Search Results for: Trumpet

Hector “Bomberito” Zarzuela, Instrumentalist, excellent sound, tuning and world-class reader.

 Héctor Zarzuela, known in the entertainment world as ‘Bomberito’, passed away last Thursday, January 7 at the age of 84 in New Jersey, USA.

Born June 3 in the city of Moca, Dominican Republic, where he began his musical studies, played with several local groups and then moved to the capital city in which he played with

different orchestras. Then in the early 60’s, he decided to emigrate to New York City.

Shortly after arriving in New York, he entered the world of salsa and began working with local orchestras, and later with those that made up the famous Fania All-Star in which he remained for many years.

The former member of the band Estrellas de la Fania, was one of the most important personalities of salsa thanks to his great talent and participation with renowned groups and artists of the salsa world, among them the Fania All-Stars (1971-1976 / 1979-1988 / 1994), Cheo Feliciano (1973 / 1977 / 1993), Ismael Rivera y sus Cachimbos (1975-1978), Héctor Lavoe (1975 / 1981) and Ray Barretto (1979 / 1987-1990).

He worked with fellow trumpeter Luis “Perico” Ortiz for many years, being an extraordinary quality and tuning session and responsible for innumerable hits of different singers.

The name Hector Zarzuela earned a lot of respect for his beautiful songs as an instrumentalist, excellent sound, tuning and world-class reader.

His list of artists with whom he recorded is enormous, here are some of them: Pete Conde, Johnny Pacheco, Héctor Lavoe, El Canario, Ismael Miranda, Ismael Rivera, Tony Vega, Celia Cruz, Grupo Niche, Victor Manuel, among others.

In 1980, he recorded a production entitled “Merengues con Caché” with an orchestra which he has created. Around this time, he was also in the group “Africando“.

He traveled from Latin America to Africa, Japan, and Australia with all these artists, collected legions of fans, and set a great example to follow.

He also dabbled with some merengue groups, especially The New York Band, La Gran Manzana, etc. His career in merengue groups is not extensive, after all he has lived in New York City for many years, making him a living example of Constancy and Determination.

Lovingly called Bomberito, we know nothing about the reasons for this nickname, but he is highly known this way.

Zarzuela was a well-mannered, quiet temperament, respecful person when relating with others, and very responsible person in carrying out his work.

Man with a noteworthy trajectory in growing quality and respect by becoming one of the great figures abroad of our musicians.

Héctor Zarzuela deserves a predominant role in the pages of our history.

He was one of the greatest trumpeters of all time, always being the first trumpet in the ensembles.

He belongs to the highest elite group of musicians of the same instrument. The maestros Luis “Perico” Ortiz, Elias Lopes, Kito Velez, Orlando Pabellon, Rafael Labasta, Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros, Puchi Bulong and other great figures that make up the trumpet legends of the trumpet in salsa.

Trumpet

The trumpet is a wind instrument, which belongs to the family of brass instruments and is made of metal alloy.

The sound is produced by the vibration of lips on the part called mouthpiece from the air column (air flow).

Commonly, it is usually tuned in 9′ B ♭, that is to say, one tone below the tuning written on the staff, although there are also trumpets tuned in F, C, A and E, – flat-.

The musician who plays the trumpet is known as trumpet player or trumpeter.

Mechanism

The trumpet is made of brass tube doubled in a spiral of about 180 cm long, has several valves or pistons, and ends with a bellmouth weir, which receives the name of bell or pavilion.

The first two thirds of the tube are practically cylindrical, which gives it a loud and bright sound, whereas the cornet and the flugelhorn, which have a conical tube and produce a softer tone.

The remaining third is a conical tube, except in the last 30 cm, where the tube is widened to form the bellmouth weir.

The caliber is a complex series of turns that besome smaller in the mouthpiece receiver and larger just before the start of the bell. Careful design of these turns is critical to the intonation of the trumpet.

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The orchestra formed by Puerto Rican women will back to work and will release its first album in the coming months.

Son Divas is here to stay. This was stated by Aníbal de Gracia, manager, producer, and creative director of the girl group. After a short recess caused by the pandemic, Son Divas has just released the single ‘Mujer de acero’, which will be part of the first album they are working on and is scheduled to be released between March and summer.

“During this time in which many projects had been delayed as a result of the pandemic, many people told me that Son Divas should record an album. After thinking and appraising how much the group had made progress since its beginnings, I thought that it was the right time for that first recording.

We have already recorded some songs and others are in the process and we hope to release it between March and summer, but observing what happens with the matter of the pandemic,” said de Gracia, manager and producer of Son Divas.

The musician/orchestra director also noted that more than 100 female musicians, among other guests, will participate in the record production.

“We decided that we were supposed to invite the largest possible number of women, not only of Puerto Rico, but of the entire world. We want to finish recording the album, be able to release it into the marketplace and, and look forward to the moment when we can play it live,” he said.

