First I need to take a second to mourn the June 3 passing of Willie Sotelo. Condolences to his household, buddies, bandmates, and followers.
Billboard:
Willie Sotelo, the pianist and musical director of iconic Puerto Rican salsa band El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, died on Friday (June 3) in Puerto Rico. The musician, who was 61 years previous, died of “well being problems.”
The information of Sotelo’s passing was introduced in a press launch despatched to media and posted on El Gran Combo’s Instagram account.
“Maestro Willie Sotelo, musical director of El Gran Combo, has died attributable to well being problems at 61 years previous. His spouse Jannette Navarro, his daughter Wilmalie Sotelo, his different kinfolk and maestro Rafael Ithier and his orchestra companions ask for house to take care of this troublesome course of and thank all of your demonstrations of help and prayers,” learn the assertion.
Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Dia (translated):
Sotelo joined [El Gran Combo] in 2006, when director and founder Rafael Ithier determined it was time to scale back his workload.
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[I]nitially the musician held the position of pianist of the group and ultimately, Ithier gave him the position of musical director. Amongst his features, Sotelo coordinated the hiring, contracts and displays of the orchestra.
[After graduating] from the Interamerican College in San German, [majoring] in music training with a focus in piano, he based his first group at age 19, Willie Sotelo’s Music Middle.
The Mayagüez musician and arranger performed with orchestras equivalent to La Soluciones, Ismael Miranda, Elías Lopés, Willie Rosario and Lalo Rodríguez, amongst others. He was musical director for Frankie Ruiz, Luis Enrique, Amílcar Boscan, David Pabón and … Roberto Roena and his Apollo Sound.
The members of El Gran Combo had been designated “Kings of the Parade” in 2011.
Later within the day, the band takes to the stage to sing “Sin Salsa No Hay Paraíso,” which suggests “with out salsa, there is no such thing as a paradise.”
We’ve visited salsa earlier than, and Latin jazz as effectively—in case you missed them, take a look at “Jazz Appreciation Month: Celebrating the delivery of Latin jazz,” “Placed on these dancing footwear and rejoice the Afro-Boricua soul of salsa,” and “A salute to salsa, soul, and the late nice Johnny Pacheco for Black Historical past Month.”
There have been many venues in New York Metropolis devoted to Latin dance and music—from the early days of The Palladium, The Corso, The Hunts Level Palace, The Tropicoro, The Chez Jose, and the St. George Lodge, simply to call a couple of. What drew me to The Village Gate was that there, I may fulfill my love of jazz and likewise my love of salsa dancing, all relying on what night time I went. I must also confess that I additionally knew one of many bouncers and will usually get in free.
The membership was described in proprietor Artwork D’Lugoff’s 2009 obituary, by Lee Mergner in Jazz Occasions:
After producing live shows round New York Metropolis for a number of years, D’Lugoff and his brother Burt opened the Gate, because it was informally referred to as, in 1958. He booked lots of the best names in jazz, equivalent to Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Billie Vacation and Duke Ellington. Positioned within the coronary heart of the Village close to the nook of Bleecker and Thompson Streets, the membership additionally featured comedy and among the many well-known comedians who carried out there, approach earlier than they turned well-known, had been Invoice Cosby, Woody Allen and Mort Sahl. Among the many practically apocryphal tales instructed about D’Lugoff had been that he turned away Bob Dylan and that he fired Dustin Hoffman (as a waiter). In fact, many golf equipment and promoters rejected Dylan in his early years in New York Metropolis, however the story speaks as a lot about D’Lugoff’s distinctive mixture of self-confidence and humility.
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All his life D’Lugoff was enthusiastic about Latin music, which he booked and promoted on the membership, most famously in a weekly sequence he referred to as Salsa Meets Jazz. That sequence helped to popularize Latin music to the downtown scene and strengthen the connection between the jazz and Latin music communities. D’Lugoff was additionally proud that the sequence introduced collectively completely different audiences who shared a standard love of the music and dancing.
Political science professor and Latin music aficionado Dr. José E. Cruz has written extensively in regards to the “Salsa Meets Jazz” occasions on the Village Gate for the Jazz Latino web site.
From “Salsa Meets Jazz, Half I”:
In 2004 I spent near seven hours glued to a microfilm reader on the New York Public Library previous copies of the Village Voice revealed between January 7 by way of December 30, 1980. I used to be trying to find a solution to a quite simple query: when did Salsa Meets Jazz start on the Village Gate? Salsa Meets Jazz was the title of a sequence conceived and arranged by the late promoter Jack Hooke and the proprietor of the Village Gate, Artwork D’Lugoff. It was held on Monday nights to showcase Latin orchestras and jazz soloists. D’Lugoff organized the sequence out of his love of dancing. Mondays had been chosen as a result of they had been “sluggish nights.”
Salsa Meets Jazz didn’t convey D’Lugoff big quantities of cash however it actually made Mondays extra full of life on the Gate. Throughout the seven years I lived in New York Metropolis, on Monday nights the Village Gate was my church and Salsa Meets Jazz was my faith. Nowhere else within the metropolis may one dance (or pay attention) for hours to the music of Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri for a mere $10. On any given Monday one may see Dizzy Gillespie or McCoy Tyner enjoying alongside Luis “Perico” Ortiz and Charlie Palmieri, respectively, whereas Ray Barretto or Johnny Pacheco frolicked on the bar.
Let’s pause a second to outline descarga.
A descarga (actually discharge in Spanish) is an improvised jam session consisting of variations on Cuban music themes, primarily son montuno, but additionally guajira, bolero, guaracha and rumba. The style is strongly influenced by jazz and it was developed in Havana in the course of the Fifties.
