Our calendars turn towards April tomorrow bringing with them a yearly tradition, Jazz Appreciation Month. It’s thirty government-sanctioned days that are officially dedicated to the history and future of everything associated with jazz. Some of us celebrate jazz 365 days a year, and for us, Jazz Appreciation Month seems a bit redundant. We can easily turn a deaf ear to the proceedings and wonder why the world doesn’t share our daily passion for jazz. It’s important to remember that most people don’t have a conscious connection to the music for one reason or another. This is unfortunate, but it’s also reality. It’s also a prime reason to embrace Jazz Appreciation Month and ride the momentum into a wider public appeal for the music.
In order to reach people outside the jazz community, it’s important to look at the situation from a different vantage point for a while. We know what most people reading this blog are hearing, they sit on the side of the fence that already appreciates jazz. So let’s consider the other side of the fence for a minute. Non-jazz listeners spend their time hooking their ears up to something else, but what’s drawing their attention lately? If we take a look at YouTube, there’s one song above all others that has pulled people in – Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” It’s a poorly written pop song with laughable lyrics and a barely listenable performance, but a current look at YouTube marks “Friday” with 67,926,399 views. Plenty of people have stated their negative opinions about the song, but they’re still listening to it instead of some quality Latin Jazz. As we move into Jazz Appreciation Month, it’s time to start thinking about moving the attention from Black onto Latin Jazz.
Black is a pretty easy target, but I’m not here to take pot shots today. Instead, I’m going to take a distinctly different and hopefully less cynical perspective. Black is a teenager with questionable musical skills that popped out of nowhere and grabbed the world’s attention; what can we learn from her story? More importantly, how can we apply those lessons to our efforts to promote Latin Jazz during Jazz Appreciation Month? Sometimes a completely new viewpoint can help provide a breath of fresh air, so with that in mind, here’s some thoughts about Black, “Friday,” and Latin Jazz.
———- Video Is A Very Powerful Tool For Spreading The Word About Music
Black didn’t spend years building a fan base by performing her music in dingy bars across the country; she simply made a video. For better or worse, everyone knows who Black is and can sing the tune to “Friday” based upon that video. Video is a bigger part of music than it ever has been before – we can pull up videos on our computers, phones, or televisions, exposing us to a massive world of music. YouTube is filled with a seemingly endless supply of Latin Jazz videos, ranging from classic clips featuring artists like Tito Puente and Cachao to modern videos with artists like Dafnis Prieto. Take the opportunity during Jazz Appreciation Month to share some of these great videos with your friends. Post an outstanding Latin Jazz performance on your Facebook wall every day. E-mail links to your friends with some background information about the artist. Send out great video picks daily through Twitter. Make this sort of commitment and there’s a good chance that you’ll turn someone onto some great Latin Jazz.
The Re-Mix Is Almost As Powerful As The Original
Have you seen the multitude of hilarious retakes on “Friday” throughout YouTube? People have made their own music videos for the song, mashed it together with death metal vocals, and posted their own performances of the song. This phenomenon is not isolated to “Friday” either – this sort of activity runs wild on YouTube. Do you have some video skills that you could put to the test during Jazz Appreciation Month? Pick your favorite Latin Jazz tune and create a music video for us. Develop something that catches people’s attention – something creative that adds a story to the song. Or maybe turn one of your favorite Latin Jazz tunes upside down with a hip-hop remix – why not? Many times, these alternate versions send people running back to the originals. If you’re a musician, record yourself playing your favorite Latin Jazz tune from your perspective, maybe even write your own. Say a word or two about the original artist and tell the world how they influenced your playing. Your perspective will add some momentum to the music and introduce it to your circle of friends, giving a much-needed boost to Latin Jazz.
Humor Gets People’s Attention
I’m pretty sure that Black was taking herself seriously on “Friday,” but a lot of people spent hours laughing along with the video. In a big part, it’s the humor behind the song and the video that sent the numbers behind this song skyrocketing into the stars. We may all have different opinions about music, but we can all take the time to laugh together – it’s a bonding experience that helps us feel connected. When applying this to Latin Jazz, things are a little different; there’s not a ridiculous element embedded in the music. I think the jazz community (myself certainly included in this) takes itself a little too seriously though. There’s got to be something that we can laugh about and Jazz Appreciation Month is the perfect time to do it. How about a funny video of someone doing a silly dance over a classic Latin Jazz tune? You could post an amusing story about an encounter with a famous Latin Jazz musician on your Facebook page. Send a serious of word plays out across Twitter that turn terms like clave, salsa, or tumbao into memorable one-liners. You may have to be careful that you don’t fall into the trap of taking cheap shots at the artists or musicians for a laugh; that’s a self-defeating action that goes against the spirit of the music. When you share humor with an underlying respect for your subject though, you simply make people smile and invite them into Latin Jazz.
Word Of Mouth Is Really, Really, Really Powerful
The jazz world often laments the lack of big budgets to spread the word about their music, but look at Black – she was a teenager with some bucks to spend on a song and a video before “Friday.” Once the video hit YouTube, it wasn’t a massive promo push from a wealthy music company that sent millions of views towards “Friday,” it was word of mouth. Some of this chatter about the video was positive and a lot of it was negative, but it snowballed into a mass momentum of visibility. This viral energy tends to spread quickly across the internet, and you never quite know what will spark it. Take the opportunity during Jazz Appreciation Month to tell as many people as you can about a great Latin Jazz tune. Whether it’s through e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, your cell phone, or good old-fashioned face-to-face conversation, get out there and talk about Latin Jazz this month. Once these people encounter something powerful in Latin Jazz, they’re bound to tell someone about it too; it’s simply the social nature of people. Whether the word gets put out to millions of people or even just a few, you’ve made a difference – a group of people have been turned onto Latin Jazz that hadn’t heard it before.
Put Yourself Out There And Take A Chance
While I may not be overflowing with admiration for Black’s songwriting and singing skills, I’ve got major respect for her sheer nerve. She took a chance on something that she believed in and put it out into the world. Some people might be laughing, but Black caught the world’s attention, landing her on The Tonight Show, Billboard’s Top 100, and more. I’m not encouraging anyone to take mediocre music skills to a national audience, but stepping outside yourself and taking a risk is always a good thing. It’s not always easy to be an advocate for a marginalized music like Latin Jazz, but it’s important to take that chance during Jazz Appreciation Month. Share an Irakere CD with your rocker friends and see what they think about Cuba’s greatest fusion band. Take a friend out to a Poncho Sanchez or Eddie Palmieri concert and proceed to dance the night away. Turn on YouTube and watch some clips from Arturo O’Farrill And The Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra with your teenager and get their opinion. If you’re a musician, call your local school and volunteer to stop by and talk about Latin Jazz with the music students. When you share the music that you love with someone and they don’t hold the same opinion, you’re taking a risk. Passion is contagious though, and there’s a good chance that you’ll open them up to a new appreciation for Latin Jazz.
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Jazz Appreciation Month is a great time to get people excited about Latin Jazz and help spread the word about this important music. Every action counts and helps ensure the future of survival of the style. As Ms. Black will surely remind us, tomorrow is Friday, and that’s the first day of Jazz Appreciation Month. Plan ahead and think about what you can do to make a difference during Jazz Appreciation Month – let us know what you’re going to do in the comments! Let’s all take this opportunity to support Latin Jazz and share it with the world!
In an era where the government is working to restrict funding for the National Endowment For The Arts Jazz Masters awards, it’s important to celebrate every last recognition of the major figures in Latin Jazz. Over the years, it’s been hard to live with the number of important Latin Jazz musicians overlooked by the world. As the current administration aims to balance the budget with swift cuts to any official acknowledgement of jazz musicians’ contributions, the future spotlight upon underexposed Latin Jazz artists seems to be growing dim. Widespread celebration of any particular artist doesn’t necessarily equate to success, but it certainly helps kick their career into high gear. So many Latin Jazz musicians deserve this recognition, but so few receive it; so things feel right when an honor falls upon a deserving party.
Trombonist, bandleader, and composer Papo Vazquez was recently awarded the title of Latino Master by The National Endowment Of The Arts, a long overdue affirmation of his important career. Born in Philadelphia in 1958, Vazquez spent his childhood between the city and Puerto Rico, building his connection to the trombone through school bands. Still a young teenager, Vazquez found himself working on Philadelphia’s Latin music scene, where he balanced local gig with jobs from visiting artists such as Eddie Palmieri. During this time, he also discovered jazz, inspired by recordings from John Coltrane and J.J. Johnson. When he reached 17, he moved to New York, where he became an important part of the city’s active Latin music scene and he began studying jazz with Johnson. As the city’s Latin Jazz scene expanded, Vazquez pushed it ahead, working alongside pianist Hilton Ruiz, serving as a founding member of Jerry Gonzalez’s Fort Apache Band, and adding to the massive trombone attack of Conjunto Libre. Back in Puerto Rico, he helped form Batacumbele, an influential combination of Puerto Rican traditions, popular dance music, jazz, and fusion. He also spent time on the island leading jazz groups, where he mixed elements of Puerto Rican folkloric music into his repertoire. Vazquez later returned to New York, where he played with Tito Puente and began solidifying his concept of bomba jazz. He recorded his first album as a leader in 1993, Breakout, a distinctive display of Latin Jazz power. He returned in 1999 with At The Point – Vol. 1, a live recording that featured musicians such as bassist Andy Gonzalez, saxophonist Michael Brecker, and drummer Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez. Vazquez quickly followed with At The Point – Vol. 2, helping shape his group into Pirates Troubadours, his afro-rican jazz band. With this group, Vazquez liberally integrated Puerto Rican rhythms into his music, resulting in the 2003 album Carnival in San Juan and the 2007 release From The Badlands. Vazquez continued expanding his concept, writing classical compositions and creating a piece for The Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. He enlarged his group into a 19-piece big band in 2008, resulting in the Grammy nominated live recording Marooned/Aislado. With each step in his career, Vazquez continues to deliver new takes on mixtures of jazz and Puerto Rican music, grounded in an uncompromising sense of artistry.
The acknowledgement of Vazquez as an NEA Latino Master reflects an important career full of exciting, challenging, and intelligent Latin Jazz, filled with artistic pride and cultural relevance. He has repeatedly demonstrated his role as a major musician and cultural leader, earning him this praise and much more. As Vazquez looks ahead into 2011, a new album, Oasis, looms on the horizon, promising more outstanding music – in celebration of this upcoming release and The NEA Latino Master award, today’s Weekly Latin Jazz Video Fix is dedicated Vazquez. The first two clips find Vazquez and The Pirates Troubadours at The FB Lounge performing with a number of special guests including trumpet player Wynton Marsalis. The third video once again features Vazquez and his Pirates Troubadours, this time playing at The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. The last piece includes the full Mighty Pirate Orchestra, playing the Vazquez composition “Blue Ray.” As you’ll see here, Vazquez has produced an amazing amount of high quality music throughout his career; he deserves this award and many more – enjoy!
———- Papo Vazquez Performing “Yubadonbe” At FB Lounge With Special Guest Wynton Marsalis (Part 1)
Papo Vazquez Performing “Yubadonbe” At FB Lounge With Special Guest Wynton Marsalis (Part 2)
Papo Vazquez Performing “Sol Tropical” At The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival
Papo Vazquez & The Mighty Pirates Orchestra Performing “Blue Ray”
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Want more from Papo Vazquez? Check out these recordings below! Breakout
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Do you have a video to contribute to satisfy our weekly Latin Jazz video fix? If so, send it in – it’s time to feed our addiction. I’m looking for live performances, from any context. I’ll most likely be posting one video per week, but if you’ve got another idea, let’s talk. So come on Latin Jazz videographers, musicians, and fans – let’s share some of our memorable videos! Get my contact info HERE.
Latin Jazz This Week will bring you a weekly look into news from the Latin Jazz world. You’ll find new releases, recommended performances, web finds, and more. You can check out some current sounds in the Listening Center tab at the top of the page. Performance dates will be kept in the Live Latin Jazz tab at the top of the page.
NEWS
The Obama Administration has been good to the multitude of stateside musicians interested in artistic exchange with Cuba, allowing U.S. musicians to visit the island and Cuban musicians to come to the States. The artistic community in New York will be celebrating their relationship with Cuban musicians over the next few months with the Cuba Si festival, which will highlight a number of important musicians. This festival will bring important Cuban musicians to New York and host a number of films about Cuban musicians, with topics running the gamut from jazz to timba. Larry Rohter from the New York Times ran a wonderful article on the festival last week, which gives us a mouth-watering preview of some outstanding music – check it out HERE.
Trumpet player Diego Urcola has been a highly visible Latin Jazz musician over the past couple of decades, playing alongside major artists such as Paquito D’Rivera and The Caribbean Jazz Project. Along the way, Urcola has produced some excellent recordings as a leader, including his most recent release, Appreciation. Jon Poses with the Columbia Daily Tribune offers a good concise picture of Urcola’s career, along with some insightful thoughts on Appreciation – you can find it HERE.
If you’re in EUROPE this week . . . OMAR SOSA
Cully Jazz Festival WHEN: Monday 3/28/11 WHERE:Le Temple
Cully, Switzerland TIME: 9:00 p.m. TICKETS: CHF 35.00
If you’re in CANADA this week . . . HILARIO DURAN
Special Guest With Oliver Miguel Quartet WHEN: Monday 3/28/11 WHERE: University Theater – University Of Calgary
2500 University Dr. NW
Calgary, Alberta, Canada TIME: 8:00 p.m. TICKETS:$20
Special Guest With Luis Mario Ochoa WHEN: Thursday 3/31/11 WHERE: China House
925 Eglinton Avenue West
Toronto, ON Canada TIME: 7:30 p.m. & 9:15 p.m. TICKETS: NO COVER
If you’re on the EAST COAST this week . . . ANNETTE A. AGUILAR & STRINGBEANS WHEN: Thursday 3/31/11 WHERE: Apt 78
4447 Broadway
New York, NY TIME: 7:30 p.m.
