VOCES

(overlapping chatter) (instruments warming up) (instruments warming up) JOSE: Okay, let's play "Dance Mania" now.

"Dance Mania".

Now listen, if you know, have a solo in this number, please come up to where the solo mic is, or you're not going to have very much time to play because we have 55 minutes, so everything is going to be pretty short.

I hope everybody heard what the [deleted] I said.

One, two, three.

(mambo music playing).

Hey!

(mambo music playing).

Here we go!

One, two... (mambo music playing).

Uh!

Here we go!

One, two... (mambo music playing).

One!

(song ends).

Sonny, what's wrong with you?

Come on.

SONNY: Wait a minute.

I got to take my med's.

(laughter).

(overlapping chatter).

MEMBER: Hurry up, after this, your ride is waiting... JOSE: Don't worry, we'll laugh tomorrow when you get paid.

Here we go.

I was born in New York City a long time ago.

My dad was born in Guayama, Puerto Rico.

He's part of the Madera family in Puerto Rico.

And my dad came to New York in 1929 and immediately started playing saxophone.

He played in the theaters, in the shows, and at Teatro Hispano, he played with Nobles Sissle's jazz band.

He played with Alberto Iznaga, he played with Agusto Coen.

And then, in 1939, Machito came along, and they started the Machito Band.

MACHITO: Nague, nague, nague... Nague, nague, nague.

JOE: The Afro-Cuban movement started from the mother country, which was Africa, migrated to New Orleans and to Cuba, and the father of that music was basically Machito.

JOSE: Because of the segregation issues in New York and the country those years.

Machito Band was really the first band to play south of 96th Street, a lot of Blacks and Hispanics in that band.

So you could actually say that maybe they were the first ones that really started playing that style of music.

And from there, it obviously went on.

You have Tito Puente, you have Tito Rodriguez much later.

You have a ton of orchestras that come up, but I'd have to say that of all those bands, the foremost exponent of that music was Machito.

And the first lady of song here is Graciela.

GRACIELA: Ay Jos!

As no es.

Ay Jos!

Que rico es.

JOE: She came here in 1943 because her brother Machito was drafted, and Mario Bauz, who was the musical director who was Machito's brother-in-law, he sent for Graciela, who was singing with one of the first all-female bands in Cuba, which was called Anacaona.

JOSE: I think she is the epitome of all of this because she could sing Bolero, she could sing cha cha, and she could sing fast, and she could sing American.

GRACIELA: Jos asi!

MITCH: We could still rehearse the number.

What else do we have to do?

MEMBER: Probably "Coco Seco", but wait.

JOHNNY: Hold on.

Probably "Coco Seco," that's the last tune.

Everybody but Giovanni.

That's his feature tune.

You here already?

They're here.

They're here, guys.

All right.

They're here.

I was born in El Barrio, 109th Street between Madison and Fifth.

My dad's name was John Rodriguez, also.

He was a percussionist also he played with all the bands.

When I was 15 years old, my dad was playing with Xavier Cougat big band at the Roxy's Theater.

He played with Desi Arnaz before Desi Arnaz was Desi Arnaz before he became Mr.

Babalu. I was lucky that my dad always had great music on in my house.

You in El Barrio back in those days, most houses had that going.

You would always hear the doors open, and you would hear good music.

(mambo music playing).

(vocalizing) JOSE: When you came from Puerto Rico.

Either you went to Red Hook, you went to Haverstraw, or you went to El Barrio.

TIto Puente was born in El Barrio.

John Rodriguez is from El Barrio.

I'm from there.

JOE: Growing up in Spanish Harlem, everybody knew everybody.

Don't forget, there were a lot of house parties, so a lot of musicians, they would go to your house to play.

When people ask you, where are you from?

I don't say Warwick, New York.

I say Harlem, Spanish Harlem.

JOSE: The significance of it is the culture.

And having been able to listen to all the, you know, all the Cuban records that came out of Cuba, Aragn and Riverside and Melodia del 40, all those groups that came out, Arsenio, all those things, all those things played an integral part in the development of not only ourselves as musicians but the music in itself.

