Tito Puente: King of Latin Jazz

When I lived in NYC, back in the sixties and early seventies, it was quite usual for me to surf the radio channels and come across a station that featured music by Tito Puente, Chick Corea or Charlie Palmieri. I enjoyed all of them, but Tito Puente was the one who would stop me in my tracks. Here is a sample of something that would hold me. This is Tito Puente performing at the 1990 Newport Jazz Festival. The song may be his most well known, Oye Como Va.

If you put the words "King of Latin Jazz" in a Google search box, Tito Puente's name will come up. He was a role model and inspiration for a generation of musicians.

Tito Puente was a percussionist, but he began his career as a dancer. Here is a YouTube video from the 70s with Tito Puente (probably in his 50s at the time) showing some very impressive moves. (Video by Conghead)

Tito Puente's music was all about rhythm. There was a driving, irresistible pace to his music. It was impossible (for me) to sit still when listening to him play. It's not surprising then, given his dance origins and the driving pace of his music, that 'The King of Latin Jazz' was popular in dance venues across the world.

Here's another great piece (1973): Tito Puente performing Five Beat Mambo.

Tito Puente Way
There's a street in New York's East Harlem called Tito Puente Way. The street runs from the Harlem River to the plaza where New York's Duke Ellington memorial was erected in 1997. Ellington has been called the 'King of Jazz'. It is fitting that the two 'kings' meet at the border of Harlem and East Harlem. Puente was the son of Puerto Rican parents who had recently migrated to New York City. They lived in El Barrio, which was home to thousands of Puertorriquenos who had come before them.

Puente grew up listening to Ellington, Benny Goodman and other Big Band greats. His idol was Gene Krupa, who played with Benny Goodman.

It seems the sound of the drums was in Tito Puente's heart from his earliest years. His formal training in music began after his mother recognized his interest and talent. He first learned the drums from a local teacher who, according to Tito Puente, "knew nothing about Latin music" but who taught him the basics. He trained on the piano and, after serving in the Navy during WWII, went to Julliard.

However, Tito Puente's true musical 'training' came from the culture around him. He absorbed the Afro-Cuban influence as a teenager when he played with a drummer named Montesino in his band, Los Happy Boys. Tito Puente explained that it was Montesino who "taught him the basics of timbales" and "art of baqueteo".

Bequeteo: Timbales played to the national dance of Cuba, the Danzón. Apparently, the Danzón is no longer popular in Cuba, but the dance has been taken up by young people in Mexico. Here's a clip that shows how a couple dancing the traditional Danzón (Video offered by the website All Around the World).

Just as Tito Puente's music became a synthesis of Afro-Cuban, Afro-Caribbean, American Jazz and Latin influences, the Danzón gave rise to other dance forms that would be a synthesis of different cultures (Ex: Mambo, ChaCha and Salsa).

Tito Puente once said he was lucky to be born in East Harlem. He was exposed to a mosaic of cultural influences. In a tribute to Puente after his death, the Chicago Tribune described him as a 'crossover' who "reconciled American musical styles with Latin rhythm and fused American jazz and Cuban music". In the 50s, as he rose to fame, he also was known as El Rey del Mambo: the King of Mambo.

Here's a clip of him (1963) on the vibraphone, playing El Mambo Diablo

Tito Puente once said "I have never taken a vacation in my whole life." He explained that he never wanted the phone to stop ringing. He always wanted to know there was work. Every musician wants that, he explained.

However, I think perhaps Tito Puente never took a vacation because he loved his music. I think his music was a vacation. It is impossible to watch him and not feel his energy when he played.

Here's a clip with him playing the timbaletas.

He's not just playing an instrument in the clip, he is having a bit of a lark with us and with his drums.

Tito Puente died at age 77. He had to postpone a tour date in order to have a heart operation. He told the band to go on without him. He'd catch up. Unfortunately, time caught up with him. He never recovered from the procedure.

A young Tito Puente playing the vibraphone, 1945

• End Illustration adapted from images in the LMAC Image Library, LIL.: flower @muelli and bird @yaziris
• Timbales: by http://muzyczny.pl licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.

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