Everyone gets the opportunity to listen to influential musicians through their recordings, but performing with a legendary musical artist provides a young musician with a unique learning opportunity. The daily exposure to a visionary performer allows a young musician to soak in sounds and techniques, as well as examine the performer’s artistic choices. The young artist gets to examine the bandleader’s repertoire choices, they gain an understanding of the leader’s arrangement techniques, and they learn the artist’s compositions intimately. The younger musician watches the established artist lead a variety of band members, sees how they interact with the public, and learns the ropes of running an ensemble. They inevitably gain invaluable opportunities as soloists, arrangers, composers, and leaders, all with essential feedback from their mentor. The total experience becomes an intensive school, where an observant student can raise their artistry to a high level. After an extended period of time with any influential artist, the younger musician leaves the experience wiser and ready to make their own artistic statement. Very few musicians get the opportunity to perform with legendary artists for decades; it’s a privilege and honor that leaves the younger musician with a priceless gift.

Jose Madera received an incredible gift that stands as a dream to most Latin Jazz musicians as he spent 31 years performing alongside the king of Latin music, Tito Puente. From 1969 to 2000, Madera served as an important part of Puente’s band, learning from the master and building an impressive knowledge base. While Madera played congas, he heard Puente’s incredible timbale technique and legendary phrasing, giving him a deep insight into the Puente sound. He learned the classic Puente compositions from the inside, getting a powerful perspective upon Puente’s composing and arranging style. Madera became a part of Latin music history as he performed on a number of important Puente recordings, pushing the groove with a powerful tumbao. The experience built his reputation as an important voice in Latin music, opening the door to write and arrange extensively for a number of salsa labels during the 1970s. When Puente shrunk his ensemble to meet a jazz oriented audience, Madera stayed by his side, a valued sideman and now an essential part of the Puente sound. As the elder statesman reached old age, he handed the reigns of the legendary band to Madera, who served as Puente’s musical director. Madera’s time with Puente is an impressive piece of the Latin music world, providing a rich view into the Puente legacy.

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LATIN JAZZ CORNER: What was the date that you joined Tito’s band and how did you get the gig?

JOSE MADERA: I can’t remember the date exactly; I would say that it was the fall of 1969. I joined only to play during the week, and then eventually when I left Machito, I stayed obviously on. And Tito’s band, to keep a band working like that, they had to work seven nights a week. For example, on Monday night, they would play at the Pan America Motor Inn in Queens and we did that for seventeen years, I did it for seventeen years anyway, they had been doing it before that. Tuesday they were playing a club in Brooklyn called The Revelation on Fourth Avenue. On Wednesday we would play the Corso in New York - Manhattan. Thursday we would play a place called the Hardar on Staten Island. And then Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were the Latin dances - we would play La Cahora Henyo, La Casa Boriquen, or whatever was going on in New York. And then Monday, it would recycle and start again. That was the only way to keep a band like that working, you know. The amount of jobs in New York weren’t . . . I mean, there were a lot of clubs in New York, but it was kind of hard to put Tito Puente in those clubs. Because Tito was not a $500 a night band.

LJC: The band worked pretty steadily into the ‘70s, but it seemed like it didn’t really record too much.

JM: Yea, we did one in ’70 and then we didn’t do one until 1972, which was Para Los Rumberos. A couple of months later we did the last Celia one, which was Algo Especial Para Recordar. And then Tito didn’t record until ’73, which was Tito Puente and His Concert Orchestra, which I didn’t play on. And then, I don’t think we recorded for a couple of years until we did the Legend one.

LJC: The album from the ‘70s that really pops out at me is Homenaje a Beny Moré from 1978. It seems to me that the band really comes alive on that album and it seemed like the recordings really picked up a bit after that. Did the recording signal a change in Tito’s career at that time?

JM: You know, I don’t know if it did or not. Tito kept working and we kept doing things. You know, one thing about Tito – Tito felt that his greatest competition was Tito Rodriguez. When Tito Rodriguez passed away in 1973, Tito Puente let up a little bit on the reigns on that whole thing and just took it easy. He felt he had nothing left to prove to anybody. So those recordings on Fania, we did quite a few, but then he got more heavily into the Latin Jazz stuff and signed Concord, and started doing those records.

LJC: So you were working steadily with Tito, how did you find time to work so much with Fania? You were arranging, playing – you must have been busy! What were some of your favorite sessions, either arranging or playing during that time?

