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.

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.

}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.

Awards and recognitions

National Music Award 2006

Félix Varela Order 2004

Alejo Carpentier Medal 2002

Tataguines Soto Martinez

Read also: Carlos “Patato” Valdés one of the best percussionists in the history of Latin Jazz

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.

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.

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

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