FELIPE: Puerto Rican music just about reflects the history of Puerto Rican people, and it took a long, long trip from the west coast of Africa to what is now known Nigeria, to Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico.

And that long route produced a lot of different sounds and a lot of good sounds.

The mass migrations of the 1940s brought most of our parents here as garment workers, and they still are there.

America took over Puerto Rico in 1898 still controls it.

And most of our folks came here for want of, looking for better jobs.

And they had to look for a different kind of a sound, so the big band sound developed, influenced a lot by the jazz sound.

Also influenced by a lot of the Cuban greats.

And in the '50s, as we all know, there was a band hall called the Palladium, and one of the people that made that band hall very, very famous is the man I'm about to introduce tonight.

Ladies and gentlemen, will you please welcome to Soul Tonight, Mr. Tito Puente.

(applause) PUENTE: Talking about me?

FILIPE: You.

PUENTE: Okay, I don't know.

FILIPE: Tito, we're very proud of you because you are a New York Puerto Rican.

You were born on East 117th Street.

How did you first get started in music?

PUENTE: Well, I was one of the fortunate ones to have been born with a talent, a natural talent.

And my parents detected that at an early age, and "zoom" they put me into music school right away.

Twenty-five cents a lesson, New York schools and music.

JOHNNY: My first big gig was Tito Puente.

My mother and father made it easy for me.

My mother was a good friend of Tito's.

My father played with Tito before Tito was Tito, they played together with a band called Pupi Campo.

From that band, five guys left, and my father was one of them, and they made that first Tito Puente Band.

SINGER: El agua limpia, limpia, limpia todo El agua tambin limpia la lengua, la gente.

(mambo music playing).

MITCH: Just because you are Puerto Rican or Cuban or Dominican doesn't mean you can play the music, but if it's around you since the time you were born, you have an advantage.

I wasn't listening to Latin music or playing Latin music when I was like, you know, eight years old, like the Mambo Legends Orchestra, which is really the closest thing to what the former Tito Puente Orchestra and Machito Orchestra was.

I would go out, sit for three hours, and maybe the last five or 10 minutes, they'd let one of the saxophone players take a break.

Sometimes, Tito would leave early after two sets, and they'd let me sit in.

I would say to Joe Madera, who was already in the band.

Oh, on this song, "Babarabatiti" is the first note, long or short.

Well, here it's short.

On this song, "Corta el Bonche," is the first note long or short?

No, it's long here.

And I said, why?

That's how they did it before.

JOSE: One two three four.

(mambo music playing).

Coco seco.

Seco, seco.

(vocalizing) Hey!

Who's, who's coming heavy now?

You said?

MEMBER: You!

JOSE: Ok.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

JOHNNY: That's it.

That's it.

JOSE: You all know what you are.

MITCH: No black pants.

No black jeans, no black sneakers.

Black suit and white shirt, a bow tie or tuxedo.

When I was little, I think my parents had an accordion in the house.

I'm from Pelham Parkway in the Bronx.

My family's Jewish.

I joke, they're almost like the Jewish Jeffersons.

My father grew up on Tremont and Anthony, between Webster and Grand Concourse.

My mother grew up on Morris Avenue.

When they got married, they moved on up to Pelham Parkway, where they raised me and my sister.

And then, when we graduated college, they moved on up to Riverdale, where they still live.

When I graduated college, I got a job in the Catskill Mountains.

It was in a basically Jewish hotel called Zucker's Lodge.

To my benefit, we finished early, before midnight.

Down the road at the Pines Hotel was the great Joe Cuba.

For some reason, Joe Cuba let me sit in with him.

And that was the first experience that I had playing real Latin music.

And then, when I got back home after the summer to New York, I started to investigate where some of the opportunities were.

Where the rhythm section and the vocals, of course, were predominantly Hispanic, the horn sections were mixed.

Because, you know, these guys were great musicians.

Tito Puente and all the others, they just cared if you can play.

(mambo music playing).