ARK OVRUTSKI – SOUNDS OF BRASIL WHEN: Tuesday 3/29/11 WHERE:Zinc Bar
82 West 3rd Street
New York, NY TIME: 8:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m., & 11:30 p.m. TICKETS: $10 with 2 Drink Minimum
BOBBY SANABRIA
Big Band – The Apollo Legacy – Latin Jazz!!! WHEN: Monday 3/28/11 WHERE:Museum Of The City Of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY TIME: 7:00 p.m. TICKETS: $5
Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra – 90th Birthday Celebration for NEA Jazz Master Candido WHEN: Friday 4/1/1 WHERE:Borden Auditorium – Manhattan School Of Music
120 Claremont Avenue
New York, NY TIME: 7:30 p.m. TICKETS: $5
CHICO O’FARRILL’S AFRO-CUBAN JAZZ ORCHESTRA WHEN: Sunday 4/3/11 WHERE:Birdland
315 W. 44th Street
Manhattan, NY TIME: 9:00 p.m. & 11:00 p.m. TICKETS: $30
CHILCANO 2.0 WHEN: Saturday 4/2/11 WHERE:Tutuma Social Club
164 East 56th Street
New York, NY TIME: 11:55 p.m. TICKETS: NO COVER
CIDINHO TEIXIERA WHEN: Regular Sunday 4/3/11 WHERE:Zinc Bar
82 West 3rd Street
New York, NY TIME: 8:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m., & 11:30 p.m. TICKETS: $10 with 2 Drink Minimum
CURTIS BROTHERS
Spit My Soul – Curtis Brothers with Goya Robles WHEN: Tuesday 3/29/11 WHERE:Ramapo College
505 Ramapo Valley Road
Mahwah, N TIME: 10:00 p.m.
WHEN: Thursday 3/31/11 WHERE:B. Smith’s
320 West 46th Street
New York, NY TIME: 9:00 p.m. TICKETS: NO COVER
EDDIE PALMIERI WHEN: Friday 4/1/11 – Saturday 4/2/11 WHERE:Sculler’s
400 Soldiers Field Road
Boston, MA TIME: 8:00 p.m. & 10:00 p.m. TICKETS: $30
EMILIO SOLLA
La Inestable De Brooklyn WHEN: Monday 3/28/11 WHERE:Miles’ Cafe
212 E. 52nd Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY TIME: 9:30 p.m. TICKETS: $19.99
ERIC KURIMSKI WHEN: Thursday 3/31/11 WHERE:Terraza Café
40-19 Gleane Street
Elmhurst, NY TIME: 10:00 p.m. TICKETS: NO COVER
HENDRIK MEURKENS
Duo w/ Bob DeVos, guitar WHEN: Saturday 4/2/11 WHERE:Flights of Fantasy Bookstore
381 Sand Creek Road
Colonie, NY
JESSICA MEDINA WHEN: Friday 4/1/11 WHERE:Tutuma Social Club
164 East 56th Street
New York, NY TIME: 8:30 p.m. & 10:30 p.m. TICKETS: NO COVER
JERRY GONZALEZ & THE FORT APACHE BAND WHEN: Friday 4/1/11 – Saturday 4/2/11 WHERE:Fonda Boricua Lounge
172 East 106th Street
New York, NY TIME: 10:00 p.m. TICKETS: $10
JOHN BENITEZ WHEN: Saturday 4/2/11 WHERE:Tutuma Social Club
164 East 56th Street
New York, NY TIME: 8:00 p.m. & 10:30 TICKETS: NO COVER
KATIKATURA WHEN: Thursday 3/31/11 WHERE:Tutuma Social Club
164 East 56th Street
New York, NY TIME: 10:30 p.m. TICKETS: NO COVER
LATING JAX WHEN: Thursday 3/31/11 WHERE:Fonda Boricua Lounge
172 East 106th Street
New York, NY TIME: 8:00 p.m. TICKETS: NO COVER
LAURANDREA LEGUIA TRIO WHEN: Thursday 3/31/11 WHERE:Tutuma Social Club
164 East 56th Street
New York, NY TIME: 8:30 p.m. TICKETS: NO COVER
MARIA CANGIANO WHEN: Friday 4/1/11 WHERE:Tutuma Social Club
164 East 56th Street
New York, NY TIME: 7:00 p.m. TICKETS: NO COVER
OSCAR PEREZ NUEVO COMIENZO WHEN: Saturday 4/2/11 WHERE: St. Albans Congregational Church
172-17 Linden Boulevard
St. Albans, NY TIME: 5:00 p.m.
PAQUITO D’RIVERA
Celebration Of Love And Life In Honor Of James Moody WHEN: Monday 3/28/11 WHERE:Blue Note – New York
650 Indiana Street
San Francisco, CA TIME: 8:00 p.m. & 10:30 p.m. TICKETS: SOLD OUT
Brazilian Nights: Leny Andrade with Paquito D’Rivera WHEN: Friday 4/30/11 WHERE:Allen Room – Jazz At Lincoln Center
Broadway at 60th Street
New York, NY TIME: 7:30 p.m. & 9:30 p.m. TICKETS: $55 – $65
SABRINA LASTMAN WHEN: Tuesday 3/29/11 WHERE: Metropolitan Room
34 West 22nd Street
New York, NY TIME: 7:00 p.m. TICKETS: $15 & 2 Drink Minimum
SATOSHI KATAOKA WHEN: Thursday 3/31/11 WHERE:Tutuma Social Club
164 East 56th Street
New York, NY TIME: 7:00 p.m. TICKETS: NO COVER
WILLIE MARTINEZ WHEN: Thursday 3/31/11 WHERE:Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe
236 East 3rd Street
New York, NY TIME: 7:00 p.m. TICKETS: $9
If you’re in the MID-EAST this week . . . CRAIG RUSSO LATIN JAZZ PROJECT WHEN: Friday 4/1/11 WHERE:Prairie Room, Bone Student Center – Illinois University
100 N University Street
Normal, Il TIME: 8:00 p.m. TICKETS: RSVP REQUIRED
LOS GATOS WHEN: Wednesday 3/30/11 WHERE: Vinology
110 South Main Street
Ann Arbor, MI TIME: 8:00 p.m. TICKETS: $10
PAULINHO GARCIA WHEN: Wednesday 3/30/11 WHERE: Piccollo Mondo
1642 E. 56th Street
Chicago, IL TIME: 6:00 p.m.
TUMBAO BRAVO WHEN: Friday 4/1/11 WHERE: Greektown Casino
555 E Lafayette St
Detroit, MI TIME: 7:00 p.m.
If you’re in the MID-WEST this week . . . GABRIEL ALEGRIA AFRO-PERUVIAN SEXTET WHEN: Friday 4/1/11 WHERE:Old Town Center For The Arts
633 N 5th Street
Cottonwood, AZ TIME: 7:30 p.m. TICKETS: $18 in advance; $20 at the door
WHEN: Sunday 4/3/11 WHERE:Tubac Plaza Main Stage
29 Tubac Plaza
Tubac, AZ TIME: 8:00 p.m. TICKETS: 12 & up – $20 in advance, $25 at the door; Ages 6-11 – $10 in advance, $12.50 on the day of show; 5 & under – FREE
If you’re on the WEST COAST this week . . . GILBERT CASTELLANOS WHEN: Wednesday 3/27/11 WHERE:El Camino
2400 India Street
San Diego, CA TIME: 9:00 p.m. TICKETS: NO COVER
JOHN SANTOS SEXTET
Filosofía Caribeña WHEN: Saturday 4/2/11 WHERE: Herbst Theater
401 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA TIME: 8:00 p.m. TICKETS: $25 – $60
LOUIE CRUZ BELTRAN WHEN: Saturday 4/2/11 WHERE: Steamer’s
138 W. Commonwealth Avenue
Fullerton, CA TIME: 8:30 p.m. TICKETS: $8
PACIFIC MAMBO ORCHESTRA WHEN: Monday 3/28/11 WHERE:Cafe Cocomo
650 Indiana Street
San Francisco, CA TIME: 9:30 p.m. TICKETS: $10
Artists spend the lives in the creative realm of the world, overflowing with new and exciting musical ideas. In fact, they rarely spend a day in search of new ideas or possibilities. The only issue becomes reconciling their abundance of creative energy with a world that doesn’t see the same possibilities. The reality of this clash can be enough to send an artist spiraling out of their creative world. The truly visionary artist that applies their creative energy to a solution has much to give the world and ends up sharing the wealth of their imagination with the world.
Percussionist and bandleader Bobby Matos has spent his entire life thinking creatively, from his first musical explorations in New York to his current career on the West Coast. He gained a wide appreciation for music as a child, and as a teen, Matos made connections with a number of Latin Jazz legends. He dropped out of college to dedicate his life to performance, only to be cut short when the army grabbed him through the draft. A connection with Washington D.C. percussionist Paul Hawkins got Matos through his army years; when he was discharged, he returned to school and dived into a deep study of music. His new skills allowed him to form The Latin Soul Combo and perform original music, eventually catching the attention of Philips Records. Matos recorded the instant classic My Latin Soul, but Philips didn’t support the release, leading to poor sales. Matos left the label and signed with Speed Records, recording a solid album with a crack band of New York’s finest professionals. Unfortunately, Speed Records went bankrupt, and much of the album was lost in the financial shuffle. Discouraged, Matos dropped his bandleader responsibilities and found extensive work as a sideman and in the studios. Although he worked steadily, Matos still needed a larger change, inspiring a move to West Coast. The transition into the Los Angeles recording scene was slow for Matos, leading him to form a new group, The Heritage Ensemble. After recording a couple of albums, the group evolved into The Bobby Matos Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble, and signed a deal with Cubop Records. Matos recorded a number of outstanding albums during his time on Cubop, but he also served as one of the label’s prime producers, working with Jack Costanzo, Ray Armando, Dave Pike, and more. Looking for more control over his own work, Matos joined Lifeforce Jazz, a collective record label that helped him retain rights to his work. Matos recorded a number of high quality Latin Jazz albums for Lifeforce, including his latest release Beautiful As The Moon. The recording captures his current band live in concert, performing everything from standards like “Maiden Voyage” to an arrangement of Yiddish theater music. The recording provides a perfect opportunity to hear the experience and creativity of Matos, revealing the promise of future endeavors.
A life deeply entrenched in the creative realms has allowed Matos to look deep into the rich tradition of Latin Jazz while constantly exploring new possibilities. This wide perspective explodes from Beautiful As The Moon, showing the depth of Matos’ past and the open road into his future. In Part One of our interview with Matos, we looked at his early exposure to music, his connection with Latin Jazz legends, and his first steps into performance. We followed Matos into the army in Part Two, and explored his first steps as a bandleader. In Part Three of the interview, we discussed the creation of The Latin Soul Combo, the recording of My Latin Soul, and Matos’ unreleased second album. We talked about Matos’ move to the West Coast in Part Four, and got into the development of his new band. In Part Five of our interview, we dug into Matos’ work as a producer on Cubop with artists like Jack Costanzo and Ray Armando. Today, we conclude our discussion with Matos with a focus on his new album Beautiful As The Moon and future possibilities.
———- LATIN JAZZ CORNER: Beautiful As The Moon is a fantastic album, so that was a live recording?
BOBBY MATOS: It was from a live concert, but we did put one studio track on there, which is the last track on the album, “Buena Gente.” It was the exact same personnel as on the live recording.
LJC: Is this a reflection of the band that you play with now?
BM: This is exactly the band that we play with now. The only difference being that sometimes my son plays with us. He’s very focused on getting his education, and he doesn’t play with the band if the gig conflicts with schooling. That’s the reason that he doesn’t appear on Beautiful As The Moon – it was a school night for him.
We went into that concert knowing that it was going to be a live broadcast and knowing that they would give us the recordings. So we carefully chose music that we had never recorded. We did do a couple of tunes that we had recorded before, but we did not put them on the album.
LJC: One of the tunes that I love is your version of “Maramoor Mambo” by Armando Peraza. Is Armando someone that has influenced you?
BM: Armando is one of the most beautiful people on the planet as far as playing percussion or being a great dancer. All you need to do is spend a day with Armando, especially if he’s playing anywhere – that’s like a master’s degree! Armando is the man. In addition to being a wonderful cat, he’s just a fabulous percussionist and he’s the best dancer that I’ve ever seen.
LJC: Another track that I love on there is “Just Another Guajira,” Mark Weinstein’s tune from Cuban Roots. It seems like that tune just doesn’t get played enough – how did that tune get into the mix?
BM: I always liked that tune, from the first time that Mark recorded it. Mark Weinstein was an old buddy of mine from New York. We used to work together with a composer/player named Ray Rivera. We would travel out to Brooklyn together from Manhattan on the subway to go to Ray’s house for rehearsals. So I knew Mark’s music early on. I called Mark and I asked him to send me a lead sheet and he did. I did a sketch on it and I wasn’t thrilled with the sketch that I did. So I took it to Danny (Weinstein) and he said, “What if we added a vamp to it as well?” He played with it; it was one of those composite arrangements. I was the one that called Mark and asked him for a lead sheet, because I liked that tune a lot. I still like that tune a lot.
LJC: The Yiddish tune, “Beautiful As The Moon,” that you arrange, it provides such a beautiful and unexpected combination. How did you take that tune and translate it into Latin Jazz?
