The road to a successful music career includes an unexpected number of twists and turns.  Some musicians face artistic hurdles, trying to find their voice in a world that values different musical aesthetics.  Other artists encounter a struggle to find an audience, playing a style that steps outside the realm of popular culture.  Still more musicians experience financial hardships, finding it difficult to support themselves through their performance career.  Some artists persevere, paying their dues over the course of years until they reach their goals.  The pressure of the ever changing road overwhelms other musicians, forcing them to alter the plans or leave music altogether. Everyone follows their own path, but without a doubt, they all encounter their share of challenges.

Conguero Poncho Sanchez experienced his share of ups and downs throughout his career.  An early love for rhythm and blues led him to work as a singer with a variety of local Los Angeles groups.  His sisters helped foster a connection to Latin Jazz, eventually driving Sanchez to buy a set of congas.  He quickly became addicted to the thrill of percussion, building an impressive set of chops that earned him a gig with one of his heroes, vibraphonist Cal Tjader. Over the course of seven and a half years, Sanchez toured the world with Tjader, gaining a keen insight into Latin Jazz and garnering some well deserved respect as a musician. Just as Sanchez seemed on an upward path towards lifelong success, tragedy struck on a tour of the Philippines. During the trip, Tjader suffered a massive heart attack and at the young age of 56, he left the world. Crushed by the loss of his musical mentor and lost without a regular gig, Sanchez’s journey changed drastically. He focused upon his own band and began a new path, destined to lead him towards a new level of success.

In the third part of our interview with Poncho Sanchez, we join Sanchez on his journey to build his band into the powerful unit that we know today. Make sure that you check out the background to the story - in Part 1 of the interview, you’ll hear about Sanchez’s early development and in Part 2, you can read about his path into the Tjader band. Then look below and follow Sanchez as he pays his dues and becomes one of the Latin Jazz world’s primary figures!

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PONCHO SANCHEZ: Cal was gone and I had no work; I was just putting odds and ends together. I was trying to find jobs playing, but it was hard to find gigs. So I decided to go back to work during the week and play on the weekends, just like I used to before I played with Cal. I went back to the old foundry – that dirty, hot job – because that was the only thing that I knew how to do. When I went back, the same boss was still there – this was like eight years later. He gave me a big hug when he saw me and he said, “Poncho! How are you doing? I heard about Cal Tjader, but, you’re going to do good by yourself.” And I said, “No, that’s the problem. That’s why I’m here, I’m asking for my old job back.” The guy said, “No, you can’t be talking the truth.” I said, “Monguito’s getting big, I can’t pay my rent – I need a job.” I had worked there for five years, and they knew me very well. He said, “Come here, Poncho, let me show you something.” So I went down the hall with this guy and he took me to the lunch room. Up on one whole wall of that lunch room, there was every newspaper write-up and magazine article that I had ever been in since I joined Cal Tjader’s band. He said, “Look at this wall here. That’s you. You’re our hero. All these guys that worked with you, you’re their hero.” I had never dreamed that they would even think of me like that. The boss said, “Poncho, that’s what I’m telling you – you can’t come back here. We’re nobody, you’re world famous now.” I said, “I’m sorry Joe, I need the job.” “If you really want the job, you’ve got it. Go get your boots today and you can start working tomorrow”

So I went back to work at the foundry for about nine months. After that, the company folded and they laid everyone off. Then I started driving a liquor truck; I had a friend that drove a liquor truck and he got me a job as a part-time driver. I’d work three days out of the week and play two days with The Poncho Sanchez Band. Even when I had four albums out, I was driving that liquor truck. I went to Concord Records and I recorded Sonando and Bien Sabroso. Bien Sabroso got nominated for a Grammy; then I did two more records and I was still driving that liquor truck. I didn’t have enough money to make my ends meet every month by just playing gigs with my band.

I had the Poncho Sanchez band, but I didn’t have a manager - I was doing everything by myself. I was trying to book the band and making phone calls during the daytime. I would collect health, welfare and pension from the band every week because we all belonged to the musician’s union. I was trying to do things right, but the money was really thin for everybody. So I know what it’s all about, I used to do everything for this band. I used to manage it, book it, deal with the union – I did everything at the beginning. Now, thank god, I have a personal manager, a manager that runs my office, helps with all the bills, and pays the band. I have a band manager, I have a personal manager, and of course I have a booking agent, and a travel agent - you need all those things to have a business.