MEMBER: Qu sabroso.

(vocalizing) MEMBER: Qu sabroso.

(vocalizing) MEMBER: Qu sabroso.

(vocalizing) MEMBER: Qu sabroso.

(vocalizing) MEMBER: Qu sabroso.

(vocalizing) MEMBER: Qu sabroso.

(vocalizing) MEMBER: Qu sabroso.

(vocalizing) MEMBER: Qu sabroso.

(vocalizing) (song ends) CARMEN: You want to say something, huh?

You also want to get into this conversation.

I know, Cookie.

Yes, you talk a lot.

How come you cannot say the stuff that you usually say?

This is a great picture.

This picture that you see here, we're all saxophone players here, but the gentleman that you see right above me is great arranger, also plays saxophone for many, many years with Tito Rodriguez, with Machito, with Puente, and that's Ray Santos over there, some great saxophone players.

But this picture with Madera and Eddie Montalvo, which is the congero with, uh, is playing tonight with us.

He's a two-time Grammy winner, and also he has his own band.

I play with Eddie.

And Louis Bauz to the far right.

And, of course over here, we got the great Mario Grillo is, the son of Machito, and that's Tito Rodriguez Jr.

The son of Tito Rodriguez and myself.

I think this was a gig that we did in Burghausen in Germany.

To the right this is Pete Miranda, baritone player great saxophone player, and to the left is Al Acosta, another great saxophone player, and all-around woodwind player.

These cats have always also played with Tito Puente, with Tito Rodriguez, and with the Machito Orchestra.

And Pete was the actual person solely responsible for me to get my big break in New York in music.

So, actually, one of the first gigs that Pete sent me to cover for him was with Mario, with the Machito Orchestra.

And it was so funny because, at the end of the gig, Mario calls Pete and Mario tells Pete, "Hey, anybody, anytime that you cannot do the gig, please send her.

Not only can she play her ass off, but she has better legs than you."

Not that he ever saw them because I never wore a dress.

So, I always wear a suit also.

So if I can see it before...

Anyway, and this picture over here was the first time that I sat in with Tito Puente, and Jose was the musical director for Tito.

And Jose asked me, do you want to get to play to sit in with the band today because we're not having the baritone?

I said, oh, okay, sit down with Tito Puente.

Wow, that was great.

And about maybe an hour before we start playing, he said to me, "Oh, one thing I got to tell you.

Better make sure that Tito doesn't look back at you once because then you're dead.

That's it, you're done.

If he look once back at you."

He knew the music back and forth, everything, every note, everything.

And I said, "Gee, thank you for telling me this now an hour before."

But anyway, first number that I sat in that day was "Ran Kan Kan," and oh, good enough, I knew the number, so I was familiar.

And the whole night, it was great because he never looked back at me, not once, never.

HOST: Ladies and gentlemen, here's probably one of the most frantic things that Tito Puente and his group does, thing called "Ran Kan Kan." (mambo music playing] Rana, sagero y rumba, araa peludi-ta Rana, sagero y rumba, araa peludi-ta Eeeh!

CARMEN: I started piano and solfeggio at the age of nine, born and raised in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

Uh, very proud of that.

I went to Escuela Libre de Msica in Ponce.

No, I don't come from a family of musicians, but my parents were actually music lovers.

They always supported that.

And my father, the only thing, although I started playing professionally at 16, the only thing that he wanted me to do is just to keep my grades.

I had straight As in school and he said, "Just keep your grades, that's it.

And make sure that I get to know everybody that you're playing with.

So, if you're gonna have a gig, they have to come and pick you up here.

I'm going to get to know them.

I need to know their band leader.

I need to know everybody."

That's the old school.

That's the way I was brought up.

There have been women in Machito.

He had a trumpet player, a female trumpet player, but we're talking about years ago, um, don't actually know her name.

So, there have been women.

With Tito, never.

I was just fortunate to sat with him.

And of course, Tito Rodriguez Jr., yes, um, I played with him, and, um, but I'm not sure if Tito Rodriguez father had a woman in the band.

