It was the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in 1998 and not 1955 at the Palladium Ballroom in midtown Manhattan, but the music was similar. Piercing brass laced with jazz harmonies played over layers of percolating, infectious Afro-Cuban rhythms filled the venue. In the center of the stage, surrounded by his set of timbales, was the King of Latin music himself, Tito Puente. When Puente opened the concert by kicking off the band with the introduction of “El Cayuco” from his classic Dance Mania album, I had one of the biggest musical thrills of my life. While I was content to bob around in my seat a bit, the music inspired one young woman in a red dress to get up in an aisle and dance near the back of the theater, much to the delight of the musicians.
The Tito Puente performance was the pinnacle of a love affair with Latin jazz that began a few years earlier. It was ignited after receiving a promo copy of the soundtrack to The Mambo Kings, a movie based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Oscar Hijuelos. It’s the story of two brothers who leave Cuba for New York City and try to make it as musicians during the mambo craze of the early 1950s. The soundtrack featured the music of Tito Puente and other classic and contemporary Latin jazz artists.
Although the film never came to a local theater, I found a copy of Hijuelos’ book The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love at Zandbroz Variety in Sioux Falls. I played the movie soundtrack while reading the book and dug deeper to find classic recordings of the era by Puente, Machito, Tito Rodriguez and Chico O’Farrill to help bring the novel alive for me.
Afro-Cuban rhythms had been an integral part of jazz since the late 1940s when the Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Kenton added Cuban percussionists to their bands, so as a big band fan I was familiar with them. But hearing those polyrythms played by authentic Latin bands like Puente’s was like jumping into the deep end of the pool instead of just wading around in the shallow end. After listening and loving the classic bands, I sought out contemporary artists such as Arturo Sandoval, Chucho Valdez, Eddie Palmeiri and so many others.
But what is it about this music that captivates me so strongly? I don’t understand the Spanish lyrics and I can’t dance to it, despite a friend’s mother’s vain attempt to teach me the cha-cha-cha. It’s simple: the music makes me happy, almost ecstatically so. There’s a joyousness stirred up by those shouting horns and the array of timbales, congas and bongos playing overheated polyrhythms that few other musical genres of music can match.
However, Latin jazz is a category that often includes more than Afro-Cuban music. There are rhythms and styles from other Latin American countries that have found their way into jazz, most notably bossa nova from Brazil. Bossa nova reached its peak of popularity in the 1960s, a decade after the mambo craze. Where Afro-Cuban jazz is loud and extroverted, bossa nova is soft and gentle. The former was fused with the frenetic sounds of be-bop while the latter resulted from a melding of samba rhythms and cool jazz. Bossa nova summons up feelings in me of warmth and contentment.
I was fortunate to see Tito Puente in concert when I did. He passed away a year-and-a-half later. His performance in Minneapolis remains one of my most memorable concert experiences. But the Afro-Cuban sounds he helped popularize are just as thrilling as ever, with younger artists like Roberto Fonseca and Alfredo Rodriguez contributing their own voices and approaches to the music.