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Founder and owner of Guapacha Productions Gil Tower
Talk with Gil Tower
From this platform, we have had to interview many famous Latinos who have left their countries and Latin culture in general on high, but today is the turn of a very special one. We are talking about the talented Venezuelan musical director and multi-instrumentalist Gilberto Torres, better known as Gil Tower in the artistic environment.
Thanks to a mutual friend, we have managed to make contact with Gil Tower, who from the beginning has been very accessible and willing to share everything related to his work in the music industry and his contribution to the Latin cultural scene, so we are very grateful to him for giving us the opportunity to hear his great story.
Below, we share the topics covered in a conversation that was as enjoyable as it was enlightening.
Musical beginnings in his home country
Gil Tower always knew that he wanted to devote himself to the world of music. When he was about five years old, he began watching television programs related to classical music and zarzuela. Several of his aunts were zarzuela teachers and took him to see zarzuela orchestras, which was great for him. In fact, several of those musicians he got to see play on these occasions ended up teaching him when he began preparing to become an artist.
One of the most important institutions in the training of Gil is the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras and Choirs of Venezuela (El Sistema), where he was trained directly by maestro José Antonio Abreu, a fundamental part in the path which this young musician would take later in his career.
He joined the children’s orchestra, advanced all the way to the youth orchestra and finally reached a more professional level in the national orchestra. At about this time, Gil recalls that ”maestro Abreu always said that we were rich because we had an instrument in hand and could change the world through music. As a child, I didn’t understand what he was getting at. Now I do understand and I think he was absolutely right.
”Abreu was a unique influence on me because he transformed me as a person and musician. He also made me become a leader, as he had always wanted me to be,” he continued.
Learning from the groups he was in
As to the learning acquired in the many groups he worked with, Gil singled out Carlos Rojas, who was a musician and jazz lover. Carlos took the initiative to give a workshop in La Pastora (a very important area of the city of Caracas, Venezuela).
As a teenager, Gil used to go to La Pastora to learn to improvise with Carlos in salsa, as he liked this genre so much ever since. This is how he started learning about harmonies and taking his first steps as a composer.
When given the chance to play with the group Los Morrillos, he learned a lot about gaitas and other Venezuelan rhythms from the western region of the country. In the case of the group Madera, he learned (and keeps learning) a lot about Afro-Venezuelan music in general.
After that, he met Jesús ”Chucho” García, who is an intellectual, activist and author of several books on Afro-Venezuelanity. Together they formed a group called Cimarrón, with which they represented Venezuela at the International Jazz Plaza Festival in 1989. To date, they are still very good friends and continue to learn about this great musical branch from one another.
Why move to Germany?
His initial plan was to move to the United States to continue his studies in Berkeley, but he was unable to obtain the required visa at the time. However, that would not be the end of his dream.
It turns out that some friends of his from the group Madera went on a Germany tour and stayed to live there. Then, one of them, Felipe ”Mandingo” Rengifo offered him to join them to work in that country and try to be admitted in one of their conservatories. At the time, Gil only had a saving of $1,000, with which he took a gamble.
Although he had to play in the streets and wash bathrooms at the beginning, he achieved his goal of entering a conservatory, an institution that gave him the opportunity to fix his papers to have a legal status in Germany. Having solved this inconvenience, he was able to focus his attention on his musical project Guapacha (name in honor of a great Cuban drummer who lived in the parish of San Agustin del Sur, Caracas).
All this experience was preparing him for when he could finally achieve his goal of going to the United States.
Arrival in the United States
While still in Germany, Gil was invited to participate in a jazz festival in the United States, specifically in Montana. He did so well that he amazed many musicians with whom he shared the stage that day and exchanged contact information for future events.
Later, he managed to play in San Diego and Boston, where he had the opportunity to share the stage with the Boston Power Orchestra and meet Danilo Pérez, Dizzy Gillespie’s pianist. The latter, in turn, recommended him to maestro Tito Puente, whom he met shortly thereafter.