BM: That came to me as I was watching a documentary about Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezuelan conductor. In this documentary, he was presenting a symphonic version of some folkloric music from Venezuela. He had guys playing cuatro, cajon, and stuff like that. He had this very typical folkloric Venezuelan tune that started with the cuatro and the cajon, that’s all. Then the orchestra came in a little bit later. I thought, “Wow, that’s what I should do with Beautiful As The Moon.” Instead of doing it on cajon though, I wanted to do it a little bit differently. I added the bass and just the conga, and kept everyone off their instruments until the bridge. I wrote a tenor background for the bridge, and the piano, timbales, and everyone else came in on the bridge. I felt that idea of keeping it very acoustic sounding and almost folkloric would work for that Yiddish melody.
It sounds like it’s an old European Jewish melody, but it’s actually a new world tune. The composers probably had big time roots in Europe, but that actually comes from the Yiddish theater in New York. So I would imagine that the composers evoked the folkloric feeling of the Yiddish tunes from Russia, Poland, and stuff in their writing, but it was a theater tune. By stripping it down and making it just violin, bass, and conga, it has more of a folkloric feeling.
I felt that Danny, who has played in Klezmer bands on both trombone and violin, would understand that. Danny has got such a unique background – he loves classic jazz, he can tell you any trombone or fiddle player that played with Ellington, anybody – he knows all those cats. He also knows Klezmer music and he also knows Latin music really, really well. He knows the blues and bebop. So I figured that he’d be the perfect guy to interpret that.
LJC: You’ve done so much between the East and West Coast as a leader and a sideman – what do you still want to pursue?
BM: I want to be creating more narrative music. I’ve done this before, but I want to do it more often. I want to collaborate with dance companies, with choreographer, and with playwrights. It’s not necessarily that I want to write a Broadway show, I don’t. But I do like the idea of doing narrative music. We just did a CD release party and I used dancers, spoken word artists, vocalists, and all sorts of people to enhance the music that we were doing. I love doing that. I love having it all happen on the stage at once – having the dancers, the spoken word, and the band all performing at the same time. I think that’s from my days at the theater in New York. They always had musicians on the same stage as actors. So I want to collaborate with dance companies more, and that’s starting to happen.
I would like to create projects that have a narrative thread that can be looked at, listened to, and enjoyed on more than one level – like ballets, operas, or something like that. But not in the classical vein, in the Afro-Latin Jazz vein. I think that’s something that I really am very interested in.
I’m very interested in the interaction of our music with other influences, other artists, and seeing what comes out of that. I’m a great believer that it’s in the mix; that’s where the most exciting things happen. When you’re talking about Latin Jazz and mambo, you’re already taking progressive jazz and Afro-Cuban music, dance music, and several different elements. Even when you take what is thought of as the “pure” Cuban music, it’s really the combination of European music, English country dance, chamber music, and African ceremonial music, rumba, and all of those things. It’s in the mix that all of the new stuff comes out, and it’s just so exciting. That’s what I want to see.
I’m open to doing collaborations. I’ve talked to Hubert Laws about doing some work with him. He’s open to it; he loves doing Latin Jazz. We recently did a collaboration with Poncho Sanchez, that a real, real nice evening of music. One of the artists that I really want to work with is Sharon Jones from the Dap Kings. I love this woman from Cape Verde, Sarah Tavares, I’d love to do something with her. I recently collaborated with a Colombian singer, Yari More. He’s got such a great voice that I want to do some stuff with him that he might not do with his own orchestra. I might arrange some things with just a piano and a string quartet behind him, doing clave-oriented music. I like doing that kind of thing, working with artists that we don’t work with all the time, whether those artists are actors, dancers, choreographers, or musicians. I like the idea of taking the best of what we do and letting it grow. It’s in the mix that it happens.
There are plenty of projects that I’d like to explore. I definitely want to do some more soulful things, some Ray Charles, Curtis Mayfield kind of things, but with our sound as a big part of it. I don’t want to use their rhythm sections necessarily. I do want to use elements from those artists. I’d like to add chamber music elements back into our music. I want to do a trio recording, with just piano, bass, and conga. We’ve used this trio a few times when we wanted to keep a Latin Jazz sound, but we couldn’t fit into a space with the horns and everything. So we’ve gone in with a trio and had so much fun doing it, that I want to record the trio. There’s lots of possibilities.
I see a little bit more traveling. I’m not as excited by touring as I was when I was younger. I like being close to home, but I don’t mind running out of town for a couple of weeks. I just don’t want to be on the road all of the time. It’s really hard; what every city that you’re living in, you’re a local band in that city. If the people can hear you all the time, they consider you a local band, unless you never play in the city that you live in
A few of us are trying to come together and start a non-profits arts organization as well. We want to find more ways to further this music and present this music. We want to let people know what this music is. This music suffers from a great underexposure. We’re not played on the radio all the time. Usually if you hear us on T.V. or the radio, it’s usually a diluted version. If you hear a conga drum on a recording and it’s actually played correctly, you think, “Wow, a real tumbao on this record . . . but the rest of the recording is crap” Those days have to end, the whole record has to be up to par. It has to be musically first rate. We’ve been inundated with some wonderful musicians – we’ve seen Chucho Valdes, Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Poncho Sanchez, John Santos, Jerry Gonzalez, and Andy Gonzalez. Why should we have to be doing junk that some people think is Latin music?
I actually wound up with eight tunes in a film because the composer was trying to write Latin music and he didn’t know what he was doing. He knew what he was doing for the pop stuff, he certainly knew his harmonies, and everything that. He was just out of his depth when it came to writing anything in clave. Just as I would be if I was trying to write the pop stuff. It wasn’t a shortcoming, it’s just not what he was trained to do. My expertise is in handling the Latin Jazz, handling the Afro-Latin rhythms.
What I’d like to do – I’d like to expand and not be one-dimensional. I’d like to create music that has new dimensions and new vistas in it. Not that I’m going to be playing country-western, hip-hop rumba . . . but I’d like to not be doing something that is considered straight anything. I’d like to be open to cross-cultural and into different kinds of influences. The creative end is never a problem. The creative domain is where artists live.
One of the most exiting parts of being a seasoned professional is the ability to touch other people’s artistic statements and make a difference. During an artist’s younger days, their main focus lies upon their own personal development as a musician. While they reach their peers, their collaborations generally don’t make overarching impacts. More experienced professionals have a more selfless way of sharing their abilities with their colleagues, leaving their mark upon the music without stealing the spotlight. Their influence can change career courses for their peers, and sometimes, leave a lasting impact upon an entire scene.
Percussionist and bandleader Bobby Matos spent years refining his own approach on the East Coast, and by the time that he moved to the West Coast, his intelligent vision helped shape a number of recordings. Exposed to great music as a child, Matos found his way to New York’s Latin Jazz legends, gaining the inspiration to focus his energies upon a local Afro-Cuban band. This experience built Matos’ skills and earned him local sideman work, but the draft quickly thrust him into army life. His connection to Washington D.C. based percussionist Paul Hawkins kept Matos sane during this time, helping him come to the realization that he needed more insight into music. He used the G.I. Bill to pay his musical education at The New School and The Manhattan School Of Music, giving him the knowledge to create original material. This new music inspired the formation of The Latin Soul Combo, a group that quickly built a reputation in New York and caught the attention of Philips Records. The label signed Matos, who delivered the instant classic My Latin Soul, but a lack of support from Philips led to low sales. Matos parted ways with Philips and signed with Speed Records, recording a second album full of strong material. Unfortunately, Speed fell into bankruptcy, and although a few singles were released, most of the recording disappeared. Frustrated, Matos left his role as a bandleader behind a found extensive work in New York’s studios. Ready for a change, Matos moved to Los Angeles, and worked towards establishing himself on the West Coast. It took a while to get his foot into the studios, leading him back into the bandleader life, in front of the vibes based Heritage Ensemble. Over time, this group evolved into The Bobby Matos Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble, and Matos scored a deal with Cubop Records. As a leader, Matos recorded several albums on Cubop, but he also became one of the label’s most important producers. During his tenure at Cubop, Matos worked on Jack Costanzo’s Back From Havana, Ray Armando’s Mallet Hands, Dave Pike’s Peligroso, and many more. This work defined a big part of the West Coast sound during the early 2000s, making Matos visible and valuable. Several years later, Matos joined the collective record company Lifeforce Records, giving him more control over the work that would lead him to the present.
Matos’ keen ability to share his smart artistic insights without overshadowing his fellow musicians lead him to influence the Los Angeles Latin Jazz sound in the first part of 2000s. His series of collaborations resulted in some important albums that still resonate with vitality. In Part One of our interview with Matos, we looked at his early connections with music, his involvement with New York’s Latin Jazz legends, and his first performance experiences. Part Two focused upon Matos’ newfound love for the timbales, the impact of the draft, and his beginnings as a bandleader. We dug into the creation of My Latin Soul in Part Three and delved into the origins of his unreleased second album. In Part Four of our interview, we discussed Matos’ move to the West Coast, his entry into Los Angeles’ recording circuit, and the development of his new band. Today, we examine Matos’ work as a producer for Cubop, leading to work with Costanzo, Armando, and more.
———- BOBBY MATOS: When we were doing Jack Costanzo’s first album, there was a section of a song where the reeds were going into this guajeo, playing behind a trumpet solo. I didn’t feel the excitement, so I stopped everything. It was a perfectly good take, but I wasn’t feeling the excitement. I said, “When you come to this section, I want the whole reed section to stand up.” They all looked at me like I had lost my mind. They said, “What are you talking about? Why should we stand up?” I said, “Because the air comes out of your lungs differently when you’re standing and the sound of your horn is different when you’re standing. I can play you Machito records and I can tell you at what point the reed section is standing up. You can hear it.” They had to change the position of the mic so that it would work when they were sitting down and standing up; they had to move everything around – all these guys were groaning. But the final result was what it should have sounded like; I think you can hear on the record when these guys stand up.
Working with Ray Armando was another story. He had his concepts and they were kind of fixed. I was just trying to see what he was doing. He was an old friend of mine so I had an idea of where he was coming from. I didn’t do anything radical to change anything, any of his ideas. With all the artists that I worked with, if I could hear something that maybe they weren’t hearing or seeing, I might suggest it and then we might try it. Getting the opportunity to work with all these artists that were so different was great.
Dave Pike was a totally different concept, but at the same time, he would turn to me and say, “What do you think goes here? What should I do with this?” Dave Pike’s expertise is really in playing straight-ahead. He’s done a couple of nice Latin albums, but it’s been because of the people that he’s worked with. He gave me the opportunity to shape some of his things. But then he would tell me very clearly, “No, I don’t want you playing cowbell on this number. It clashes with the key of the song that I’m in. I want you on the cymbal.” He would have very definite ideas that might clash with one of my ideas. That’s when my engineer would tell me, “Bobby – what’s your job as a producer? Make the artist sound good.”
Cubop also gave me the opportunity to be heard worldwide on a much wider level than I ever thought possible. My experience with record companies was not very good before Cubop. So Ubiquity/Cubop put me in a different arena. All of a sudden, my music was being heard in England – not as a collector’s item, but as a new release. My Latin Soul is very, very big in England as a collector’s item; I don’t see a nickel for that. The collectors sell their LPs that they’ve been hanging onto or that they picked up at swap meets. Now Cubop gave me a different arena to play in. Now I could go to different cities and now I was touring. I wasn’t touring all the time, but I was able to appear in Connecticut, Nevada, San Francisco, Canada, or Mexico.
Even though I had been on another label for years, it was the Cubop CDs that got me into Latin America. When we went to Colombia for the first time, I didn’t think anyone in Colombia would know who we were. I thought that they would say, “Who’s this guy, Bobby Matos? Let’s go see if we like him.” But everyone knew who I was and they knew all my music. They knew the whole catalog. We went to a concert the night before we played at the same venue during the Barranqui Jazz Fest in Barranquilla, one of the radio people asked me, are you going to play “Kimbisia”?” I said, “No, it’s not in the show.” He said, “I think that you better change your mind. That’s one of the biggest songs down here in Colombia, one of the biggest songs that you ever recorded. We love that song, we play it on the radio all the time.” I’m thinking, “Really?!?” So we had to go back to the hotel and put a sketch together before the next night. I didn’t even have the music with me. I didn’t take my whole book; I cut everything down to just what we were going to play. It makes it lighter to travel with. Fortunately, I had a recording; we put it on and we wrote a sketch from the recording. The point is that the Colombians knew all our music, and that was due to Ubiquity.
LATIN JAZZ CORNER: There was another album that you did on Cubop that I really liked, and that was Mambo Jazz, that you did with John Santos and many members of The Machete Ensemble – it was like the All-Stars of the West Coast.
BM: That was so much fun to do, there were so many creative guys on that album. The biggest problem was figuring out who was going to play what on each tune, because we had two pianists, two bassists, a bunch of sax players, and more. I think that the only trombone player that we used on there was Wayne Wallace. John Calloway was the pianist with Machete at the time, but I think that he was happy to get off the piano and pick up the flute. John is a very talented guy – he plays flute, piano, and very nice congas.
LJC: What is that West Coast sound like for you and how would you compare Latin Jazz from the Bay Area and Los Angeles?
BM: The Bay Area has always been very, very close to the Cuban sound, the African sound, and the Brazilian sound. They’ve been very, very open to those kinds of influences. When the musicians here in L.A. were first starting to hear the Cuban bands and songo, the bands in the Bay Area were already playing that stuff. To me, it always seemed like with the Bay Area’s Latin sound, the bands were more progressive. Batachanga was happening, Ascencia was happening – there were a lot of great bands in the Bay Area. The creative energy in San Francisco was just at another level. There are great, creative guys living down here as well, but we’d always kind of look to San Francisco to get validated. The Cuban bands would come to the West Coast and they wouldn’t play L.A.! They’d play in the Bay Area and people from L.A. would have to travel to San Francisco to see Los Van Van or Irakere.