Now let’s transfer on to Dr. Cruz’s “Salsa Meets Jazz, Half II: ¡A Descargar!”:
Earlier than Salsa Meets jazz turned formally a sequence, the Village Gate hosted a descarga session that was recorded reside and launched in three volumes titled Descargas on the Village Gate. In accordance with well-known disc jockey Symphony Sid (whose given title was Sid Torin), the 1966 Descargas on the Village Gate challenge started together with his telephone name to Morris Levy, president of Tico Information. Tico was the corporate that hosted essentially the most outstanding performers of music from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean in New York in the course of the Fifties and Sixties. “Let’s make a Latin jam session to finish all descargas,” Sid instructed Levy, and all it took for the proposal to get off the bottom was a gruff response on the different finish of the road. “Loopy!,” Levy mentioned. Levy then phoned the opposite Morris—Morris Perlman, a.ok.a. Pancho Cristal: “Name Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, and Joe Cuba.” Quickly after, a small military of movers and shakers went on a mad sprint to the descarga. “Se Fueron a la Lucha” is how Puerto Rico’s premier horse race narrator, Rivera Monge, would put it had he been a witness to the preliminaries for the occasion.
Learn extra in regards to the genesis of Tico Information right here.
Right here’s a lower from that first descargas album:
I’m at all times amazed after I see the lineup. It’s a who’s who of Latin music!
Tenor Saxophone: Al Abreu, Trumpet: Pedro Bouloung, Conga: Joe Cuba, Conga: Candido Camero, Trumpet: Vincent Frisaura, Piano: Eddie Palmieri, Trumpet: Victor Paz, Saxophone: Bobby Porcelli, Vibraphone, Timbales: Tito Puente, Bass Guitar: Bobby Rodriguez, Trombone: Barry Rogers, Timbales: Jimmy Sabater, Trombone: José Rodriguez, Trumpet: Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros, Conga: Ray Barretto, Bass Guitar: Israel Lopez, Piano: Ricardo “Richie” Ray, Flute: Johnny Pacheco Piano: Charlie Palmieri, Bells: Chino Pozo, Bells, Bongos: John Rodríguez, Vocals: Santos Colón, Vocals: Chivirico Davila, Cheo Feliciano, Monguito “El Único” Santamaría
I extremely advocate the remainder of the sequence from Dr. Cruz: “Salsa Meets Jazz, Half III: A Sequence is Born,” and “Salsa Meets Jazz, Half IV: 1980 and Past.”
The primary Descargas album was adopted by two extra volumes.
Right here’s a jam from the second:
And from the third:
If you happen to actually need to get a way of what Latin nights had been like, and the superb vitality that passed off on stage, right here’s a clip that at all times provides me the chills. On a Monday night time in August 1986, Tito Puente invited Nicky Marrero and Kako to a timbales duel.
Puente could be again at The Gate in 1992, to report his Golden Jazz All Stars. This clip reveals the dancing crowd.
An album I wore out again within the day was Mongo Santamaria Explodes at The Village Gate. The album title could be very apt, since Santamaria was an explosive conguero (conga drum participant). Mongo was Cuban, not Puerto Rican, however he was one of many main influencers within the improvement of New York’s Latin jazz rhythms.
Ramón “Mongo” Santamaría Rodríguez was born in Havana, Cuba, in a household that valued music and their African heritage. At a younger age, Santamaría picked up the violin, however the reputation and familial affinity for rumba music led him to a musical profession in percussion. Santamaría dropped out of center faculty and taught himself maracas, bongos, conga, and timbales. In 1937, alongside Septeto Beloña and the home band, he started performing on the famend Tropicana Membership in Havana.
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Santamaría launched solo albums, lots of which featured Cuban percussion and chanting derived from West African sounds and rhythms. His 1959 composition, “Afro-Blue,” is a jazz normal, recorded by John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie, amongst many others
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Over his profession Santamaría recorded numerous information for a wide range of labels and labored with prime artists, all whereas incorporating his Latin sounds into jazz and R&B. He carried out on the congas and different percussion devices at golf equipment and festivals all over the world, together with towards Ray Barretto as a member of the famed Fania All-Stars. Santamaría handed away on the age of 85 in Miami after struggling a stroke.
Right here’s Santamaria performing his “Afro-Blue.”
Recollections of The Gate and its “Salsa Meets Jazz” sequence had been woke up in 2017, when artists gathered at what was once The Gate after Hurricane Maria to lift cash for musicians on the island.
On Oct. 23, (Le) Poison Rouge will host a profit live performance titled Salsa Meets Jazz for Puerto Rico! The venue is situated at 158 Bleecker Road, the previous website of the legendary jazz venue The Village Gate.
The title of the profit nods to The Village Gate’s storied Monday night time Salsa Meets Jazz sequence. Bandleader/percussionist Bobby Sanabria will host this star-studded live performance, which is able to increase cash and supply help for musicians in Puerto Rico by way of the efforts of the Jazz Basis of America.
Day by day Kos Neighborhood member and Nuyorican poet lapoetamariposa was one of many performers!
As said above, The Gate additionally produced an extended record of reside jazz albums; it could take greater than a month to play all of them.
Right here’s a Twitter photographic pattern of the performers as a substitute:
I hope these pics will whet your urge for food for much more tunes, which I’ll be serving up within the feedback. I’ll shut issues up right here with a efficiency I attended at The Gate in 1970.
I obtained the prospect to see her reside fairly a couple of instances, although you by no means knew if she was going to indicate up, or if, when she did, she’d have a difficulty with somebody within the viewers (which I witnessed). She was,and is, nevertheless, in all probability my most favourite feminine vocalist of all time.
The late, nice, Nina Simone, reside at The Gate.