This was how the artist managed to build a very respectable reputation in the industry through his talent. This is how he ended up playing with ”half the world” and building a great prestige as a musician and composer.
In addition to singing and playing multiple instruments, Gil has also taught low-income youth in order to spread the knowledge he has gained throughout his career. He even created an orchestra composed of children whose parents have no resources or documents in order to help them learn music and provide them with better work-study opportunities in the future. Some have even got into college and obtained scholarships thanks to this knowledge.
Parallel to these activities, he began composing and making arrangements for other artists who began to require his services.
Guapacha Productions
On the subject of Guapacha Productions, Gil says that the idea came when he began researching on the music industry, licensing, distribution and other things.
The musician saw an opportunity to achieve his dreams during the pandemic, which is when he noticed that many artists had no idea how to register a composition and how other necessary licenses to collect their royalties from their music works.
Noticing the ignorance of many young talents about the industry, he created the company Guapacha Productions, which is responsible for the musical production and arrangements for artists signed to this label.
When asked how the economic issue was handled for artists who do not have the resources to launch their career as it should be, he explained that there are three types of music distributors: major labels, labels created by the artists themselves and independent companies like Guapacha Productions. We are a group of independent artists who created our own label and we are trying to have our own distribution, so we would not be obliged to negotiate with any big distribution company” explained Gil.
Along with that, it is Guapacha Productions that will make agreements with Spotify, iTunes and other digital platforms to distribute the music of its artists without intermediaries.
The company has been so successful in these efforts that its name will soon be part of the Latin Grammys, which means that the talents signed to the label will have the chance to stand out and be finalists in the various categories.
Cheo Valenzuela’s ”Salsa Buena” Tour
With respect to the important issue of Cheo Valenzuela’s ”Salsa Buena” tour (artist signed to Guapacha Productions) in Europe, there are negotiations with some event producers in France, Spain and England so that Cheo Valenzuela can perform at various venues in those countries. There are also talks of taking the artist to Central America and the United States, specifically to San Francisco, where Gil lives.
In addition to that, Valenzuela is working on an EP with five songs by other artists and another one with five compositions created by himself. Being already a singer with a long-standing career, this last work would also become him a consacrated composer before the world. Once all this material has been released, his name is going to be considered for a Grammy nomination, which Gil has a lot of faith that he will win due to his great talent.
At the time of doing this interview, Valenzuela is taking a few days off due to the death of his mother, so we send our condolences and solidarity to him and his family at such a difficult time.
Jimmy Rodríguez ”El Salsero Mexicano” talked to ISM about his career
El Salsero Mexicano
Jimmy Rodríguez ”El Salsero Mexicano” is a talented singer born in Mexico City, but spent a lot of his childhood in the city of San Luis Potosí, where he took his first steps as an artist.
Thanks to his brother and manager, Daniel Rodriguez, we had the opportunity to talk to him and learn more about the interesting career he has had in the world of entertainment. Meet Jimmy Rodriguez and the kind answers he gave to our questions.
Beginnings of Jimmy Rodriguez in music
By the time he got to high school, his talent for singing and charismatic personality made him the ideal candidate to participate in a talent contest, in which he would come in second place the first year in which he participated.
Jimmy told us that he entered the contest to live a new experience, but he did not expect to achieve such a high place, so he felt very excited and motivated because of what he could achieve thereafter.
The following year, he managed to get the first place in the same contest because he had spent a whole year studying and getting ready for that important moment. The previous time, he had only rehearsed the days prior, so he decided to take much more time on this occasion and the effort invested paid off.
As a result of this achievement, the Group Alfa Omega saw the potential in this young man, so they contacted him and offered him to join them. This would be his first paid job in music, which began to teach him how this business worked.
He began to play with Alfa Omega in events like weddings, and baptisms, which taught him how to entertain and charm an audience, and he is very grateful for this opportunity he had. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long.
In the end, Jimmy had to leave the group due to his move to Mexico City to continue his studies.