Although it didn’t seem like it when I first came here, Los Angeles started to develop into a very heavy dance band scene. There are more places that you can go in L.A. on any given night to salsa dance. There are more bands playing that music now and working, than there are in New York right now. New York used to be the mecca for this music. The demographics have changed so much, as they should – things should always evolve. They should always take the best of whatever’s new and keep the best of whatever’s old. Still, the scene seems to be more lucrative for dance bands in L.A.
LJC: Your last few albums have been on Lifeforce Records, which is a very different label than Cubop; it’s a collective. How did you make that move?
BM: Lifeforce is a collective that believes in music as a healing force. They believe that music can regenerate the mind, the body, and the spirit; it’s a very African concept, and it’s a very Asian concept. Anyone who goes out dancing feels the exhilaration after they’ve been shaking it to whatever music is playing. Any kind of connection to the music transforms them and they feel different when they come off the dance floor. I knew one of the guys that was a founder of Lifeforce, he’s an alto player – Dawan Muhammad. He and Billy Higgins were the ones that started Lifeforce Jazz. He was telling me about his label and he was asking me if I wanted to be a part of that.
I was able to record a live concert that we did. It was a great move, because it’s a very economical way to get a CD out. We went into this concert with the idea of “Let’s record a bunch of stuff that we haven’t released before. Let’s do a lot of new music. Since we’re going to get a decent recording out of that, let’s see if we can put it together and make a commercial album.” When I came up with the master, I talked to Dawan about how we were going to do this.
It’s totally different with an artist collective label. In most cases, it’s the label that owns rights to the master recording. The composer might own the rights to composition, if he doesn’t surrender them to the label. If you write a song and you publish it yourself, you own all the legal rights to that music, but you don’t own the rights to the recording – the record company does. When you own the rights to the recording, the licensing fees and royalties come back to us. That’s a whole source of income that you don’t see a nickel of when you’re signed to a label. The label gets all of that. I found that a lot of the music that I was recording for Ubiquity was being licensed for films and T.V. Unless I wrote one of the songs and had the publishing on it, I wouldn’t see a penny for it; I didn’t own the rights to recording. Ubiquity has been very, very good to me, but they also understood that there was more money to be made in licensing than there was in CD sales.
That was one of the stipulations of Lifeforce – the recordings would be released on Lifeforce and Lifeforce would be distributing it, but all the rights belong to the artist. That made a world of difference. Now that I own the rights to all these recordings, we’re licensing stuff to films and T.V., as well as compilations on other labels, and the licensing fees go to us. One of my partners and I started a production and publishing company called Cafe Con Bagels Music. We have a piece in the fourth season of Dexter. I have a piece in a comedy/adventure film that came out a year ago. I’ve got songs in different commercials and cooking shows. All of a sudden there’s income from songs that you’ve already got in the can, and all you have to do is issue these people a license to use it. Then you collect money. It’s not that we go into Latin Jazz to get rich, we realize that we’re playing niche music. But it’s nice to get a few rewards, and if a few rewards are gong to happen, it’s nice to get them ourselves instead of giving them up to the label all the time.
Come back tomorrow for Part Six of our interview with percussionist and bandleader Bobby Matos, as we get into his latest recording Beautiful As The Moon, his current band, and his future plans. See you then!
Every musician reaches a point in their life when they simply need a change. Too much of any good thing can drive a person to boredom and an overload of the negative powers will certainly make an artist crazy. When a musician reaches this point, the need for change drives their next set of decisions. In some cases, an altered musical direction might suit the artist’s needs, sparking a new set of inspired creations. A lifestyle change could be the solution for other artists, sending them to a new home or a different set of social circumstances. Whatever the solution, the need arises at some point in every artist’s life, and it’s important that they follow their instincts into new opportunities.
Percussionist and bandleader Bobby Matos spent his youth building a musical foundation in New York before making a major musical transition onto the West Coast. Matos got his love for music from his family, and as a teen, he found himself frequenting performances from Machito And His Afro-Cubans. He found deep inspiration in the Machito Orchestra, and when the opportunity arose to play percussion in an Afro-Cuban band, he dropped out of college to dedicate himself to the music. The group helped Matos build his skills, but a growing career as a New York sideman was quickly sidelined as the U.S. Army drafted him. He found himself stationed in Washington D.C., where he met percussionist Paul Hawkins and realized that he needed to dig deeper into musicianship. The G.I. Bill allowed Matos to attend school following his service, so he studied theory and harmony at The New School and The Manhattan School Of Music. With the ability to translate his ideas into compositions, Matos formed The Latin Soul Combo and began booking gigs to perform his music. Word about the group spread and he soon recorded a demo that caught the attention of Philips Records. Matos produced the instant classic My Latin Soul, but Philips didn’t support the album fully soon parted ways with Matos. He jumped to Speed Records where he created a second album full of strong compositions, but the album disappeared under the company’s financial woes. Frustrated with the life of a bandleader, Matos found extensive recording work in New York, which he balanced with sideman gigs. Winds of change soon blew through his life though, taking Matos to Los Angeles looking for work. Unfortunately, the West Coast record companies didn’t supply the same volume of studio work that Matos enjoyed in New York. Things progressed slowly, eventually inspiring Matos to return to the life of a bandleader. He formed The Heritage Ensemble, a vibes based group that eventually evolved into a full-blown Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble. He distinguished his work as a bandleader with unique song choices, strong arrangements, and solid performances that became well known across the Latin Jazz world. His group found a home on the Cubop label, where Matos became an important producer, opening the door into the next phase of his career.
Matos established himself through long years of hard work on the East Coast, but when he needed a major change, the West Coast provided a new venue for his Latin Jazz approach. The move reignited his career as a bandleader and eventually made him one of the West Coast’s important voices in the genre. In Part One of our interview with Matos, we dug through his early musical influences, his connection to Latin Jazz legends, and his first steps into performance. Part Two of our interview looked at Matos’ move towards the timbales, his time in the army, and his first steps as a bandleader. In Part Three of our conversation, we discussed the evolution of his Latin Soul Combo, the creation of My Latin Soul, and his unreleased second album. Today, we delve into his move to the West Coast, his slow entry into the Los Angeles recording scene, and his return to life as a bandleader.
———- BOBBY MATOS: There came a time that I just wanted to move to the West Coast. A friend of mine was out here and told me that I could stay with him until I got my own place. It sounded very attractive. I was coming out of a failed relationship and I said, “It’s time for me to go to California.”
I thought with all the contacts that I had in the recording industry and all the guys that were calling me for dates in New York, it would continue in L.A. Guess what? It did not. It did not translate at all. I would call all these different contractors that all my friends recommended and they would say, “Oh, great! You know who you should call . . .” Then they’d pass me onto somebody else. They would give you somebody else’s number and they would never do anything for you. Then you wound up going full circle – you’d come back to the original person. I would meet some of these people later on sessions that I had gotten from someone else. The producer would tell the contractor to call me for the percussion work. They would call me and I would think, “Wait, this is the guy that never returned my call.”
So I started to get a little bit of work, but nothing like the volume of work that I had in New York. In New York, I wasn’t looking to be a leader most of the time. I had that little quintet with Andy, which was a lot different from the Latin Soul band that I had. With Andy, he always had a pianist and bassist that he worked with that knew his repertoire. We would do the same repertoire; maybe I would add a few tunes to it. That was enough to satisfy my creative output because I was playing with all these different cats on all these different dates. I basically made a living from doing session work and being a sideman. I did a million R ‘n B dates, and the sidemen were some of the best guys in the business. The guys were all playing with Aretha Franklin or Roberta Flack. Eric Gayle was on one of the dates, Candido was on another – I was playing with great musicians. I did ten days with Trini Lopez at one time and I was one of the only East Coast guys that was jobbed in for it. All the rest of the guys were from California. So I figured that I’d call all of these guys when I got out to California. They did introduce me to a few musicians when I got out here. It was a very different scene. I had to work a lot harder in California to get established.
There wasn’t a lot of Latin Jazz in California; you would have thought that there would have been. You think of Cal Tjader, Bobby Montez, and Eddie Cano, and you think of Latin Jazz. But there wasn’t enough to make a living. When I came to this town, Willie Bobo had a band. Willie was playing more soulful music than straight ahead Latin Jazz. It was a great band, but I think that he was getting over because he had added that soul element to his music. I struggled for many years out here.
As life went on, I got involved in a relationship that forced me to sacrifice a lot of my artistic and professional endeavors. I was still playing a bit here and there, but it wasn’t like a full time thing. After I moved on, I was playing all the time, I was having rehearsals in my living room, I was hunting gigs, and it was like my life was returned to me. It was like, “This is what I’m supposed to be doing!”
So I decided to try to be a leader again. I was always writing music, and there weren’t any bands that were playing this music that I was hearing. So I started another band. It was a great quintet. One of the guys in the band now is making a lot of noise on the jazz scene – John Beasley. They vibes player was Durell Harris; he could play vibes and sing like George Benson. It was a quintet based on a Cal Tjader sound. Little by little I started adding some horns to it. That became The Heritage Ensemble, and we did a couple of recordings. Eventually, the horns started to dominate and the vibes started to take a lesser role. I changed the sound of the band, and by the time that I was recording for Cubop, it was a much more horn-dominated band. So I changed the name of the band from The Heritage Ensemble to Bobby Matos And His Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble.
One day somebody asked me, “Who’s Cuban in this band?” At times I’ve had Cubans in the band, but I looked around at the time and said, “Well, nobody’s Cuban in this band.” Plus, we played Brazilian music and Puerto Rican music as well as Afro-Cuban music. So I said, “We’re going to change it to The Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble, which was something that I had seen on an old Machito record. Machito had been one of my first heroes. Little did I know that Chico O’Farrill’s band would metamorphosis into Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. Now there’s a Chicago Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble too. I kind of like that, because it’s more inclusive. It means you can play a Venezuelan joropo, a Puerto Rican bomba, a Brazilian samba, or an Argentinean tango. Although I very much love Afro-Cuban music, but there’s more to life than Afro-Cuban music. There’s Brazilian music, Puerto Rican music, Venezuelan music, Colombian music, and more.
Then there’s the jazz element involved. I’ve always loved straight-ahead jazz – not as much as I’ve like Latin Jazz – but I’ve always loved the jazz innovators. Dizzy, Monk, Blakey, Horace Silver, Trane, Cannonball – they were big heroes of mine. But I always like the stuff that had the Latin rhythms the best. One of the reasons that I like Horace Silver was that everything feels like it’s written for clave. Even his tunes that have odd measures in them, they still sound like they’re written clave conscious. To me, that’s the penultimate music.
Some of that stuff is classic music – the blues never goes out of style, bebop doesn’t go out of style, it doesn’t sound dated. You might say, “That’s the sound of the forties or the fifties,” but it’s really not dated. It’s really like classical music – it may come out of the seventeenth century, but still, it’s not going out of style anytime soon, it’s here to stay. Nobody is going to say that we don’t play Beethoven anymore because it’s old – the same with Bird, Miles, Puente, Cal Tjader, or Mongo.
LATIN JAZZ CORNER: On all your recordings as a bandleader in Los Angeles, you have such an interesting choice of tunes – from Pharaoh Sanders’ “The Creator Has A Master Plan” and The Rascal’s tune “Groovin’” on Session all the way up to today. What inspires you to go in all these different directions?
BM: It kind of reflects what I’ve been listening to and what I love. I worked for a while with The Rascals; I was on the road with them for a while. When I auditioned for them, I had no idea who I was auditioning for. I was giving conga lessons to one of the singers that was on tour with The Rascals and she said, “We need a percussionist.” She invited me to this audition, but she did not tell me the name of the band. I went to the audition and I didn’t know who those guys were. Then I realized that these are the same guys that make the records that I’ve been buying! I had the sheet music to “People Got To Be Free” because I loved it.
When you hear something really sublime, you’ve got to like it. I just love R n’ B and the blues . . . I love bebop, Chopin, Rachmaninoff – how can you not? Brazilian music really knocks my socks off. I love the music from the Cape Verde. Last year, I heard a duo of two guys from Romania playing violin and accordion, playing all this Middle European music that I had no clue what to call it. But it was sublime! How can you not be turned on my music that just reaches to the highest levels?
How can you not have all these influences? How can you not be turned on by what you love? I’ve been a Ray Charles fan from the very first time that I’ve heard him. I used to listen to Bo Diddley, to Josh White, to B.B. King, to Leadbelly, to Bud Powell, to The Rascals . . . how could you not be excited by these guys? When you hear something that really just grabs you, you think, “How could I use that element? How could I capture that feeling?”
LJC: During your time with Cubop, you put out some great albums as a leader, but you were also a producer for them . . .
BM: They gave me an opportunity to work with all these different artists. Each artist was a different experience. Some times theses guys would come in with their ideas fully formed and it’s not your job to change those ideas.
At first, I was kind of feeling my way around what a producer should be, so I turned and I asked my engineer for advice. I was trying to use the same engineer for every date because I liked working with him, he knew how to mic my drums, and how to mic everything else to get the kind of sound that I wanted. I said, “Man, I’m hearing a different concept than he hears – how much should I insist on this?” He turned around and he said, “Bobby, your job as a producer is to make the artist look good.”
I’d been producing myself and I didn’t have any problem with that. But when you’re dealing with a second person as an artist, then there’s a dichotomy. So I was thinking how to make the artist look good; it wasn’t about me imposing my will about what I’m hearing – I do that on my stuff. How do I make the artist look good and give him his own sound? Every once in a while, I would tell someone, “Listen, why don’t we try this?” There were a couple of little things where I could help shape the sound.