JM: Any one of those Fania things - the Louie Rameriz ones, the Pacheco ones, the Tito Allen ones, the Ismael Miranda ones, the Azuquita ones – all those sessions. There were like thirty productions done in New York for a while – not counting the ones done in Puerto Rico – these were done in New York. I was involved in, I would say, about twenty of them, plus I was teaching at Boy’s Harbor at the time. So I would leave home at about 10 a.m. and I wouldn’t get home until 4 a.m. the next day, and continue, you know? The recordings were done in the afternoon, then you were off to work – I’ll give you a perfect example. On this particular day, there were three recordings that had to be done. The morning session was one of Louie Rameriz’s albums, and then in the late afternoon we would run over from the Fania studio to wherever this other one was, where Santos Colon and Jorge Calandrelli were conducting a bolero record. Then at night we would rush back and do a Pete “El Conde” record, whether I had to play on it or do arrangements on it. It was kind of crazy, and it went on for a while. So, you know, we didn’t get rich – other people got rich off it, but we didn’t. That’s always one of the problems of the arts; you never really make the money you should.

LJC: Tito moved to the Concord Record label in the early eighties and started using a small group Latin Jazz format. How did that change things for the band and what musical differences came through?

JM: Well, we started playing a lot of jazz standards with Latin rhythms. The band started working, going to numerous jazz festivals all over the world – because the band was smaller; it was three horns. I don’t know how many albums we did at Concord – I didn’t do the first one, but I did all the rest of them. I think that there were seven or eight, I don’t really remember. It did take the band to the strangest places. It took us to New Zealand, Australia, Bali, Indonesia, and the Philippines. We went to Japan ten times, we went to Hong Kong, we went everywhere, you know? It was pretty good with that – we traveled extensively.

Eventually Tito really couldn’t get used to three horns, so he added on everybody. The last six or seven years of it was the whole band again, playing all his music.

LJC: That was all those great live recordings, right, like Mambo Birdland?

JM: Yea, well even before that, when he had left Concord and went to Ralph Marcado records (Tropijazz), he had wanted to hear a larger sound, so he added everybody on. So that three horn thing really stopped. It went from three horns to five horns, and then it went back to seven. So he just, put everything back. He was earning quite a bit of money in his last seven or eight years, so it didn’t make a difference. He wanted to hear everybody – that’s what he wanted, so that’s what he did.

LJC: You were Puente’s musical director – when did that happen?

JM: When Jim Frisuara had a stroke, got sick, and couldn’t continue, I did that. We would talk about what we were going to record and all those things. I would decide what we were going to play onstage. That kind of stuff.

LJC: Did you get a sense that you were shaping the band or was it really you were following Puente’s standards?

JM: I don’t think you could really shape that band any more than it was already. You know, that was a pretty much set in the way of the sound of the band. So when you obviously wrote stuff for that band, you wanted to write to have that same style and sound . . . otherwise it’s not Tito Puente, you know?

LJC: When Puente passed in 2000, that was a loss for the Latin Jazz world – working so closely with him over the years, could you share something that you took away from your years with him?

JM: Well, the greatest lesson in working in that band was the discipline that we developed. As far as approaching music, approaching how to play, approaching performances, approaching rehearsal, approaching recording. The tremendous discipline that there was in that band, which a few years later got a little lax, as I said, when Tito Rodriguez died. But when I got in there, man, you know, if you came in with the wrong tie, you were sent home. If you came in with the wrong shirt – go home! No messing around, you know, that’s part of it. You can not achieve the type of performance; Tito’s wrote in a style which is percussive ensemble writing, and everyone has to play that right on the dime to be able to create that sound and that swing, you know? And so you need a certain amount of discipline from the guys. Just like anything, if you don’t have the discipline, you don’t get it. And in that sense, we really learned that craft from him and that of course, continues on today in the Latin Giants of Jazz orchestra where we try to keep that particular style alive. And you can’t travel around with 21 people and not have a certain amount of discipline and decorum on the stage or whatever you happen to be doing musical wise.

I would have to say that, and of course, his playing was spectacular up until a certain time. As he got older, he just started to go downhill with it. But when I got in, Tito had black hair and stuff. He was a different player. I often say to most people, that if you’re not sixty years old or older, you didn’t see Tito Puente. Because what you saw later on was a little bit of a shell of what he was as far as playing and everything. I have two photos in my home here – I have a photo of Tito in the Palladium playing and then I have a later photo, as he was older. On the one, I have Tito Puente the musician, and on the second one, I have Tito Puente the comedian.

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In Part 3 of our interview, we’ll be looking at The Latin Giants of Jazz, Madera’s post-Puente project that he leads in conjunction with Johnny Rodriguez and Mitch Frohman. While Puente may have left the music world, The Latin Giants are keeping the big band mambo Palladium sound alive - and they’re going strong. Come back tomorrow, you’ll want to check this out!

Don’t forget, you can find Part 1 of our interview with Madera HERE

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Check Out These Related Posts:
Album of the Week: Live At The 1977 Monterey Jazz Festival, Tito Puente & His Orchestra
Legendary Latin Jazz Bandleaders: Tito Puente
Revisiting Latin Jazz Classics: Live At The Montreux Jazz Festival 1980, The Latin Percussion Jazz Ensemble
Blending Latin Jazz & Pop Culture: Tito Puente on Video

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