During his learning process, he developed their skills in playing the guitar and dancing in order to perform better on stage, keeping inmind that singing was his thing and that was not going to change.
When Jimmy arrived in the United States, he began taking singing lessons for more than nine years to improve his voice. Today, he continues with his vocal learning, as there is always something new to learn in this field.
Musical genres
It is not common to find a Mexican who sings salsa professionally, and more if we take into account that many of the most famous Mexicans sing ranchera, norteño music and corridos tumbados. So, we wanted to know why he chose salsa as the genre he wanted to pursue.
Jimmy explained to us that the first time he sang with a salsa orchestra on stage, half the musicians were Colombian and the other half were Mexican. At that moment, I felt like I had found my soulmate and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Besides, dancing is very important in salsa and I have always loved to dance,” Jimmy said.
He finished by saying ”salsa combines my three most important talents, which are singing, dancing and charisma”.
When asked whether he would enter more typical genres of his country, he pointed out that he loves ballads and would have no problem in performing fusions and collaborations, but his north is still salsa for the moment.
The Voice and proceeds from the show
Being in The Voice has always been one of Jimmy’s biggest dreams, which he finally achieved a few years ago and whose judges were Luis Fonsi, Carlos Vives, Alejandra Guzman and Wisin. The best of all is that he made it to the final and he says that his secret to achieving this feat is to always be focused, to give the best of himself, to have a good relationship with show’s production and his colleagues and, above all, to choose a genre that was not typical for a Mexican.
This particularity made people call him ”El Salsero Mexicano”, a nickname he has continued using to this day with pride in what has been achieved so far.
While he was still participating in the contest, Adolescent’S Orquesta contacted him to have him in the group, which Jimmy accepted and became the first Mexican to be part of this Venezuelan orchestra. In addition to that, Jimmy kept releasing new music in order to stay alive in the public spotlight, as the singer understood that the fame that came La Voz was momentary and he had to take advantage of it.
Today, he continues touring with Adolescent’s Orquesta, working on an album with Marc Anthony‘s producer and taking singing lessons to further improve his vocal technique.
And speaking of Marc Anthony, this Puerto Rican artist has been one of the greatest inspirations for the Mexican, who wishes to one day reach that level of talent and fame, although he knows it will not be an easy way.
In addition to the already mentioned salsero, Jimmy has also been inspired and influenced by the styles of Rubén Blades and El Grupo Niche.
He has also had the opportunity to share the stage with Tito Nieves, Willie Colón, Jerry Rivera and many others.
Salsa and comparisons with other genres
When we wanted to know what Jimmy feels with the current situation of salsa, he says that he is well aware that this musical genre is not going through a good moment due to the popularity of trap, reggaeton and, more recently, corridos tumbados.
However, he ensures that he does not see this fact as something negative, but as a challenge of bringing salsa back to the place it occupied for years in past decades, so he gives his best every day to offer a fresh sound that appeals to new generations, and not only to fans aged 30 and older.
It is what has led the artist to make modifications in regard to the technical aspects, arrangements, lyrics and other details. In the specific case of lyrics, he has opted for simpler words and phrases that can be understood by anyone who listens to them. He continues to maintain the quality and heart that salsa should have, while taking into consideration what new generations are looking for.
Jimmy understands that everything happens very quickly nowadays due to social media, so he has had to adapt his style to what young people are looking for on digital platforms. That is why when he shows his music on his social networks, he always tries to communicate what he wants from the first second so as not to lose the public’s attention.
End
The conversation concludes with a thank-you to all the people who still support the salsa genre and a recommendation to new talents to never give up on their dreams and to work continuously to achieve all what they want.
Jimmy used his case as an example, remembering that he started singing on buses to help his family and now he assists international awards and reach the level that he has today, so he ensures that dreams come true and we must not lose heart until we achieved them.
The decade in which Eddie Palmieri faced the Erotic or Romantic Salsa
There are leaders in all the activities that man develops in his daily life: Sports, Labor, Student, Political, Musical, even in comic strips you can see these leaders all the time, showing the way to follow and saving humanity from its natural dangers.