Come back tomorrow for Part Five of our interview with percussionist and bandleader Bobby Matos, as we get into several of the classic albums that he recorded and produced for the Cubop label, including work with Jack Costanzo, Pucho And His Latin Soul Brothers, and John Santos. Don’t miss it!
The music business presents a crazy ride for any young artist, sending them through waves of ups and downs. When an artist first ventures into the wild frontier known as the music business, all the rules and everyday procedures seem absolutely foreign. Everything must be learned, and in many cases, it must be learned the hard way. With each success comes a sideways curve that throws a new twist into the artist’s journey. Rebounds follow, along with new surprises; it’s a never-ending journey of uncertainty and rewards.
Percussionist and bandleader Bobby Matos rode the waves of the music business through an influential debut as a recording artist. Born into a family of music lovers, Matos spent his childhood soaking in the sounds of influential artists like Louis Armstrong, Tito Puente, Nat King Cole, and more. Matos expressed himself through song and dance, and eventually found himself leaning towards Machito And His Afro-Cubans. He attended live performances, forged a lifelong friendship with Machito and Graciela, and got backstage lessons with Carlos “Potato” Valdes. He dropped out of collegiate art studies to dedicate himself to his gig with a traditional Afro-Cuban band. The gig helped him solidify his conga skills, and eventually moved him into steady work as a sideman. Just as things started to pick up, the draft shipped Matos to Washington D.C., where he bonded with Paul Hawkins, a percussionist who mentored him further. Matos pursued music studies after leaving the army, building his knowledge of music theory and harmony. His new skills led him to pursue the composition of original compositions, and sent him towards work as a bandleader. He formed The Latin Soul Combo, found gigs for the group, and began recording the band’s performances. These recordings led to a demo deal, which eventually found its way to Philips Records. The company supported the production of Matos’ My Latin Soul, a classic album that unfortunately didn’t receive publicity from Philips. Matos moved to Speed Records, where he recorded a second album, but despite a strong musical product, the company never released the recording due to financial problems. Behind Matos’ back, the company released several singles from the album, and created European distribution. Tired of the life of a bandleader, Matos found extensive work as a sideman and recording artist, but the future waves of the music business were destined to send Matos back into the role of a leader.
My Latin Soul and tracks from Matos’ unreleased second album found a cult following among Latin Jazz fans and DJs, remaining a popular piece of Latin Jazz history today. It was a sign of the potential that became clearly apparent when Matos later revived his career as a bandleader on the West Coast. In Part One of our interview with Matos, we examined his early connections with music, his encounters with Latin Jazz legends, and his dive into professional performance. Part Two of our interview with Matos looked at his move towards timbales, his time in the Army, his musical studies, and his first steps as a bandleader. Today we look at the formation of The Latin Soul Combo, the recording of My Latin Soul, and his unreleased second album.
———- LATIN JAZZ CORNER: You were leading groups and learning to write – how did that get you to My Latin Soul?
BOBBY MATOS: My bass player was one of the only original guys that was in that rehearsal band that stayed with me. We went into the army about a week apart; I knew him because he was a friend of an old college buddy of mine – the guy that I bought my first conga from. He introduced me to this piano player, Al Dorsey, who was a mambo nut like I was. He came into the band and then he and I started writing music together. What I didn’t know, he knew, because of his harmonic keyboard experience. It made me really want to learn the piano; as I did, the piano is really what taught me all my harmonies – as I sat at the piano and did all my exercises, I was starting to see this stuff. He and I started to co-write a lot of the music that went into My Latin Soul. The tune that he wrote, “Up In Alfred’s Pad,” was the first tune that I arranged on my own. It was easy for me, because I just put the flute an octave above the trombone and figured out how to transpose into bass clef. It wasn’t a difficult arrangement, but at the time, I hammered it out and stumbled over it. All of that music turned into My Latin Soul.
The name of our band at that time was The Latin Soul Combo – El Combo De Alma Latina. We were doing these little gigs and I was making tape recordings of the band. We were trying to do original numbers and we did a couple of cover numbers. I knew this guy, Big George, that worked in a record store in the heart of Broadway – it was one of the Colony stores, Colony Records. He was connected to a lot of different people in the music business. I gave him a copy of the tape of one of our live gigs.
The next time I walked into his store, he said, “Bobby, come with me.” He took me out of the store across the street to the Brill Building, which was where all these composers had different offices – the well known and the not so well-known that were struggling to make it. This was the heart of Tin Pan Alley and the commercial music business in New York. He takes me up to this guy’s office, Joe Cain, who had been the producer of Joe Cuba’s To Be With You and he had been Celia Cruz’s producer on Secco Records for many years. He goes into the office and Big George, a 6 foot 4′ guy with a cigar in his mouth, says, “Hey Joe, Bobby’s got the best Latin band in New York!” I’m thinking, “Really? All he’s heard are these tapes.” But that was the way that he talked.
So Joe listened to the tapes and he called me. He said, “I like what I heard, but you need a decent demo. If I’m willing to produce a demo, are you willing to let me run with it? I’ll see if I can take it around to some labels and get you a deal.” I said, “Sure.” So he paid for the demo. He went into the studio and did two of our originals for the demo. He took it around and then struck up this deal with Philips Records. He called me and told me that we had a deal.
It was an interesting experience, because it took close to a year before this album was released. It was almost two months before our contract was up when the album came out. It had no publicity – we didn’t have anyone promoting this record or taking it around. We didn’t know what was happening; we didn’t know anything about the commercial end of the music business. When I went to find out if they were going to pick up our option, they told me, “No, we’re not picking up your option because you didn’t sell enough units.” I said, “How could I have sold enough units? I signed a contract in September and you didn’t release my album until July. Two months later I couldn’t have possibly sold enough units with no promotion.” They pretty much said, “Too bad.”
So we went out and we auditioned for Speed Records, which was run by Stan Lewis, who had been one of the co-founders of Cotique Records, along with Morty Craft, was a notorious exploiter of many different Rhythm and Blues groups. Both of these guys were record business criminals; it’s been a well-documented fact about both of these guys. So I wound up recording for Speed Records; I did an album that was head and shoulders above My Latin Soul.
Now we were starting to really get serious – I was writing better and I had another arranger on the date – Paquito Pastor, who was playing with Joe Quijano at the time. Years later he played with Fajardo and Tito Puente, among other people. The two of us were doing some really serious writing. When we went into the date, we didn’t go in with anybody left over from the original group because of sentiment. We went in with hard-core pros on every instrument, in every chair. I had Victor Venegas on bass, Paquito on piano, Steve Pulliam on trombone, Mauricio Smith on tenor, and a really great trumpet player out of Joe Quijano’s band. It was really a killer band. I had Manny Romando on Spanish vocals and Tony Middleton doing the boogaloo/soul vocals. Tony Middleton was out of The Willows, who had the old doo-wop hit “The Church Bells May Ring.” He had been the lead singer with them.
Then they never released this album. The company went bankrupt. There was a big scandal. They went bankrupt, and they had never really finished paying us for the session. I tried to collect – I went to the bankruptcy hearing and I asked the judge, “Well, can I at least get the tapes, can I own the master tapes?” He said, “That seems fair since he didn’t pay you for the recording. How about that?” Then Stanley Lewis stood up and lied to the judge, saying, “The studio is taking possession of the tapes. I can’t give them to Bobby because they won’t let me have them until I pay for the studio time.”
They did release three singles from it. One of the singles was “Return To Spanish Harlem,” which I picked up and put onto my Charanga Chango album. There were also a couple of other singles that were released from it as well. The singles were heard a little bit and they actually got some play on some R ‘n B stations in New York. One of the singles made a little bit of noise in Puerto Rico.
Years later, I was in England hearing these songs being played by the DJ; they were on 12 inch singles. I realized that Stanley had copies of all these tapes and he was licensing them to European companies, doing all sorts of deals with them. This was my great second album that was never heard by anybody.
Then I kind of got out of being a bandleader and turned my attention towards being a sideman. As a bandleader, you end up paying everybody and you have less money than you paid everybody else. I still had those dreams of always wanting to play original music, play stuff that was burning in my head. I could make more money being a sideman though; it was just too hard to be a bandleader.
I stayed in New York for a while, working and recording with a lot of different people. I spent a couple of months with Joe Loco in Atlantic City. I freelanced a lot in New York. I recorded with Miriam Makeba, Jim Croce, and a lot of different people. I started working with Ben Vereen and Bette Midler. Ben was just really beginning the start of his career. He was just getting out of paying his dues and starting to work on Broadway. He had worked in Hair, and then he got the lead in Jesus Christ Superstar. This was around that time.
We were doing a lot of work where I was making much more money than I had ever made as a leader. As a leader, I’d be lucky to make thirty dollars; working with Ben Vereen, I could make a hundred dollars. This was in a time when a hundred dollars was big money. With Ben, I was playing in places like Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. The same thing with Bette. My first gig with her was at Carnegie Hall. That was a different world; I didn’t want to be a bandleader anymore and have to suffer!
This was during the seventies in New York – at that time, there was a big, big recording scene going on in New York City. It’s not as big an industry as it used to be, as a matter of fact it’s much, much smaller – a lot of the recording has moved out of New York. But at that time, there was a tremendous amount of recording. Every week, I was doing two or three sessions, and that was enough. I didn’t even have to take gigs.
Still, I started to do gigs with different people. I was called for a quintet gig that was led by Andy Harlow. Andy was playing vibes, tenor, and flute. I started to get little quintet gigs as a leader, and I’d call all the same guys that he had in his quintet. We had a deal – whoever got the gig was the leader. It didn’t matter to me, I didn’t even call the band Bobby Matos; I called it The Afro-Latin Jazztet. When he got a gig, it was The Andy Harlow Quintet. That was enough for me at that time.
Come back tomorrow for Part Four of our interview with percussionist and bandleader Bobby Matos, as we get into his move to the West Coast, his dive into the Los Angeles music scene, and the formation of his West Coast group. Don’t miss it!
Musical growth never occurs instantaneously, it’s an evolutionary process that happens through incremental learning. Every musician starts somewhere, whether it’s through contact with an instrument, hearing an inspirational recording, or getting words of wisdom from a mentor. Moving forward, their task is to piece together an understanding of music bit by bit, through a number of different experiences. The might further their technical abilities through the advice of a fellow artist or take the time to study a specific methodology on paper. They might attend classes on music theory or find an advanced instructor that will push them into another level of musicianship. In most cases, the movement towards artistry happens through a number of these experiences – the growth curve happens step by step.
Percussionist and bandleader Bobby Matos dedicated himself to a series of meaningful musical experiences that helped him grow into the important Latin Jazz artist of today. Growing up in New York, Matos didn’t have any professional musicians in his family, but he did have a close-knit family of music lovers. They exposed the young Matos to fantastic recordings by artists such as Nat King Cole, Tito Puente, and more, leading him to sing, dance, and tap out rhythms. As his interest in Latin music grew, he attended live performances by Machito And His Afro-Cuban, leading to a lifelong friendship with Machito and Graciela, as well as backstage lessons with Carlos “Patato” Valdes. Out of high school, Matos started collegiate studies in commercial art, but he soon found himself playing in a traditional Afro-Cuban band in Greenwich Village. He dropped out of school, got a day job, and dedicated himself to becoming a performing musician. He learned the fundamentals of the conga in this group, but soon found himself leaning towards the timbales. As he began developing his timbale skills and earning work as a sideman, his career was sidelined by the draft. Matos found himself stationed in Washington D.C., where he took every possible leave from the army to play with local groups. He found a local mentor in percussionist Paul Hawkins, who helped him solidify his percussion chops. Upon his release from the army, Matos used the G.I. Bill to fund an education in music theory at The New School and The Manhattan School Of Music. He took his first steps into writing and arranging; through diligent hard work, he began to develop a well-rounded set of skills that would enable him to become a strong Latin Jazz bandleader.
Matos took every opportunity available and turned it into a chance to become a better musician, with each step helping him evolve into a skilled professional. Years later, the hard work would pay off, as he would become one of the West Coast’s most respected and admired Latin Jazz band leaders. In Part One of our interview with Matos, we looked at his early exposure to music, his relationships with Latin Jazz legends, and his first leap into Afro-Cuban music. Today, we delve into his move to timbales, his time in the army, some influential musicians that helped him along the way, and his immersion in musical studies.
———- BOBBY MATOS: I started studying timbales around this time. I got past the tumbadora and I learned how to play the second drum, the segunda. Then I learned a little bit about the quinto, and a little bit about cascara. I was always very, very attracted to timbales. Rather than move from congas to bongo, I moved from conga to timbales. I think that conga is the foundation for both bongo and timbales. A lot of conga players move to bongo right away, but I moved to timbales.
I was starting to play with different dance companies. At that time, there were a lot of dance companies that would use live drummers. I remember playing with one company; we would play mostly Afro-Cuban rhythms – rumbas, 6/8, and stuff like that, but also sometimes Haitian rhythms.
I was also starting to get work playing with different jazz groups. One time we played opposite Ray Barretto and I remember what a thrill it was for me. Ray was like a hero; he was one of the most visible conga players after Candido. Chano Pozo had been gone for some time at this point – he was just a whisper. You’d hear him on records, but you couldn’t go see him live. But Ray Barretto . . . he was playing with Red Garland, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, and guys like that. You’d go spend your money and go see Ray Barretto play somewhere.
It was a continuing education. Sometimes you’d meet someone that was a little bit further along than you and they’d invite you to their house. You’d sit and play for a couple of hours. The guy would say, “Hey, let me show you this pattern that I learned for Columbia, let me show you this pattern that I learned for Mozambique.” You’d exchange information. I still remember who taught me which pattern and who taught me which way to play that pattern. You learn all the different styles so you don’t get stuck doing things one way. I remember playing clave in a rumba group and the guy said, “No, no, no, don’t play it New York style, play it Cuban style.” I didn’t know what he meant at the time. Every playing experience was an education.