LATIN JAZZ CORNER: When did things take off? When were you able to leave the day gig and make ends meet with the band?

PS: I don’t remember exactly, but I had about four or five albums out by the time that I cut loose any type of day gig. I have twenty-four CDs out now, and it took about four or five CDs before I could cut everything loose and just play music. So, I paid my dues. I worked during the week and played music on the weekend. Everyone thought that I was a big star and yet I was driving a liquor truck during the daytime. I was taught as a young boy that you do whatever your family needs. My family needed to eat and I needed to pay my rent so that’s what I did. I went out and found work.

LJC: One of the first Poncho Sanchez albums that I discovered was Chile con Soul, which had Tito Puente on it. It seemed like that was the start of a tradition of bringing guest artists into the albums. How did you start doing that and what does that do for you to bring in those big figures to play with you?

PS: By then I had been in the business for long enough where I had met all these people and they were pretty good friends of mine. Every time that I would see Tito Puente, we would hang out and talk. Of course, he knew that I had played with Cal Tjader and he loved Cal Tjader. They were very good friends. Cal introduced me to a lot of people – Dizzy Gillespie and people like that.

I would have a meeting with Concord every time that we were going to make an album to see what we wanted to do with that record. Concord said, “Well, Poncho, you should use a guest.” So I said, “What if we get Tito Puente to be our guest?” They said, “Call him, see if he’ll do it. We’ll pay him for it.” So I called Tito and he said, “Yea, Poncho, I’ll do one or two songs.” Then I had Concord call him and they worked out the negotiations money-wise. Tito was very generous; he just wanted to be on the record with us and help us out. That was very cool.

I had played with Freddie Hubbard in both his band and our band. So I asked Freddie one day if he would play on a record with us (Cambios) and he said yes. We had to negotiate the price, because you have to pay him a little money to be on the record – regular business. From there on in, Concord said, “Poncho, the records are selling well, they are all paying themselves back.” Let me tell you – if you are going to record a CD with someone and it doesn’t pay itself back, they’re not going to sign you again. They’re in it to make money just like everyone else is. So, thank god all my records were paying themselves back pretty quickly, even with the special guests on there and everything. So, they would say, “Hey, let’s do another one.” We just kept doing them like that and now we have number 24. Once again, we have a guest on this one – we have Arturo Sandoval on Psychedelic Blues. But it’s funny, the record that won the Grammy in 1999, Latin Soul, it was just live, my band only. That made me feel very proud, because I didn’t even have guest on that record and that’s the one that won the Grammy. I felt very proud of that because it was just my band.

LJC: You’ve always had a great band, and you’ve done such great things with them. But there were two albums in the mid-nineties that seemed to me like real milestones for the group. The first one was Soul Sauce: Memories of Cal Tjader. It was so personal and it really connected you back to that history with Cal. What were you trying to give people and what did you want people to take away about Cal?

PS: First of all, I just wanted people to enjoy his music once again. The arrangements were a little different. We tried not to make them too different than the original Cal Tjader tunes or the way that he recorded them. All we did was add some horns and some background parts; there were a couple of spots where the horns would play the melody and then the vibes would take a solo. I didn’t want to change it too much from his real sound; I wanted to get as close as I could to the real Cal Tjader sound. That’s why I used Ruben Estrada on vibes – he loved Cal Tjader as much as I did and respected him as much as I did. Ruben Estrada actually had that sound and that touch like Cal. Not exactly, because nobody has the real Cal Tjader sound other than Cal Tjader. But Ruben got awfully close. He loved him deeply, just like I did, so I knew that was the right guy for the job. We wanted to change the arrangements just enough to make it fresh and new sounding and then do a tribute to Cal Tjader so that people could once again enjoy his music. That was the main thing behind that.