El Zorro with his friend Bernardo, his father Alejandro and even with Sergeant Garcia and Corporal Reyes, saved California from the clutches of El Aguila, marking the way forward for the peace and freedom of his people.
In salsa, the same thing happens; there are musicians who set themselves up as leaders who dictate the path, the routes, the itinerary and the route where salsa should go, establishing through their musical performances where others should be guided on their way to certain triumph.
For salseros in general, Eddie Palmieri represents El Zorro of the comics, the leader to follow, the paladin of salsa, only that instead of looking like Diego de la Vega in physique, he looks more like Sergeant Garcia; backed by Ismael Quintana who would be El Cabo Reyes and Barry Rogers who would be Alejandro de la Vega.
It is no secret that Eduardo Palmieri is one of the initiators of the salsa movement in New York; but more than that, this master of the piano has established the paths along which salsa has walked since the 1960s.
Eddie was one of the first musicians to use the trombone as a determining instrument in the conformation of an orchestra, giving it a preponderance never seen before and with a sharp and hurtful sound that forced a large number of musicians to follow this type of orchestration that ended up imposing itself in the so-called salsa boom.
La Perfecta determined the path to follow; they recorded anthological albums in the 60’s that were the delirium of the salsa movement lovers; many musicians began to see and hear how the tonality of this orchestra sounded different from those big bands of the 50’s; the people of the neighborhood immediately identified with this sound because, they thought, it sounded like a neighborhood, a slum, poverty, marginality, inequality, it sounded like spite, nonconformity, injustice; in short, with this sound they perceived the most expensive needs of a population marginalized from the great plans of the State that entailed advancement and progress.
The decade of the 70’s meant the explosion of a salsa boom that swept the entire Caribbean basin; orchestras came and went; they came and disappeared; they recorded and were immediately lost in anonymity, but most of these orchestras chose the musical patterns of a common denominator to carry out their musical proposals: A Crazy, Bearded and Barrigón Orate named Eddie Palmieri, as the Colombian writer José Arteaga called him.
Eddie, throughout this decade, was practically on the sidelines of the salsa boom and it could not be otherwise: Too much irreverence from a superior musician who, being clear where salsa should walk, refused to be part of all the outrages that were committed during that salsa explosion.
Too much rebelliousness from an artist who refused to be told what he should and had to record: “Nobody tells me what I have to record and how I have to record; I’m the one who knows how to make music, the label bosses can go to hell with their desks”, an angry Palmieri would say.
The record label Epic signed him in 1978, telling him that he had complete freedom to record the music he wanted: a lie. He recorded the Lp Lucumi, Macumba and Vodoo where he was practically forced to work on an album where rhythms and trends were mixed.
He took advantage of the only freedom he was given to record two legendary songs: Colombia Te Canto and Mi Congo Te Llama.
Bad management and ill-advised decisions put an end to the whole salsa movement that was born in the 70’s and the unthinkable happened for all the lovers of this tasty way of life: the whole musical scaffolding that represented the Fania label collapsed, leaving everyone with clear eyes and without sight.
Clouds of disbelief and uncertainty hung over the entire salsa movement, musicians, producers, artist managers, arrangers, record label owners and, those who were most hurt by all this, the lovers of this superb spectrum of hard and powerful salsa that was experienced in the 70s.
In the 80’s, faced with this dilemma and the perplexity of the moment, most of the orchestras took refuge in the so-called Salsa Erotica or Salsa Monga, which although it is true that it gave oxygen to salsa in general, it inflicted a death blow to salsa dura or gorda as it has been called since the 70’s.
As if that were not enough, the merengueros with: Fernandito Villalona, Jerry Legrand, Jossie Esteban y la Patrulla 15, Wilfrido Vargas, Rubby Perez, Las Chicas del Can and stop counting, colluded with salsa erotica (as El Aguila colluded with El Magistrado), to try to wipe salsa dura off the map and at any price.
