caracas, the boys were forced to stay in the capital of Venezuela. This was the point that would change Billo’s life forever, since this city is the one that sees him grow as a person and as a professional. As he himself relates:

“My forever girlfriend, the city with which I owe a debt of gratitude and affection…”

This is shown in the number of songs by the band that speak in one way or another of the city. Despite the great affection he has for Caracas and Venezuela as a whole, Billo never renounced his Dominican nationality:

“It is the least I can do for the land where I was born. Venezuela is my life. Here I have planted. So as a feeling of gratitude to the Dominican Republic, I keep that nationalist umbilical cord. It is like the case of two mothers, one brings you into the world but the other raises and educates you. You will not stop loving the first and you will show your affection in something even if all your tenderness arrives at the second…”

Two years later in 1939, Billo faces a tough stage, he falls ill with typhus and the doctors give him no hope, but the teacher shows them that his time had not yet come. He returns to the stage ready to consolidate the popularity of the band more than ever, to which he gives a new name: Billo’s Caracas Boys, which the band maintains to this day.

From that moment the career of Billo and the band goes through ups and downs, from having a radio program where he can even produce and edit his own records, to spending days in jail for marriage demands. Speaking of love, Billo got married 3 times, being Morella Peraza his last wife and the greatest love of his life:

“… the one that Morella inspires me and I don’t know what is the miracle by which I see her prettier every day… I think it is the miracle of love, of that feeling that creates the need for one with the other, that transforms what is impossible into possible, that gives life to life… Sometimes it scares me… I am getting old and when one is old one no longer inspires appetites or desires, but Morella loves me and that is the triumph of love over the years. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Billo Frómeta dark days

By 1957 Billo’s career was on the ground, in addition to jail he also faced vetoes due to having contacts with important figures of Marcos Perez Jimenez’s regime, which caused him to be banned “for life” from performing in Venezuela. However, this did not prevent him from continuing to work as an arranger and producer, not only in Caracas but also in other countries such as Mexico and the United States.

In 1958 he met and befriended Renato Capriles, who was a businessman at the time, but wanted to replicate the success of dance bands like Billo’s. The unusual thing about this friendship is that it began precisely with Renato asking Billo to help him in the composition and production of various works for his band “Los Melodicos”. The friendship was maintained over the years but always with a touch of enmity.

A phrase that sums up these fateful years is: “What hurts me the most in life is ingratitude, and I have cried for it.”

Last years of Billo and his mark in the musical history of Venezuela

Between the 1960s and 1980s, Billo focused on his career and his band, brought Billo’s Caracas Boys together again, thanks to the lifting of the veto, and from that moment embarked on the search for those little-known talents who by passing through the band would be taken to stardom, as is the case of Felipe Pirela, José Luís “El Puma” Rodríguez, Guillermo “Memo” Morales, among others.

In addition to presenting new and unpublished works, they also continue to present the old ones. Also, Billo embarks on the business adventure of founding his own record label called Fonograma, although this does not last long and after several problems he decides to close the record company, and sell the catalog to his son-in-law.

For the 80s, the band continued with a success that rose like foam, not only in Venezuela but in the rest of the continent, they even performed alongside great artists like Celia Cruz. For 1988 a tribute to the master in life was planned, which he himself was going to direct, and had him very moved and excited. How well the words of Lil Rodríguez portray him, to whom he granted his last interview:

“The Master would arrive with the minutes, loaded with thoughts and concerns which he had no qualms about spilling on his way home, as if he thought out loud and with affection. Here I have, finally, more or less the order of the concert. Almost everything is ready and only the last rehearsal is missing. It would not be the first time that Billo would conduct a Symphony, but he was excited as in a debut.”

But this tribute never happened and in his place a slow procession was held to say goodbye to the master. Billo Frómeta, out of emotion, nerves and his perfectionist mania, suffered a brain accident that led him to fall into a coma, just one day before his concert and tribute. He died on May 5, 1988, that day Caracas lost an adoptive son, that it made its own and it saw his development as a musician.

Many people said goodbye to the master at the Caracas Municipal Council, while others accompanied the coffin to the Eastern Cemetery. This way, a great chapter in the history of dance music in Venezuela and the Caribbean was closed, but leaving an incredible legacy that continues to this day, since who has not danced with the Billo’s Caracas Boys?