Tito Puente, the ‘King of Latin Music’, would have turned 100 tomorrow – El Nacional

New York: The name of Tito Puente, who celebrates his centenary tomorrow, evokes long nights of dancing at the Palladium in New York to the rhythm of Cuban music: mambo, chacha, son montuno or pachanga, among the fans. around the world and immortalized in more than 100 records.

His death in 2000 left Latinos without their king, because kings aren’t just in palaces. He just needed to plant his barrels on the moon.

“Just before he died, they asked Tito what he should do (to do) and he said ‘play to the moon,'” recalls his great friend Joe Konzo, the artist’s biographer, with whom he befriended for years. With a laugh in an interview with EFE. Almost 50 years old, which he captured in the book, with David A. Perez “Mambo Diablo – My Journey with Tito Puente” (2012).

Puente was called the “King of the timpani” but he played many instruments, including piano, drums, and trumpet, and was an instrumentalist, conductor, and composer. Perhaps his most popular song is the memorable 1970s hit “Oye como va” by guitarist Carlos Santana.

You can read: Doodle honors the legacy of percussionist Tito Puente

“A complete musician, Tito was the first to play the vibraphone in Latin music, and played for four presidents of the United States—Jimmy Carter, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton,” Konzo said.

He was born from the neighborhood

Ernesto Antonio Puente, the son of Puerto Rican immigrants who settled in “Spanish Harlem” or Latino “El Barrio” in the east of the city, was born on April 20, 1923 and it was in the neighborhood where he had his first contact with music. Latin, which he carried as a flag.

Puente grew up a few steps from Harlem, across from Fifth Avenue, where jazz was rife, which fused with Latin music.

Since he was young, he showed his musical abilities, although he wanted to be a dancer, but an injury he sustained while riding a bicycle turned his life around. At an early age, he began studying piano and playing with local bands.

World War II and his entry into the Navy put him into a hiatus, and after ending the conflict and receiving a medal, he attended the Juilliard School, then Harlem, where he studied musical arrangements, among other subjects.

In 1948 he formed the “Piccadilly Boys” Orchestra but soon afterwards changed its name to the Tito Puente Orchestra, with which came his first major success, the mambo “Apanikito” (1949), after which he heard “Ran Kan Kan”. and “Babarabaiti in” (1951) or “The King of the Timbale” (1959), and many more.

During the golden age of mambo in New York, when the genre that came through Cuban musicians was most popular in the 1950s and 1960s, Puente headlined at the Palladium on 53rd Street and Broadway, partnering with other orchestras. The greats – Puerto Rican Tito Rodriguez and Cuban Frank “Machito” Grillo.

In 1979, Puente, winner of 5 Grammy Awards, brought his music to Japan. In 1997 he was awarded the National Medal of Arts, which added to his long list of awards. Konzo explained that the artist, who has not forgotten his origin, has recorded 125 albums that do not include collaborations, and has composed no less than a thousand songs.

He collaborated with prominent Latin and American musicians, created scholarships for talented young men without resources, opened opportunities for women in his band, including Sophie, Carmen Mirabal, Celia Cruz, and La Lube, and recorded a Latin jazz album with La India, points out. Aurora Flores, who never forgets that her first assignment for Latin magazine was to interview the artist, with whom she has been great friends ever since.

“Puente was a boy who came out of El Barrio, out of the poor, who stood out in the world, who set a pattern for what a ‘big band’ should be, and he wrote all kinds of music, although the most he was interested in was Cuban,” said the author and Latin music specialist. “.

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He asserts that he gave a prominent place to the tabani by removing it from the back of the orchestra and placing it in front of the stage and the drum, raising it to a level that no one had done before. “Tito respected the drum,” he says.

Percussionist Johnny “Dandy” Rodriguez, who has known him for four decades, assures that being part of his band “was a school. This is where the best passed and learned. He brought music to the whole world and that’s something important for a Latino musician from El Barrio. He gained respect.” globally to his name.”

“He was demanding when it came to playing, you had to respect the stage, and do it well. Offstage he was the most humble, he loved to joke around and he was the best friend.”