At the beginning of the 80’s; under all this conglomerate of adverse circumstances; the merengueros and “salseros eroticos” making a killing and the hard salsa artists not knowing which direction to take, Líder Palmieri appeared with his stocky and ungainly figure, a huge cigar in his mouth, his madness (we are even madder) and his voice saying clearly, categorically and confidently: “Follow me, this is the road to follow”.
And so that there would be no doubt about this call against Salsa Erotica and Merengue, in 1981 he recorded the Lp “Eddie Palmieri” which, almost 30 years after its release, we are still studying and listening to it to digest what El Sapo did in these 5 memorable songs: El Día que me Quieras; Ritmo Alegre, Paginas de Mujer, No Me Hagas Sufrir and Ven Ven.
Poster salsa on all four sides, atrabiliary percussion, indescribable trombones and trumpets, legendary voices, in short, a priceless LP. By the way, a certain current of opinion maintains that salsa is nothing more than Cuban music.
Under this prism, then we would have to say that this Palmieri’s version of Carlos Gardel’s El Día que me Quieras, is a full-fledged Tango.
In 1984 and when the “erotic” ones were widening their tentacles, Palmieri came with more fuel and that added to the bad experience lived in Venezuela with some businessmen who were determined to finish with him, musically speaking, allowed him to release the Lp “Palo Pa Rumba”, containing the pieces: 1983, Bomba de Corazón, Bajo con Tumbao, Pensando en Ti, Palo Pa Rumba and two songs dedicated to Venezuela because of the bitter and vexatious experience he had in our beloved homeland of names: Venezuela and Prohibición de Salida.
In 1985 the Lp “Solito” was released, a song that allowed Palmieri to tell the “eroticos” that there was a formula for arranging music that sounded strong and powerful, even if the content of the lyrics could suggest a certain shade of erotic salsa; that the trombones could sound energetic and strong without the sweetening and softness to which these hardened instruments were subjected in this decade; that it was not necessary to be bonitillo (as the Boricuas say) to succeed in this salsa environment and that, no matter what happened, he, Eddie Palmieri, was not going to be subjugated no matter how much salsa erotica the record companies demanded and played on the radio, emphasizing this statement with an abysmal piano solo.
To complete the LP: Justicia, Yo No Soy Guapo, Cada Vez que te Veo, Lindo Yambú and Pa Los Congos, round out his confrontation with “aquella” salsa.
To top off the decade, in 1987 he recorded the Lp “La Verdad”, in which with the piece El Cuarto in the voice of Tony Vega ratified his point of view regarding “erotic” salsa; that it is not necessary to fall into pornography to say “nice things” and arrange the music with enough flavor and sandunga and that, finally, nothing would prevent him from continuing to crush his opinion based on hard and powerful salsa.
As if that were not enough, for this album he made use of a beastly orchestra made up of four trumpets, two trombones and a saxophone that left on the acetate: Conga Yambumba, La Verdad, Lisa, Noble Cruise and Buscándote.
The result of all this decade of salsa gorda music for Eddie Palmieri? Three Grammy awards and the recognition of a whole legion of hardcore salseros, who were not intimidated by the onslaught of the “erotic” and “merenguera” fashions of the moment and decided, in the face of so much sweet, effeminate and subtle trombone, to follow in the footsteps of the leader: El Zorro, sorry I made a mistake, by El Sapo Eduardo Palmieri.
Source: Larry Daniel Cabello Guzmán
Dj. Augusto Felibertt
Read Also: Bebo Valdés is considered one of the central figures of the golden age of Cuban music
Adrian Suarez Composer, arranger, trombonist and percussionist
Trombonist Adrian Suarez’s musical career began when he was very young at a music school.
“From the age of five they put us to study theory and solfège, and four years later I managed to get my hands on an instrument.”
However, once he was able to play an instrument, he took a break to dedicate himself to baseball. “It was at the age of 14 that an uncle took me to some Latin percussion lessons and soon after that I started with the trombone.”