I don't think so.

But to me, it's very, very important just to get to know that a lot of these guys that I'm seeing tonight and that I often see when I play with different bands, they actually have a great sense of respect for what I do.

And they treat me not like a woman who plays an instrument but they treat me like a musician, which is what you want at the end.

(instruments warming up) JOSE: Okay, everybody know where we are?

One.

One two three four.

(overlapping chatter).

CARMEN: I have a Selmer Mark VI baritone sax, 107000 series, 1959, and my actual fixture is an old New York Myers mouthpiece.

Let's do this.

It's a shame that they don't make them anymore.

(vocalizing in Spanish) (vocalizing in Spanish) (vocalizing in Spanish) Ahora s, ahora no.

(vocalizing in Spanish) JOE: You would hear Machito play, and everybody would go ballistic.

Tito Rodriguez would come on, and you forgot what Machito played.

Then Puente would come on, and you forgot what the both of them played.

It was a constant battle.

JOHNNY: When I first started playing with Tito, I was talking about 1963, the Palladium we're talking about.

This is the time where there's competition going on.

This is the time where, "Who's going to look the sharpest, who's going to play the best?"

You know, it was, it was a whole different thing, but it was, I mean, it was a great experience playing with those bands to be able to see the other percussionists who we grew up idolizing from records and stuff.

As a kid, I'm telling you, my father had these great records.

I used to hear Machitos band.

So now I'm in the Palladium, and now I'm seeing Jose Mangual play in front of me.

It was like, "Ah!"

You know?

SINGER: Coco, coco, coco seco.

JOSE: The Palladium was originally, it was a dance studio, and it was where Machito and, Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez played in 1959.

I'm nine years old, and so my dad's modus operandi, if you will, was always to arrive a little early.

So we walk into the Palladium and Tito Puente's rehearsing.

So after Tito's done, Tito comes over to say hello to my dad.

So that's how I meet Tito the first time.

JOE: In that period, everybody was accessible.

Machito, Tito Rodriguez, Ray Barretto, Tito, there was no bodyguards.

You said hello to them.

You met them in nightclubs.

There was a lot of nightclubs, and I met Tito at The Palladium.

JOSE: I like to call that the golden era of the music from about 1949, I say until about 1963-64, that's the best time, in my opinion, that this genre of music ever had.

JOE: The advantage you had of the Palladium 100 feet away.

You had Birdland, the original Birdland, so Wednesday nights were celebrity nights.

Marlon Brando would sit in with Machito or any of the two Titos and play Conga.

Sammy Davis Jr. did the same thing.

Anybody that was, anybody in Hollywood would come up there.

You went to the Palladium to see the dancers and to hear good music.

(overlapping chatter).

DIRECTOR: Guys, you could start taking places, make sure your mics are working.

MARIO: One two.

One, two... (song ends) (audience applause).

CARMEN: Every place that I have been with every band, I really, first of all, I am so grateful that people call me and say like, Hey, are you available to do this tour or are you available to go to Europe?

Oh gosh, that's, I'm honored.

I would love to get to Japan one day and play there.

MARIO: I love you, as always... CARMEN: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

MARIO: My people.

CARMEN: And thank you for, you know, for everything, for... MARIO: No, no, no, no.

You know you're my girl.

CARMEN: I love you, Mario.

Yeah, see... MARIO: You're my girl.

CARMEN: I know.

JOSE: Here we go.

One.

One two three!

JOSE: As far as playing, we would try to sneak into dances and see the guys play.

You know, I could tell you many times that we would play the records, so they were white already, you know, from playing them over and over, over and over.

And we would hear these certain things that rhythm players would play, and we would try to figure out what the technique was, you know.

And so, after we figured it out, we would try to sneak into a dance.

And when we went to see, and the guys did that, it was completely different from the way we thought it would, it was, you know?

CARMEN: When I moved here in 1981, I moved for two reasons.

The main reason was that I wanted to play music... Goodnight.

MEMBER: Goodnight.