I had been doing this for a little while, working in and around the music industry, but then I was drafted. While I was in the army, I felt terribly frustrated that I wasn’t playing. I would use all my spare time to go any place where I could go hear music, maybe sit in or something like that. I was stationed outside of Washington D.C., and I met some people through my journeys in the city, sitting in with different bands.
I met this one guy, while we were both sitting in with this one band. He took me aside and he said, “Listen, I just come here on my night off to play with these guys because I really want to play. But you know the way that these guys play. They let you sit in because you play better than their percussionist! You make them sound better. Why don’t you come and sit in with my group – you’ll feel a different level of comfort. You won’t be working so hard, you’ll be grooving more.” He gave me this open invitation, and I said, “Yea, O.K.” This guy saved my sanity. He said, “You can always come to my house, you can always come to my club, you’ll never have to pay admission at the door, you can come where ever I’m working.”
His name was Paul Hawkins – he was a conga player and a timbale player. He was very, very tight with Patato – one time I went over to his house in Washington and there was Patato in the kitchen cooking. He was a great mambo dancer and a great percussionist. When Patato was with Herbie Mann, they didn’t have a timbale player; if they played Washington D.C., Paul would go on the gig as the timbale player. He was Patato’s first choice in Washington – so you know what kind of level he was at. He nurtured me and he gave me what I needed in terms of always being able to sit in with somebody and always being able to hang out with somebody who knew the music. He was the next step.
I was learning a lot about percussion and the roots of the music, but I had all these melodies in my head and I had no way of expressing them. I didn’t know how to write music. I decided that when I got out of the army, I was going to use the G.I. Bill to go to school and learn how to read and write music. When I got out of the army, I took the G.I. Bill, I went to the New School, and I went to Manhattan School Of Music – this was all at night while I was working days. In between, I was rehearsing these tunes that I was learning to write.
I started a group at that time. I was working as a sideman with a lot of different groups, but I was trying to be a leader because I had all these tunes in my head. We’d go and audition – we got a little bit of work here and a little bit of work there. Once we started getting some work, some of the guys that I was rehearsing with got cold feet. I remember, we’d be rehearsing for months and all these guys were learning the repertoire; then I got a real gig and half of them dropped out. So I wound up calling professionals – guys that can play no matter what is happening; they’re not nervous, you call a tune and they know it. If they don’t know it and you’ve got the music, they’ll play it. Then I realized, “Oh, this is another level.”
I didn’t care about leading a band, but I wanted to play the music that I was hearing. I wanted to play it a certain way. At that time, the music that we were listening to besides Machito and Tito Puente, was Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaria, and Willie Bobo. At one time in New York, there was a very hot record, although the band didn’t work live too much Sabu’s Jazz Espagnole. It was the forerunner of a lot of things that Marty Sheller did later with Mongo. They were all die-hard New York players on that album. That was the kind of sound that I was hearing. I was saying, “How do I get that sound?”
They didn’t teach me how to write for a jazz ensemble in school; they taught me how to read quarter notes, eighth notes, and such. I had to figure out what was happening with the intonation, the harmonies, and stuff like that. It wasn’t the kind of harmony or counterpoint that I was learning in school. But I had to learn that in order to express it
At first I didn’t even have a piano so that I could hear that stuff. At home, I had a little set of orchestral bells so that I could hear what the notes were. I would go to school early and use the practice piano so I could do my exercises and actually hear what those notes were instead of just figuring it out mathematically. Then I remember I go an upright piano and things started to accelerate. I think that those years were the years that accelerated my education. They were the beginning of it.
When I started to work and started to call professionals in to play with me, one of the guys that I connected with was an older trombone player named Steve Pulliam. Steve had been b a veteran of Buddy and Ella Johnson, which was like a swing/R ‘n B band in the fifties. At that time, he was working with Mon Rivera in the trombone section and he was also working with Kako’s after hours band. He would invite me to come by and sit in with these bands. That also helped accelerate my learning process.
We would do these gigs and I didn’t have any thing written. I had been rehearsing these tunes by ear for months. He would say, “Bobby, you’ve got to have some charts.” I said, “Well, O.K., how do I do that?” I would write the melodies, the chords, and stuff like that, but I didn’t know how to write arrangements. He said, “I’ll do a few for you, but I’ll do the score and you copy out the parts.” I didn’t even have an idea of what he was talking about until he showed me what he was doing. He said, “This top line is the alto line, copy this on one page so it’s all alto. Then you go to the next one, that’s the trombone part, so copy that.” I started to see what these parts looked like and what work was involved in.
I started to do some of my first arrangements at that time. They were not Chico O’Farrill, Lalo Schifrin, Quincy Jones type arrangements – I was writing for two horns and I was writing a lot of stuff in unison. It was kind of a hip sound, but it wasn’t as difficult as writing harmonies and figuring out the harmonies. In that sense, it was simpler harmonically. I remember writing some of those charts and playing some of those charts and they didn’t sound half bad. So I said, “This is what I have to do.”
I was in my twenties, I was out of the army, and I was moving towards thirty rapidly. I said, “I’ve really got to start accelerating this, because some of these people have been doing this since they were twelve. I’m starting really late in life to compete with these cats.” So I found a book called The Professional Arranger And Composerr by Russell Garcia. It was like a workbook – you studied something and then you wrote in the book. It was a working textbook. I went through that book, I did every exercise in that book, sometimes more than once – instead of doing them in the book, I’d complete them again on some manuscript paper. That was a revelation to me, learning the different things in that book. At first you just accept it – write this using all thirds and sixths, write this using harmonies in fourths – you have no clue what it’s going to sound like until you hear it back. That book was an eye opener; I still recommend that book.
Another great book for teaching the structure of pop tunes, jazz tunes, and blues tunes, was a book by Jerry Coker called Improvising Jazz. The book itself wasn’t as valuable as the appendices. It had examples of every type of pop tune written in chord symbols – not written by spelling the chord, but writing what chord it was in the key. Then you could transpose it into any key. I would use that as experimentation to see how tunes were constructed. It was the key to unlock the door to where all the harmonic secrets were.
Come back next week for Part Three of our interview with percussionist and bandleader Bobby Matos, as we get into the recording of My Latin Soul, his work as a studio musician in New York, and his move to the West Coast. Don’t miss it!
Music forms a powerful connection with young people, and for those with a predisposition to music, it inspires any number of reactions. Every listening experience becomes a revelation, and exposure to great music will only heighten their enthusiasm. Movement becomes mandatory as they interpret the nature of the beat combined with their own instinctual emotions around the music. Singing arrives in the next step, demanding a more complete participation in the music and a personal connection. Inevitably, a young person will connect with the pulse and start pounding on the closest object, calling upon the natural instinct to drum. With encouragement, a young person’s fascination with music can become more than a reaction, but a lifetime passion.
Percussionist and bandleader Bobby Matos experienced music vividly during his youth, setting a trajectory that would lead him into a life in Latin Jazz. Matos grew up close to family, and while they didn’t perform, they shared their deep love for music. In his youth, Matos heard a wide variety of the era’s best music, ranging from Pete Seeger to Louis Armstrong, as well as Machito And His Afro-Cubans. Inspired by his listening experiences, Matos leaned towards music in every way possible – singing, dancing, and constantly tapping out rhythms. It was the fifties in New York, the major names in Latin Jazz were thriving, and Matos was following them all. While attending local concerts, he soon met Machito, Graciela, Patato, and more, building influential lifelong friendships. His interest in percussion brought him closer to Patato, who gave the young Matos informal lessons backstage at concerts. As a young adult, Matos began started attending college to study commercial art, but music continued it’s huge pull upon his life. He connected with a group of musicians playing traditional Afro-Cuban music in Greenwich Village and soon worked his way into their regular line-up. This proved to be an important school for Matos, allowing him to expand his knowledge of the music and refine his technique. It also led him into a full commitment to music, as he dropped out of school, landed a day gig, and focused his energies upon performance. With his mind fully dedicated to a music career, Matos charged headfirst towards a life filled with Latin Jazz.
A passionate connection to music formed the core of Matos’ experience in his youth, and led him to Afro-Cuban music. It would continue to be a driving force in his life, moving him to become a bandleader, a successful session musician, and an important West Coast Latin Jazz bandleader. In Ort One of our interview with Matos, we look at music in his early life, his connection with some Latin Jazz legends, and his leap into full-time work performing Afro-Cuban music.
———- LATIN JAZZ CORNER: You grew up in New York – was there music around you?
BOBBY MATOS: There was music around me, but nobody in my family really played or sang music. My parents separated when I was very little, so my Mom and I moved into my grandparents’ home. I shared a room with my uncle, who was 12 years older than me – he was almost like an older brother rather than an uncle. I also had an aunt who was a little bit older than him; she sang a little bit. She was married, had her own apartment, and she had a piano in her home. They lived within walking distance, so I saw them a lot. I was around the piano in her home a lot; my grandfather was always singing and dancing – he couldn’t play, but he would pound on her piano and try to hammer out melodies. He loved music. My uncle did as well, as did my mother.
They would all bring records home. At a very early age my mother was bringing me records. They used to have these records that had stories on them, but the ones that she would bring me always had stories and songs. She was kind of a socialist, so she would always bring me stuff that was connected to the movement – either the civil rights movement or just the struggle for freedom. She would bring me Tom Glazer, Pete Seeger, Canada Lee, Teddy Wilson, Billie Holiday – I was listening to some really great music when I was a little kid. My uncle would bring Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt, and Nat King Cole – he loved that stuff. He and his friends had a record player with a cutting stylus on it – they could actually record things. He said that the first thing that I ever recorded was “Sweet Lorraine”! That was my first recording, I must have been about five.
LJC: Were you interested in playing music at the time?
BM: At that time, I was interested in singing and dancing. I remember seeing a drum in a store window in our neighborhood. The block that we lived on didn’t have any stores on it; but the block that intersected us was 169th Street, and that was full of stores. One of the stores had a little snare drum in the window, and I wanted that drum so badly – I knew I had to have that drum. My mother, seeing what the future was, said, “No!” She already knew what would happen – I was pounding on the tabletops and I was pounding on the desks. I was trying to reproduce the sounds that I heard.
I used to love tap dancing too – I couldn’t tap dance, but I thought that I could. When I was a little kid, I would dance like I saw in the movies. It kind of frustrated me that I didn’t get that drum, but I didn’t stop beating on things – tabletops, mailboxes, and whatever had a resonance to it. When you’re a kid, you find a lot of different things.
It helped that my Mom loved to dance. She would always play a lot of dance music, and that included Machito, early Tito Puente, and Noro Morales. Those were records that were in her collection, along with Billie Holiday, Teddy Wilson, and all of that. I was hearing that stuff, and I knew that it was exciting music. It made people dance. Even if you couldn’t dance, it made you tap your foot, shake your behind, or move your shoulders. That was exciting to me, so I always wanted to do that.
As I got a little older, I got into singing in vocal groups – everybody had a doo-wop group. Several of us would sing tunes like, “Hey Señorita,” which was the flip side of “Earth Angel.” It needed a Latin beat, and if somebody had some beat-up bongos, I would be the one that would be on them, banging away, accompanying those doo-wop Latin tunes.
LJC: In New York during the fifties, there were a lot of guys like Mongo Santamaria and Patato Valdes on the scene. Did you have access to any of those guys?
BM: You know, I did. I remember this clearly. On the local English-speaking channel, they had a program called Don Pasante’s The Spanish Hour. I turned on the T.V. and there was the Machito Orchestra. Machito turned to the announcer and he said, “We are going to bring to you our latest sensation, we just brought him up from Cuba. This is our new conga player – Patato Valdes.” They sang something in the coro – I remember them singing “Baila, baila, Patato.” He was so little that he boosted himself up between the two drums, he did a little dance, and he carried on. The next day in my chorus class, before class had started, all the guys in the chorus were singing, “Baila, baila, Patato!” So I knew who all these people were – my Mom had Machito records, and I knew who Patato was.
I would hear that these guys would be performing some place, and I would go check them out. Sometimes they would be at outdoor things, and since there was no age limit, I would go. I met Machito when I was 16 years old. I met Machito, Graciela, Patato, Mangual, and all of those guys. The Kenya album had been out for about a year at that time, and they were playing that on New York jazz radio quite a bit. I saw Machito at some outdoor festival, and I asked him to play something from the Kenya album. I had no fear; it didn’t bother me that these guys were world famous. He looked at me and said, “Oh, you’re an aficionado, huh?” I said, “Yea, I guess so.” Then he said, “Well, I’m going to play something just for you.”
That was the beginning. Throughout the years, I kept that friendship going with Machito and Graciela. She was very, very sweet. They were always very friendly and very supportive. It all came from a relationship that started when I was 16 years old.
I used to see Patato playing not only with Machito, but also with Herbie Mann. I would go backstage – I had an acquaintance with Patato. I would beg him to show me different licks on the conga. He was interested in getting a drink, not helping me. If he gave me something too simple, then I’d be bugging him again. So he would give something complex to work out. He’d show it to me two or three times and then leave me backstage. I’d be stuck there trying to figure out what he had just done – those were like my first lessons.
LJC: So you were building some chops at that time . . .
BM: I was trying. It took a while to realize how much I didn’t know. When you start playing, you think that you know what you’re doing and then later on you realize that you didn’t know anything. The more that you learn, the more that you realize that this is a curriculum that doesn’t end. You’re always going to be studying this, and you’re always going to be trying to learn something. It’s endless, you’re never finished learning.