On April 23, 1969, in Caracas, Venezuela, Adrian Suarez was born.
Excellent composer, arranger, trombonist, percussionist and researcher.
Bachelor of Arts (UCV-1994), he studied music, trombone and composition at the Escuela Superior José Ángel Lamas.
He also studied Afro-Caribbean percussion and Afro-Venezuelan percussion (1985-1990). He was a researcher and advisor for the foundation of ethnomusicology and folklore, fundef, between 1993 and 1995.
He studied composition at the Cátedra Latinoamericana de Composición Antonio Estévez, with maestro Juan Carlos Núñez from 1994 to 1996. In Germany he obtained a master’s degree in composition.
As a professional, he has collaborated with the Papel Musical Magazine (1992); he has been a researcher and advisor for the Foundation of Ethnomusicology and Folklore (FUNDEF) under the direction of Dr. Isabel Aretz; and he has worked as a documentary advisor for visual arts exhibitions.
He studied composition with Helmut Lachenmann and Marco Stroppa. In 2001 he received his master’s degree in composition from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, Germany.
Since 1999 he has been a founding member of the international group of composers Aspect, based in Germany, and since 1991 of the Musikós Association in Caracas. He participated in the Latin American Composition Chair Antonio Estévez, under the direction of Juan Carlos Núñez (1994-1996).
He has received numerous awards, including the Unique Prize of the Manuel Enrique Pérez Díaz National Composition Competition (CONAC, Caracas, 1998) for his work “Soledades”, “Hommâge à Octavio Paz”, for two guitars and harp, the Municipal Music Prize (Caracas, 2002 and 2017), the National Culture Prize (2010) as well as the Prize of the Ibero-American Composition Competition for Symphonic Band Ibermúsicas-Oaxaca (2016).
He has worked as author and director of musical-dramaturgical shows in Venezuela, including titles such as: “Lamas siempre” (1995), “Proyecto Música e Hipótesis Aleatorias” (1997), “Atavismos del Sol y de la luna” (2000), “Maithuna” (2009), “Watunna” (2010), “Meñé Ruwa, los dueños del canto” (2011) the first musical theater play in the continent for instrumental ensemble and two shamans and “La salsa es trombón” (2012, 2015, 2017).
He led a band integrated by a group of the best musicians of the salsa scene nationwide: Tuky Torres, on piano; Carlos Rodríguez, bass; Víctor Cardona, on timbal and bongo; Freddy Rivas, congas; Johan Muñoz, trombone; Eliel Rivero, trombone. Special guests included soneros Edgar Dolor Quijada, Reinaldo Torcat, as well as a group of batá drummers.
Creator of the Ensemble Lux Aeterna, dedicated to the interpretation of spiritual and sacred works of all times. He is also founder of the Akoustikos New Music Festival in 2009.
As a trombonist, he has cultivated popular music from all over the continent, with special emphasis on Venezuelan and Caribbean music. His work as a researcher, composer and performer has allowed him to take his work and music to several countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.
“It won’t be a master class in history,” says Venezuelan musician and composer Adrián Suárez with a chuckle; in reality it is a musical show, with hints of theater and dance, that will show the public the evolution of the trombone, and its relationship with the salsa genre from prehistoric times to contemporary times.
Adrián Suárez brings sacred sounds and turns them into music.
Suárez won the Second Iberoamerican Composition Contest for Symphonic Band Ibermúsicas, in the Mexican city of Oaxaca, with his work Aerofanía, retumbos místicos para banda sinfónica.
Salsa is trombone, Suárez assures, “It is a beautiful show that is not only educational, but also seeks to inspire the audience through the values and feelings it promotes”.
The artist and researcher’s expectation is that his audience will be completely involved with the sound and ambience: “To completely move the energy, since it is not only music to dance to, it is to sit down and listen to it carefully”.
Víctor Porfirio Baloa Díaz, more commonly known as Porfi Baloa