CARMEN: And the second reason was get my master's and get a job as a teacher.

I taught 27 years in Columbus High School in the Bronx.

Goodnight.

I knew at a very early age that I needed a job that was going to put food on my table and a roof over my head.

So, I considered teaching music as the next best thing.

JOSE: I have to get used to you... MITCH: In the latter 90s, I was just called for another recording session to do some music that was going to be for some TV show that was, I didn't even know what it was going to be coming out.

It was just another thing just to support myself, my family.

And it turned out that it was for this new TV show that was going to be on HBO at the time, "Sex and the City", but we had no idea what it was.

We are just going and playing some music.

Something that we did, they liked, and they wound up using it for the theme and different variations of the theme.

And I don't remember us recording it as a theme, or at least they didn't tell us.

I didn't get HBO at the time, and one of my friends said, I know your sound.

There's something that sounds like you, did you do something for this TV show?

And I said, "I don't know, maybe."

And it turned out that it was what I recorded, and not everything was written down.

I specifically remember them showing me a screen with, like they say, play something to this scene for 30 seconds or 40 seconds or 10 seconds.

A lot of it is my saxophone improvisation.

And I'm still unsure of the legalities, but I know that they've been beating us for royalties for years if we want to get totally, totally, totally honest.

(song ends) I told you that was me.

JIMMY: I did a recording back in 82 with Kurtis Blow.

Uh, it was a big hip-hop hit, and I was called to play a timbale solo on that tune, and I was receiving some type of royalties.

It wasn't much, but I was receiving something.

Latin music is a whole different ball game.

It's like a payout.

You do the recording, they'll pay you, and that's it.

It doesn't work like that in the American market.

BLOW: These are the breaks.

Break it up, break it up, break it up.

Breakdown!

JOSE: With Tito Puente, we were doing 20 to 25 albums a year in New York.

Very often, we had two or three recordings to be done in one day.

One done at one studio, and then have to run across town and do something somewhere else.

But it was good because it gave a lot of musicians work, even though it wasn't the best money, but it was, needless to say, work.

MITCH: When I started playing with Tito, we were playing every Monday night at a place in Queens, every Tuesday in Staten Island, every Wednesday at the Corso on 86th Street, Manhattan, every Thursday at a place in Brooklyn.

And then on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, what was known as the "cuchifrito circuit," which was the Latin scene all over the metropolitan area, we did that.

There's no substitute for, you know, playing every day with the legends.

JOE: Tito has recorded close to 200 albums, unheard of in Latin music by a band leader.

JOSE: One time, he set up his timbales backwards because our band boy was late, and he set them up, and they were backwards.

And we opened the show at Madison Square Garden, and he played the solo like nothing as if they were the right way.

So he is really the greatest Latin musician that this genre of music has ever had.

He was bigger than life.

People have no idea about Tito Puente.

They just don't.

JOHNNY: We have so many great memories of hanging with him the last 10, 15 years.

We were more with each other, with the band, than with our families.

MITCH: With Tito Puente's band, we would play some of the hippest stuff, and people would like it.

And then at the end of the night, just ching, ching, ching, ching, ching ching.

And we could be in Italy, we could be in Yugoslavia, we could be in Japan or Australia.

We can be in the barrios of Brazil or Panama, and the people would go crazy for that.

Oye cmo va Mi ritmo Bueno pa' gozar Mulata Oye cmo va Mi ritmo Bueno pa' gozar Mulata (whistling) (trumpet plays).

MEMBER: That sounds good.

(trumpet plays).

(trumpet plays).

(overlapping background chatter) CREW: Take it easy, man.

GIOVANNI: Va a hacer una hora.

(overlapping chatter).

Si.

CREW: Those are million-dollar hands.

GIOVANNI: Uh-huh.

Ok. Eh, papi!

A flat!

A sharp!

JOE: I miss my friend, my dear, dear friend.

Had a lot of fun with him.

There isn't a day that doesn't go by that I don't wake up and I say (groan), I miss him.

A lot of fun.

JOSE: One two three four!