LJC: When did you make the next step and start pulling yourself together as a musician?
BM: In high school, I was in all the different performing groups – I was always singing, playing drums, and dancing. I thought that I could play. I had really minimal chops, but I could produce a sound. Once I got into college, I was going to different dances. I was going to The Palladium quite often to see Machito and Tito Puente. I ran into some friends in Greenwich Village and they told me that they had this Afro-Cuban group. I had this beat-up drum that I bought from one of my peers in school. I said, “Let me sit in with you guys.” I didn’t care if I got paid, I just wanted to play.
I would sit in with these guys and they were very, very talented – they all knew more than me. They told me that if I bought a decent drum, they would start giving me lessons. This was a group that had three conga drums – tumbadora, segunda, quinto, timbales, hand percussion, flute, and sometimes bass. It was really kind of deep Afro-Cuban groove. There was no piano, no guitar. Mostly everything that we did was rhythmic. They said get yourself a decent drum and we’ll teach you all the bottom parts, all the tumbaos. They said, “But you don’t solo. For six months, you don’t solo. You’ve just got to learn these tumbaos and play them for these different things.”
It was the best thing that ever happened to me – I learned discipline, I learned keeping time, and I learned what it meant to produce the sounds correctly. I learned really what the cornerstone of the tumbao was supposed to do and its relationship to the clave as well as all the other parts. It was like discovering a new planet. Now I wasn’t just beating the drum and producing sounds that made me happy, but I was doing them in conjunction with the other sounds. I was learning the relationship of these rhythms to each other. It was like a different world to me.
I was about 19, and I was in college studying commercial art. I liked music so much that I found myself always drawing and painting musicians. Then I would be in the art class and I’d take my art class and start beating the brush against the metal rods of the stools that we were sitting on. I was obsessed with sound, music, and dancing. I was going to Palladium, dancing mambo, and I was learning to play with these guys.
Eventually I dropped out of school. We got work six nights a week in Greenwich Village, but we were making peanuts. I had to take a day job in order to support that kind of lifestyle. I was no longer living at home with my family. We got into playing in Greenwich Village. I learned a variety of different patterns and these guys were really, really knowledgeable about what they did. They were teaching me everything that they knew.
Finally when that group broke up, I had started to work with other artists as well. I had started to work with singers; there were a great many singers in Greenwich Village at that time – there was a big acoustic folk thing going on. I played with a lot of people that became really well known later. At that time, I even started doing some recordings. Little by little, I started working with jazz groups, but it was always a process – what I was playing, I was studying at the same time.
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Come back tomorrow for Part Two of our interview with percussionist and bandleader Bobby Matos, where we’ll talk about his time in the military, his development as a band leader, and the recording of My Latin Soul. Don’t miss it!
The Latin Tinge in jazz is simultaneously one of the most cherished and overlooked elements of the music. A number of musicians will quickly praise the importance of artists such as Tito Puente, Poncho Sanchez and Eddie Palmieri, citing their ability to play exciting Latin Jazz that thrills audiences and musicians alike. In these cases, the Latin Tinge is obviously in the forefront, and cultural references are written all over the music. Other artists are subtler with their use of cultural elements from South America and the Caribbean, often blending it within the context of other musical styles. Most listeners and musicians simply accept the Latin element of the music as a background piece, linking the artist’s work to any other stylistic genre displayed in their music. These artists often follow the instincts of their listeners, associating themselves with other jazz genres – a path that can lead them to success. This unfortunately obscures the fact that they have a strong relationship to South American and the Caribbean, undermining the importance of the cultural references in their work.
Guitarist Al Di Meola holds a near legendary status as a jazz-fusion musician, but his output holds a rich connection to many strains of Latin Jazz. Raised in New Jersey, Di Meola found his way to the Berkelee School Of Music in 1971. After only a few years of study, Di Meola landed a high profile gig with one of the fusion world’s biggest stars, Chick Corea and Return To Forever. The guitarist grabbed the attention of countless fusion fans with his jaw dropping virtuosity, but his ability to navigate the band’s strong Latin influence brought his performances to life. At the end of his tenure with the band, Di Meola began a successful solo career with the album Land Of The Midnight Sun, where his interest in flamenco music began to become clearer. His use of South American musical traditions became increasingly obvious with songs like “Lady Of Rome, Sister Of Brazil” on Elegant Gypsy and “Spanish Eyes” on Splendido Hotel. Di Meola’s awe inspiring guitar skills continued to steal the show though, leaving him firmly in the fusion camp. The loud volume of the electric guitar caught up with Di Meola soon, and he turned to the acoustic guitar, leading him deeper into Latin Jazz. In the nineties, he created the group World Sinfonia, allowing him to blend his ample guitar skills and jazz knowledge with an increasing influence from Argentina, Brazil, and beyond. After the turn of the century, Di Meola revisited the electric guitar, even joining his former band mates in Return To Forever for a new album and tour. His deep immersion in Latin Jazz never left his music though, and with the 2011 release of his new album Pursuit of Radical Rhapsody, his relationship to Latin music is crystal clear.
Di Meola’s work presents an interesting crossroad between jazz, rock, and Latin music that blends the world of flash and artistic depth. While the world may remember him most vividly for his status as a fusion artist, his music holds a deep connection to Latin Jazz and deserves to be looked at from that perspective. With this thought in mind, today’s Weekly Latin Jazz Video Fix is dedicated to Di Meola’s prolific career. The first video finds Di Meola performing a tasty version of Astor Piazzolla’s “Libertango” on acoustic guitar in 2004. The second clip places Di Meola with World Sinfonia, performing an original composition, “Gumbiero.” The guitarist joins World Sinfonia once again in the next piece, this time tackling a moody piece entitled “Indigo.” Di Meola is joined by Paco De Lucia and John McLaughlin for a stirring piece called “Mediterranean Sun Dance,” full of flamenco flair. You’ll certainly hear Di Meola’s amazing chops in these clips, but check out his connection to Latin Jazz; it’s very real and very exciting – enjoy!
———- Al Di Meola Performing Astor Piazzolla’s “Libertango”
Al Di Meola With World Sinfonia Performing “Gumbiero”
Al Di Meola With World Sinfonia Performing “Indigo”
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Do you have a video to contribute to satisfy our weekly Latin Jazz video fix? If so, send it in – it’s time to feed our addiction. I’m looking for live performances, from any context. I’ll most likely be posting one video per week, but if you’ve got another idea, let’s talk. So come on Latin Jazz videographers, musicians, and fans – let’s share some of our memorable videos! Get my contact info HERE.
Our calendars turn towards April tomorrow bringing with them a yearly tradition, Jazz Appreciation Month. It’s thirty government-sanctioned days that are officially dedicated to the history and future of everything associated with jazz. Some of us celebrate jazz 365 days a year, and for us, Jazz Appreciation Month seems a bit redundant. We can easily turn a deaf ear to the proceedings and wonder why the world doesn’t share our daily passion for jazz. It’s important to remember that most people don’t have a conscious connection to the music for one reason or another. This is unfortunate, but it’s also reality. It’s also a prime reason to embrace Jazz Appreciation Month and ride the momentum into a wider public appeal for the music.
In order to reach people outside the jazz community, it’s important to look at the situation from a different vantage point for a while. We know what most people reading this blog are hearing, they sit on the side of the fence that already appreciates jazz. So let’s consider the other side of the fence for a minute. Non-jazz listeners spend their time hooking their ears up to something else, but what’s drawing their attention lately? If we take a look at YouTube, there’s one song above all others that has pulled people in – Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” It’s a poorly written pop song with laughable lyrics and a barely listenable performance, but a current look at YouTube marks “Friday” with 67,926,399 views. Plenty of people have stated their negative opinions about the song, but they’re still listening to it instead of some quality Latin Jazz. As we move into Jazz Appreciation Month, it’s time to start thinking about moving the attention from Black onto Latin Jazz.
Video Is A Very Powerful Tool For Spreading The Word About Music
The Re-Mix Is Almost As Powerful As The Original
Humor Gets People’s Attention
Word Of Mouth Is Really, Really, Really Powerful
Put Yourself Out There And Take A Chance
In an era where the government is working to restrict funding for the National Endowment For The Arts Jazz Masters awards, it’s important to celebrate every last recognition of the major figures in Latin Jazz. Over the years, it’s been hard to live with the number of important Latin Jazz musicians overlooked by the world. As the current administration aims to balance the budget with swift cuts to any official acknowledgement of jazz musicians’ contributions, the future spotlight upon underexposed Latin Jazz artists seems to be growing dim. Widespread celebration of any particular artist doesn’t necessarily equate to success, but it certainly helps kick their career into high gear. So many Latin Jazz musicians deserve this recognition, but so few receive it; so things feel right when an honor falls upon a deserving party.
, a distinctive display of Latin Jazz power. He returned in 1999 with 
, a live recording that featured musicians such as bassist Andy Gonzalez, saxophonist Michael Brecker, and drummer Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez. Vazquez quickly followed with 
, helping shape his group into Pirates Troubadours, his afro-rican jazz band. With this group, Vazquez liberally integrated Puerto Rican rhythms into his music, resulting in the 2003 album 
and the 2007 release 
. Vazquez continued expanding his concept, writing classical compositions and creating a piece for The Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. He enlarged his group into a 19-piece big band in 2008, resulting in the Grammy nominated live recording 
. With each step in his career, Vazquez continues to deliver new takes on mixtures of jazz and Puerto Rican music, grounded in an uncompromising sense of artistry./papo vazquez breakout.jpg)
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/papo vazquez carnival in san juan.jpg)
/papo vazquez from the badlands.jpg)
. Jon Poses with the Columbia Daily Tribune offers a good concise picture of Urcola’s career, along with some insightful thoughts on /kiki sanchez two worlds.jpg)
Artists spend the lives in the creative realm of the world, overflowing with new and exciting musical ideas. In fact, they rarely spend a day in search of new ideas or possibilities. The only issue becomes reconciling their abundance of creative energy with a world that doesn’t see the same possibilities. The reality of this clash can be enough to send an artist spiraling out of their creative world. The truly visionary artist that applies their creative energy to a solution has much to give the world and ends up sharing the wealth of their imagination with the world.
, but Philips didn’t support the release, leading to poor sales. Matos left the label and signed with Speed Records, recording a solid album with a crack band of New York’s finest professionals. Unfortunately, Speed Records went bankrupt, and much of the album was lost in the financial shuffle. Discouraged, Matos dropped his bandleader responsibilities and found extensive work as a sideman and in the studios. Although he worked steadily, Matos still needed a larger change, inspiring a move to West Coast. The transition into the Los Angeles recording scene was slow for Matos, leading him to form a new group, The Heritage Ensemble. After recording a couple of albums, the group evolved into The Bobby Matos Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble, and signed a deal with Cubop Records. Matos recorded a number of outstanding albums during his time on Cubop, but he also served as one of the label’s prime producers, working with Jack Costanzo, Ray Armando, Dave Pike, and more. Looking for more control over his own work, Matos joined Lifeforce Jazz, a collective record label that helped him retain rights to his work. Matos recorded a number of high quality Latin Jazz albums for Lifeforce, including his latest release 
. The recording captures his current band live in concert, performing everything from standards like “Maiden Voyage” to an arrangement of Yiddish theater music. The recording provides a perfect opportunity to hear the experience and creativity of Matos, revealing the promise of future endeavors. 
BM: This is exactly the band that we play with now. The only difference being that sometimes my son plays with us. He’s very focused on getting his education, and he doesn’t play with the band if the gig conflicts with schooling. That’s the reason that he doesn’t appear on 
BM: Armando is one of the most beautiful people on the planet as far as playing percussion or being a great dancer. All you need to do is spend a day with Armando, especially if he’s playing anywhere – that’s like a master’s degree! Armando is the man. In addition to being a wonderful cat, he’s just a fabulous percussionist and he’s the best dancer that I’ve ever seen. 
BM: I always liked that tune, from the first time that Mark recorded it. Mark Weinstein was an old buddy of mine from New York. We used to work together with a composer/player named Ray Rivera. We would travel out to Brooklyn together from Manhattan on the subway to go to Ray’s house for rehearsals. So I knew Mark’s music early on. I called Mark and I asked him to send me a lead sheet and he did. I did a sketch on it and I wasn’t thrilled with the sketch that I did. So I took it to Danny (Weinstein) and he said, “What if we added a vamp to it as well?” He played with it; it was one of those composite arrangements. I was the one that called Mark and asked him for a lead sheet, because I liked that tune a lot. I still like that tune a lot. 
BM: That came to me as I was watching a documentary about Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezuelan conductor. In this documentary, he was presenting a symphonic version of some folkloric music from Venezuela. He had guys playing cuatro, cajon, and stuff like that. He had this very typical folkloric Venezuelan tune that started with the cuatro and the cajon, that’s all. Then the orchestra came in a little bit later. I thought, “Wow, that’s what I should do with Beautiful As The Moon.” Instead of doing it on cajon though, I wanted to do it a little bit differently. I added the bass and just the conga, and kept everyone off their instruments until the bridge. I wrote a tenor background for the bridge, and the piano, timbales, and everyone else came in on the bridge. I felt that idea of keeping it very acoustic sounding and almost folkloric would work for that Yiddish melody. 
BM: I want to be creating more narrative music. I’ve done this before, but I want to do it more often. I want to collaborate with dance companies, with choreographer, and with playwrights. It’s not necessarily that I want to write a Broadway show, I don’t. But I do like the idea of doing narrative music. We just did a CD release party and I used dancers, spoken word artists, vocalists, and all sorts of people to enhance the music that we were doing. I love doing that. I love having it all happen on the stage at once – having the dancers, the spoken word, and the band all performing at the same time. I think that’s from my days at the theater in New York. They always had musicians on the same stage as actors. So I want to collaborate with dance companies more, and that’s starting to happen. 