As a matter of fact I had his actual mallets, the Cal Tjader mallets that I took from Cal on one of our road trips. There used to be a company called Good Vibes – they made mallets and they made the Cal Tjader model. The tips are blue; he had red ones that were a little harder and orange ones that were a little softer, all to get a different tone on the vibes. Well, I got the blue ones because he used those almost all the time. They were medium-hard mallets. I got them from him and I had them all those years. When we started rehearsing with Ruben Estrada for the record, I took the mallets with me one day and I showed them to him. He went “Holy . . . these are Cal Tjader’s mallets!” They had his name right on there. He went “Poncho, I know what these are, these are the Cal Tjader model. They don’t make these anymore.” I said, “Well, do you want to use them?” He used them for every rehearsal and he used those mallets on the record. Then after the recording was over, we were all celebrating, because we knew it was a good record and we were all very happy with it. He came back and he handed me the mallets like he was carrying a baby - two hands, open palms, with the mallet sticks in his hands. “Poncho, here’s Cal Tjader’s mallets back. Those are precious” I got them and I took them to a framing place. Now they’re inside a frame so that no one can touch them anymore. I’ve got them in a frame with an old plaque – an award that Cal Tjader got as Vibes - New Star, Jazz Master from Downbeat in 1955. It’s an plaque that Cal had, and I put one of his old CD covers in there; it’s like a box frame with the two mallets.

LJC: The other album that really struck me is Conga Blue, that you did with Mongo Santamaria. I remember seeing your band with Mongo at Yoshi’s in Oakland – it was an incredible show. Seeing the two of you up there together, you could really hear the influence. How was that experience for you and what did you take away from Mongo?

PS: That was the best, the top of my life right there. Just imagine a kid that wants to be like the greatest baseball player. He was next to me the whole week and we played, traded back and forth . . . I mean, I was in seventh heaven, every night with him. By then we were good friends. Before that, when I was younger, I was very scared and nervous to be around him. He really didn’t talk too much, Mongo was the kind of guy that was very private. He wouldn’t talk to you unless he felt comfortable with you. A lot of times he would just shake people’s hands, say, “Thank you very much,” and that’s about it. He didn’t really open up or talk to you. It was like that for several years; I could hardly get next to him.

I remember at the old Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach when I was just a kid, even before I played with Cal Tjader. He was at the bar, so I went up to him and I told him, “Mongo, I play congas a little bit.” I told him about a song he played on a record and I said, “Is this the way you play the pattern?” I started playing it with my hands on the top of the bar. He looked at me and he said, “Mas o menos,” which means more or less. I waited for instruction after that, like more or less, but you should do this, do that, or you’re doing this wrong. He just said “Mas or menos.” That was it, he didn’t talk anymore to me. I said, “Thank you maestro” and walked away!

That was at the beginning, but by the time that I made that record with him . . . forget about it, we were good friends. Then he was very open to me. I would talk to him and ask him stories about when he grew up in Cuba and when he first came to New York, and all that stuff. Then he would talk to me. Of course, after he knew that I named my son after him, well, then he knew that I wasn’t faking.

I learned a great deal just by being around him. When he would play with us, I would just see a master sitting next to me. I could hear the tones coming out of his drums, the feeling, the sound. I wanted to be like that so much – I wanted to sound like him, he was my hero. So I would smack those things and people would tell me, “Poncho, you sound like Mongo! You’ve got that same sound” To get that sound, you’ve got to play hard. There’s a lot of great, wonderful conga players today that use different techniques. Giovanni Hidalgo is a good friend of mine also and he’s a monster, he’s incredible. His speed – he’s fast. I can’t even think as fast as he plays. I tell him that too – “Giovanni, how do play so fast, like lightning?” I don’t come from that school, I come from the old heavy hitters. I slap it differently. I just learned the old style very well, and to me, that’s what I do, that’s my style. And I’m going to hold the fort. I come out of that school - I learned from watching Mongo.

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Make sure that you check out Part 1 of the LJC interview with Poncho Sanchez and read some background on Sanchez’s early days. You can find it HERE.

You’re also going to want to read Part 2 of the LJC interview with Poncho Sanchez, where you’ll hear about his first steps into Latin percussion and his gig with Cal Tjader. You can find it HERE.

Check back tomorrow for Parts 4 of our interview where we’ll discuss Sanchez’s most recent projects. You don’t want to miss this!

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Check Out These Related Posts:
Latin Jazz Conversations: John Calloway (Part 2)
Latin Jazz Conversations: Jose Madera (Part 2)
Latin Jazz Conversations: Mitch Frohman (Part 2)
8 Tito Puente Albums To Kickstart Your Latin Jazz Record Collection

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