(song ends) JOSE: Thank you very much.

GIOVANNI: Man.

B. Vamos.

Que hacemos?

Eat?

JOSE: Comer.

GIOVANNI: Ok, eat!

MEMBER: Eating time!

JOHNNY: I think the era that's 60s, late 50s, '60 up to the Palladium finish was the best for me musically.

We don't have that now because the music doesn't lend itself for that.

It's everything, it's written around the singer, and the band is kind of a background thing.

Before in Puente's band especially, the band was out there.

Bah!

The band was as much as the singer.

JOSE: One, two, three!

(singing in Spanish) (vocalizing) Cuyi Cuyi Cuyi Cuyi (overlapping Spanish chatter) (speaking in Spanish) (laughter).

BYSTANDER: Grab that ball, do it now!

(overlapping chatter).

JOSE: One of these days, I'll have a band boy to carry this after 50 years.

So this festival, this Old-Timers Day, it's been going on at least, I think, 40 years or more.

And I remember playing it in the early '70s as a young guy, and now 40, some odd years later, I'm an old-timer.

Which is amazing because, as a young guy, being a musician, you never think that you're going to get to this point so quickly.

But that time has really flown by.

So I think this is now the 10th one that I play, or 11th, something like that.

We played it every year for a long time, and then because of Tito's schedule, Tito Puente's schedule, we very often were in Europe around this time in the summer doing all the festivals.

So there were quite a few years that we didn't play it.

It's always fun to come and play it.

I see a lot of people that I haven't seen for many years, and I see some people from grammar school sometimes that I haven't seen, and so it's a lot of fun.

Most of the guys have worked together for many years.

For example, myself and Johnny we've been working together close to 45 years, so I know exactly where he's going.

He knows where I'm going when we're playing.

The only time the orchestra will rehearse is if we're doing a new CD or there's some type of show or some new music that I've written that we want to go over, things like that.

Once in a while, we'll rehearse right on the job live.

As Tito Puente would say, that's a paid rehearsal.

(overlapping chatter).

(overlapping chatter).

Hey, Carmen.

How are you?

Very thankful to have been around all of this from little kids, most of us, and have seen it.

I think a lot of it now is gone.

Most of those people have passed away.

Most of those great names they're all gone now.

One.

One, two, three!

SINGER: Tico!

(inaudible) The Mambo Legends!

(singing in Spanish) JOHNNY: I'm playing now, maybe 52 years, 53 years I've been playing, and I've never stopped playing.

You know, I went from Puente to Tito Rodriguez Band back to Puente, and now with the Mambo Legends, we're trying to keep a little bit of that music that we all love that, you know, Puente played and Machito and Tito Rodriguez.

GROUP: Qu sabroso (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Qu sabroso (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Qu sabroso (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Qu sabroso (singer vocalizing in Spanish) MITCH: It's not just how good you play, it's, you know, being humble, respecting the people that came before you, studying your craft.

I mean, just because it's a low-paying job, that doesn't mean you don't take personal pride in what you're doing.

And that's something that there's a couple of musicians, and I'll name, they're great, and they've studied the masters, Yeissonn Villamar on piano.

He's from Peru.

The Curtis brothers, Zaccai Curtis on piano Luques Curtis on bass.

They respect the people that came before them, whether it's Tito Puente, Beethoven, or John Coltrane or, Eddie Palmieri, or the Beatles, just try to learn as much as you can.

GROUP: Qu sabroso (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Qu sabroso (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Qu sabroso (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Qu sabroso (singer vocalizing in Spanish) (singer vocalizing in Spanish) SINGER: Thank you!

The Mambo Legends here in the house for you guys.

SINGER: Burur barar GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) GROUP: Como est Miguel (singer vocalizing in Spanish) (music fades) JOSE: My father said don't become a musician.

You're not going to make any money.

But kids being what they are, we never listened to our mother or father, so I became a musician.

JOSE: Nothing like New York.

It's the greatest city in the world, and believe me, we went to practically everyone, every city, every country.

So, nothing like it.