I’m open to doing collaborations. I’ve talked to Hubert Laws about doing some work with him. He’s open to it; he loves doing Latin Jazz. We recently did a collaboration with Poncho Sanchez, that a real, real nice evening of music. One of the artists that I really want to work with is Sharon Jones from the Dap Kings. I love this woman from Cape Verde, Sarah Tavares, I’d love to do something with her. I recently collaborated with a Colombian singer, Yari More. He’s got such a great voice that I want to do some stuff with him that he might not do with his own orchestra. I might arrange some things with just a piano and a string quartet behind him, doing clave-oriented music. I like doing that kind of thing, working with artists that we don’t work with all the time, whether those artists are actors, dancers, choreographers, or musicians. I like the idea of taking the best of what we do and letting it grow. It’s in the mix that it happens.
A few of us are trying to come together and start a non-profits arts organization as well. We want to find more ways to further this music and present this music. We want to let people know what this music is. This music suffers from a great underexposure. We’re not played on the radio all the time. Usually if you hear us on T.V. or the radio, it’s usually a diluted version. If you hear a conga drum on a recording and it’s actually played correctly, you think, “Wow, a real tumbao on this record . . . but the rest of the recording is crap” Those days have to end, the whole record has to be up to par. It has to be musically first rate. We’ve been inundated with some wonderful musicians – we’ve seen Chucho Valdes, Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Poncho Sanchez, John Santos, Jerry Gonzalez, and Andy Gonzalez. Why should we have to be doing junk that some people think is Latin music? 
One of the most exiting parts of being a seasoned professional is the ability to touch other people’s artistic statements and make a difference. During an artist’s younger days, their main focus lies upon their own personal development as a musician. While they reach their peers, their collaborations generally don’t make overarching impacts. More experienced professionals have a more selfless way of sharing their abilities with their colleagues, leaving their mark upon the music without stealing the spotlight. Their influence can change career courses for their peers, and sometimes, leave a lasting impact upon an entire scene.
, Ray Armando’s 
, Dave Pike’s 
, and many more. This work defined a big part of the West Coast sound during the early 2000s, making Matos visible and valuable. Several years later, Matos joined the collective record company Lifeforce Records, giving him more control over the work that would lead him to the present. 
, that you did with John Santos and many members of The Machete Ensemble – it was like the All-Stars of the West Coast. 
Every musician reaches a point in their life when they simply need a change. Too much of any good thing can drive a person to boredom and an overload of the negative powers will certainly make an artist crazy. When a musician reaches this point, the need for change drives their next set of decisions. In some cases, an altered musical direction might suit the artist’s needs, sparking a new set of inspired creations. A lifestyle change could be the solution for other artists, sending them to a new home or a different set of social circumstances. Whatever the solution, the need arises at some point in every artist’s life, and it’s important that they follow their instincts into new opportunities. 
BOBBY MATOS: There came a time that I just wanted to move to the West Coast. A friend of mine was out here and told me that I could stay with him until I got my own place. It sounded very attractive. I was coming out of a failed relationship and I said, “It’s time for me to go to California.” 
There wasn’t a lot of Latin Jazz in California; you would have thought that there would have been. You think of Cal Tjader, Bobby Montez, and Eddie Cano, and you think of Latin Jazz. But there wasn’t enough to make a living. When I came to this town, Willie Bobo had a band. Willie was playing more soulful music than straight ahead Latin Jazz. It was a great band, but I think that he was getting over because he had added that soul element to his music. I struggled for many years out here. 
BM: It kind of reflects what I’ve been listening to and what I love. I worked for a while with The Rascals; I was on the road with them for a while. When I auditioned for them, I had no idea who I was auditioning for. I was giving conga lessons to one of the singers that was on tour with The Rascals and she said, “We need a percussionist.” She invited me to this audition, but she did not tell me the name of the band. I went to the audition and I didn’t know who those guys were. Then I realized that these are the same guys that make the records that I’ve been buying! I had the sheet music to “People Got To Be Free” because I loved it. 
LJC: During your time with Cubop, you put out some great albums as a leader, but you were also a producer for them . . .
The music business presents a crazy ride for any young artist, sending them through waves of ups and downs. When an artist first ventures into the wild frontier known as the music business, all the rules and everyday procedures seem absolutely foreign. Everything must be learned, and in many cases, it must be learned the hard way. With each success comes a sideways curve that throws a new twist into the artist’s journey. Rebounds follow, along with new surprises; it’s a never-ending journey of uncertainty and rewards.
It was an interesting experience, because it took close to a year before this album was released. It was almost two months before our contract was up when the album came out. It had no publicity – we didn’t have anyone promoting this record or taking it around. We didn’t know what was happening; we didn’t know anything about the commercial end of the music business. When I went to find out if they were going to pick up our option, they told me, “No, we’re not picking up your option because you didn’t sell enough units.” I said, “How could I have sold enough units? I signed a contract in September and you didn’t release my album until July. Two months later I couldn’t have possibly sold enough units with no promotion.” They pretty much said, “Too bad.” 
Now we were starting to really get serious – I was writing better and I had another arranger on the date – Paquito Pastor, who was playing with Joe Quijano at the time. Years later he played with Fajardo and Tito Puente, among other people. The two of us were doing some really serious writing. When we went into the date, we didn’t go in with anybody left over from the original group because of sentiment. We went in with hard-core pros on every instrument, in every chair. I had Victor Venegas on bass, Paquito on piano, Steve Pulliam on trombone, Mauricio Smith on tenor, and a really great trumpet player out of Joe Quijano’s band. It was really a killer band. I had Manny Romando on Spanish vocals and Tony Middleton doing the boogaloo/soul vocals. Tony Middleton was out of The Willows, who had the old doo-wop hit “The Church Bells May Ring.” He had been the lead singer with them. 
They did release three singles from it. One of the singles was “Return To Spanish Harlem,” which I picked up and put onto my Charanga Chango album. There were also a couple of other singles that were released from it as well. The singles were heard a little bit and they actually got some play on some R ‘n B stations in New York. One of the singles made a little bit of noise in Puerto Rico.
We were doing a lot of work where I was making much more money than I had ever made as a leader. As a leader, I’d be lucky to make thirty dollars; working with Ben Vereen, I could make a hundred dollars. This was in a time when a hundred dollars was big money. With Ben, I was playing in places like Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. The same thing with Bette. My first gig with her was at Carnegie Hall. That was a different world; I didn’t want to be a bandleader anymore and have to suffer! 
Musical growth never occurs instantaneously, it’s an evolutionary process that happens through incremental learning. Every musician starts somewhere, whether it’s through contact with an instrument, hearing an inspirational recording, or getting words of wisdom from a mentor. Moving forward, their task is to piece together an understanding of music bit by bit, through a number of different experiences. The might further their technical abilities through the advice of a fellow artist or take the time to study a specific methodology on paper. They might attend classes on music theory or find an advanced instructor that will push them into another level of musicianship. In most cases, the movement towards artistry happens through a number of these experiences – the growth curve happens step by step.
BOBBY MATOS: I started studying timbales around this time. I got past the tumbadora and I learned how to play the second drum, the segunda. Then I learned a little bit about the quinto, and a little bit about cascara. I was always very, very attracted to timbales. Rather than move from congas to bongo, I moved from conga to timbales. I think that conga is the foundation for both bongo and timbales. A lot of conga players move to bongo right away, but I moved to timbales. 
I was also starting to get work playing with different jazz groups. One time we played opposite Ray Barretto and I remember what a thrill it was for me. Ray was like a hero; he was one of the most visible conga players after Candido. Chano Pozo had been gone for some time at this point – he was just a whisper. You’d hear him on records, but you couldn’t go see him live. But Ray Barretto . . . he was playing with Red Garland, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, and guys like that. You’d go spend your money and go see Ray Barretto play somewhere. 
I was learning a lot about percussion and the roots of the music, but I had all these melodies in my head and I had no way of expressing them. I didn’t know how to write music. I decided that when I got out of the army, I was going to use the G.I. Bill to go to school and learn how to read and write music. When I got out of the army, I took the G.I. Bill, I went to the New School, and I went to Manhattan School Of Music – this was all at night while I was working days. In between, I was rehearsing these tunes that I was learning to write. 
. It was the forerunner of a lot of things that Marty Sheller did later with Mongo. They were all die-hard New York players on that album. That was the kind of sound that I was hearing. I was saying, “How do I get that sound?” 
When I started to work and started to call professionals in to play with me, one of the guys that I connected with was an older trombone player named Steve Pulliam. Steve had been b a veteran of Buddy and Ella Johnson, which was like a swing/R ‘n B band in the fifties. At that time, he was working with Mon Rivera in the trombone section and he was also working with Kako’s after hours band. He would invite me to come by and sit in with these bands. That also helped accelerate my learning process. 
r by Russell Garcia. It was like a workbook – you studied something and then you wrote in the book. It was a working textbook. I went through that book, I did every exercise in that book, sometimes more than once – instead of doing them in the book, I’d complete them again on some manuscript paper. That was a revelation to me, learning the different things in that book. At first you just accept it – write this using all thirds and sixths, write this using harmonies in fourths – you have no clue what it’s going to sound like until you hear it back. That book was an eye opener; I still recommend that book. 
. The book itself wasn’t as valuable as the appendices. It had examples of every type of pop tune written in chord symbols – not written by spelling the chord, but writing what chord it was in the key. Then you could transpose it into any key. I would use that as experimentation to see how tunes were constructed. It was the key to unlock the door to where all the harmonic secrets were.
Music forms a powerful connection with young people, and for those with a predisposition to music, it inspires any number of reactions. Every listening experience becomes a revelation, and exposure to great music will only heighten their enthusiasm. Movement becomes mandatory as they interpret the nature of the beat combined with their own instinctual emotions around the music. Singing arrives in the next step, demanding a more complete participation in the music and a personal connection. Inevitably, a young person will connect with the pulse and start pounding on the closest object, calling upon the natural instinct to drum. With encouragement, a young person’s fascination with music can become more than a reaction, but a lifetime passion.
LATIN JAZZ CORNER: You grew up in New York – was there music around you?
It helped that my Mom loved to dance. She would always play a lot of dance music, and that included Machito, early Tito Puente, and Noro Morales. Those were records that were in her collection, along with Billie Holiday, Teddy Wilson, and all of that. I was hearing that stuff, and I knew that it was exciting music. It made people dance. Even if you couldn’t dance, it made you tap your foot, shake your behind, or move your shoulders. That was exciting to me, so I always wanted to do that.
BM: You know, I did. I remember this clearly. On the local English-speaking channel, they had a program called Don Pasante’s The Spanish Hour. I turned on the T.V. and there was the Machito Orchestra. Machito turned to the announcer and he said, “We are going to bring to you our latest sensation, we just brought him up from Cuba. This is our new conga player – Patato Valdes.” They sang something in the coro – I remember them singing “Baila, baila, Patato.” He was so little that he boosted himself up between the two drums, he did a little dance, and he carried on. The next day in my chorus class, before class had started, all the guys in the chorus were singing, “Baila, baila, Patato!” So I knew who all these people were – my Mom had Machito records, and I knew who Patato was.
BM: In high school, I was in all the different performing groups – I was always singing, playing drums, and dancing. I thought that I could play. I had really minimal chops, but I could produce a sound. Once I got into college, I was going to different dances. I was going to The Palladium quite often to see Machito and Tito Puente. I ran into some friends in Greenwich Village and they told me that they had this Afro-Cuban group. I had this beat-up drum that I bought from one of my peers in school. I said, “Let me sit in with you guys.” I didn’t care if I got paid, I just wanted to play.
It was the best thing that ever happened to me – I learned discipline, I learned keeping time, and I learned what it meant to produce the sounds correctly. I learned really what the cornerstone of the tumbao was supposed to do and its relationship to the clave as well as all the other parts. It was like discovering a new planet. Now I wasn’t just beating the drum and producing sounds that made me happy, but I was doing them in conjunction with the other sounds. I was learning the relationship of these rhythms to each other. It was like a different world to me.
The Latin Tinge in jazz is simultaneously one of the most cherished and overlooked elements of the music. A number of musicians will quickly praise the importance of artists such as Tito Puente, Poncho Sanchez and Eddie Palmieri, citing their ability to play exciting Latin Jazz that thrills audiences and musicians alike. In these cases, the Latin Tinge is obviously in the forefront, and cultural references are written all over the music. Other artists are subtler with their use of cultural elements from South America and the Caribbean, often blending it within the context of other musical styles. Most listeners and musicians simply accept the Latin element of the music as a background piece, linking the artist’s work to any other stylistic genre displayed in their music. These artists often follow the instincts of their listeners, associating themselves with other jazz genres – a path that can lead them to success. This unfortunately obscures the fact that they have a strong relationship to South American and the Caribbean, undermining the importance of the cultural references in their work.
and “Spanish Eyes” on 
. Di Meola’s awe inspiring guitar skills continued to steal the show though, leaving him firmly in the fusion camp. The loud volume of the electric guitar caught up with Di Meola soon, and he turned to the acoustic guitar, leading him deeper into Latin Jazz. In the nineties, he created the group World Sinfonia, allowing him to blend his ample guitar skills and jazz knowledge with an increasing influence from Argentina, Brazil, and beyond. After the turn of the century, Di Meola revisited the electric guitar, even joining his former band mates in Return To Forever for a new album and tour. His deep immersion in Latin Jazz never left his music though, and with the 2011 release of his new album 
, his relationship to Latin music is crystal clear./al di meola pursuit of radical rhapsody.jpg)
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