100 years of Tito Puente: the timbale master who was “much more than a salsa musician”

The name Tito Puente is associated with long nights of dancing at the Palladium in New York to the rhythms of Cuban music mambo, chachacha, son montuno or pachanga, which he carried around the world and immortalized on more than 100 records.

His death in 2000 left Hispanics without a king, because kings don’t just live in palaces. All he had to do was land his timpani on the moon.

“Shortly before his death, Tito was asked what he needed to do (do), and he said:“ Play on the moon, ”his great friend Joe Konzo, the artist’s biographer, with whom he maintained a friendship for almost 50 years, recalled with a laugh in an interview. years, which he reflected in the book, together with David A. Perez, “Mambo diablo: my journey with Tito Puente” (2012).

Bridge of Titus He was called the “king of the timpani”, but he played several instruments, including the piano, drums and trumpet, was an arranger, conductor and composer. Perhaps his most popular song is the unforgettable “Oye como va”, which guitarist Carlos Santana made a hit in the 1970s.

“Tito was a complete musician, he was the first to play the vibraphone in Latin American music, he played for four US presidents: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton,” Konzo said.

Tito Puente, boy from the neighborhood

Ernesto Antonio Puente, the son of Puerto Rican immigrants who settled in the Latin American “Spanish Harlem” or “El Barrio” in the east of the city, was born on April 20, 1923, and it was in this area that he first came into contact with Latin music, which he carried as flag. Bridge of Titus He grew up a few steps from Harlem, on the other side of Fifth Avenue, where jazz was rampant, which he merged with Latin American music.

Even as a child, he showed his musical abilities, although he wanted to be a dancer, but an injury received while riding a bicycle turned his life upside down. At an early age, he began learning to play the piano and playing in local bands.

World War II and his enlistment in the Navy forced him to take a break, and after ending the conflict and receiving a medal, he entered the Juilliard School and then Harlem, where he studied musical arrangement among other subjects.

In 1948 he formed his orchestra, the Picadilly Boys, but a little later he changed his name to the Tito Puente Orchestra, with which came his first big success, the Abaniquito mambo (1949), followed by Ran Kan Kan. ” and “Babarabaiti” in (1951) or “King Timbale” (1959) and many others.

During New York’s golden age of mambo, when the Cuban musicians’ genre was most popular in the 1950s and 1960s, Puente reigned supreme at the Palladium on 53rd Street and Broadway, where he performed with orchestras of other greats: Puerto Rican Tito Rodriguez and Cuban Frank Grillo “Machito”.

in 1979 Bridge of Titus, who won 5 Grammy awards, brought his music to Japan. In 1997, he received the National Medal of Arts, which has been added to a long list of awards. According to Konzo, the artist, who never forgot his origins, recorded 125 albums, not counting collaborations, and composed at least a thousand songs.

He collaborated with renowned Latin American and American musicians, established a scholarship for talented young people without funds and provided opportunities for women in his orchestra including Sophie, Carmen Mirabal, Celia Cruz and La Lupe, and recorded a Latin jazz album with La India. he points to Aurora Flores, who remembers that her first task for Latin Magazine was to interview an artist she has since become friends with.

“Puente was a boy who came from El Barrio, from the poor, who stood out in the world, who set the pattern for what a “big band” should be, and who wrote all kinds of music, although the one that interested him most was Cuban “, – says the author and specialist in Latin American music.

Timpani Master

He emphasizes that he paid special attention to the timpani, removing them from the back of the orchestra and placing them closer to the stage and drum, raising them 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, says that being in his orchestra “was a school for him. The best went there and studied. musician from El Barrio. Thanks to his name, he won worldwide respect.

“He was demanding when it came to playing, you had to respect the stage, do it well. Off the stage, he was the most modest, liked to joke and was the best friend, ”he recalled.

(As reported by EFE)

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