Son Divas is recording a song in conjunction with the Cuban orchestra Anacaona, the first women’s orchestra in the world. The Cuban group was founded by the Castro sisters in the 1930s. According to de Gracia, Dominican musician Wilfrido Vargas had contact with the Anacaona orchestra during the 70s, and in this way, developed the concept of Las Chicas del Can.

“Although the album will have a romantic theme, it will be varied. Songs to dance salsa, merengue, and even a Latin jazz track can be found here. It will have a combination of new songs with some covers. ‘Eclipse total del amor’, a salsa version of a song popularized by Lissette Alvarez;

‘Mala novia’, ‘Una loca como yo’ and ‘Mujer de acero’, a song we already released in promotion. These are some of the tracks of the album”.

De Gracia began training the girls from Son Divas in 2017 after participating in a music festival in St. Kitts where he shared the stage with the Anacaona orchestra the previous year. After being impressed by these Cuban girls he decided to start a similar project in Puerto Rico.

“After recruiting girls, getting a whole lot of rehearsal, and overcoming the drawbacks of Hurricane Maria, we recorded the first single ‘Mala novia’, a song by Mel Martinez and arrangement by Ramon Sanchez. We managed to be played on the radio and it opened a lot of doors.

We made several performances in Puerto Rico and went to St. Kitts. We recorded a second single titled ‘Una loca como yo’ in collaboration with Gilberto Santa Rosa and Victor Manuelle on backing vocals.

After that, we had to deal with the pandemic and musical activity had been stopped. Now, we are back to work again. We are working on the album that is sure people will like very much because it is being done with passion, love, and very good musical quality”, de Gracia said.

Son Divas is led by Nicole Yomara Santiago (musical director and trumpeter); it features singers Nico Camilo, Luz Mary Parra and Lilly Aponte. Zuleyka Martínez (saxophone), Nicole Vargas (trumpet), Ileana González (trumpet), Irem Díaz (bass), veteran virtuous Amuni Nacer (piano), Dali Marie (conga and bongo) and Daizalee M. Félix (timbal). The latter two appeared on the album.

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 Mark Alexander Dimond, baptised like Markolino by his colleagues at the time, was born in 1950 (1950-1986).

He was American and lived with his mother and older sister in the Lower East Side to the southest of the Big Apple.

His mother was a social worker from the New York City Welfare Department and his sister was a college student. Markolino always talked about his father. He said he was a black Cuban named Dimond, but none of his classmates and friends at the time knew him.

Mark studied some music as a child, but he was mainly self-taught. He could read music and write scores. He just had to listen to a song or touch the paper once to learn it forever. However, from his adolescent era, he was into drugs, particularly heroin.

While dealing with drugs, Markolino was unable to control himself. Andy Harlow told all of this, one of his friends since they began working together in his Sextet in 1966, thanks to the management of Ismael Miranda, neibor and Markolino’s friend.

Album: The Alexander Review.

Year: 1975

Label: VAYA Records

Catalog: # VS46

By the year 1975, Mark Alexander Dimond (Markolino) embarked on a musical project entitled “The Alexander Review”, accompanied by musicians such as Ray Maldonado, Eddie “Guagua” Rivera, Andy Harlow, and Barry Rogers.

In this album, Markolino writes and sings the songs in a production categorized under a musical genre called Funk/Soul & Funk-Disco.

The album apparently was not well accepted by music critics, but it shows us another musical facet of who is considered by many to be one of the best pianists from the phenomenon called salsa.

It should be recalled that Markolino does not come from a Latino home, so he was likely to be by non-Latin music such as Jazz, Funk/Soul, Disco, or perhaps Country Music in his childhood and early youth.

Someday, someplace it happened that Mark Alexander decided to venture into salsa music and how well he did so, becoming one of, if not the best salsa brava pianists with NYC’s sound.

Dimond was a gift given to the Latin music world, taken from the African American atmosphere and put to play with the greatest salsa luminaries.

Too bad he was a victim of personal decisions taken in his life, which caused him to leave this world at a very young age.

 I only use one word to describe Mark Alexander. A “Genius” and a great gratitude for what he left us musically speaking, which is a treasure that we deeply appreciate to this day.

(Although this musical work was not very well accepted and created by Markolino for the Anglo public, I review him as a historical piece for this great pianist’s contribution to music), Markolino definitely never ceases to surprise us.

 Credits

 Backing Vocals – Alex Reyes, Fay Feller, Mark Alexander Dimond

 Bass – Clyde Bullard, Eddie Rivera

 Congas – Azzedin Weston

 Drums – Buddy Williams

 Engineer – Jon Fausty

Guitar – Jimmy Lopez

Piano, Clavinet, Synthesizer [Moog], Lead Vocals – Mark Alexander Dimond

Producer, Arranged By – Mark Alexander

Saxophone – Andy Harlow, Robin Kenyatta

Saxophone [Baritone] – Bill Marmando

Trombone – Barry Rogers, Bill Ohashi, Tom Malone

 Trumpet – Danny Reyes, Ray Maldonado, Tom Malone

 Written-By – M. Alexander

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