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Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
Los Rumberos
Since the term "rumbero" came up on the General forum, I was inspired to reminisce..
When I was 16 in 1954 I went to Cuba with my uncle, an expert with the shotgun. He won bets shooting pigeons, almost all the time. I shot OK for a kid, competing against others my age, and came out just a little ahead. No, Ruphus, I stopped shooting pigeons when I was 18, and haven't shot anything but clay artificial "birds" since.
When we came back, I got a job playing trumpet in a mambo band, illegally under age for the union gigs we played in Washington, DC. My classical training taught me to play the high notes without hurting myself.
In Cuba los rumberos were the guys who hung out at the beach, played percussion and sang. Actually it was more call-and-response Afro-Cuban chants. The instruments were conga (the pair of tall drums, played with the hands), timbales (snare drums without the snare or the lower skin, played with sticks), bongo (a pair of small drums, played with the hands), chequere (a palm leaf with a notched stem, played by running a stick across the notches), güiro (a gourd with striations, rubbed with a stick), maracas (gourds with seeds, shaken), cowbell or claves (two hardwood sticks, struck together).
Thirty-six years later, when I lived in Santa Barbara, California, at noon on Wednesdays a group of rumberos would show up at the park in Isla Vista, on a high bluff overlooking the Pacific. I would eat my sandwich to the tune of los rumberos.
Here's Chano Pozo, one of the most influential of the Afro-Cuban Jazz movement, in a piece very reminiscent of his rumbero roots:
(To hear this it would be nice to have headphones or speakers that could give the chest-shaking "thud" of the conga, as well as the "crack" of the timbales and bongos and the "skritch-skritch" of the güiro and chekere.)
The clave is played by the claves. If you listen closely, you can here the repetitive clicks of the sticks. It works like the compás in flamenco--it's the rhythm that holds everything together. In a big band you can't hear the sticks, so the clave is played on a cowbell.
During his youth, Chano was a true Cuban rumbero. An excerpt from his Wikipedia bio:
"Chano showed an early interest in playing drums, and performed ably in Afro-Cuban religious ceremonies in which drumming was a key element. The family lived for many years at El Africa solar (Africa Basement), a former slave quarters, by all accounts a foul and dangerous place, where it was said even the police were afraid to venture. In this environment criminal activities flourished, and Chano learned the ways of the street as means of survival. He dropped out of school after the third grade and earned a solid reputation as a rowdy tough guy, big for his age and exceptionally fit. He spent his days playing drums, fighting, drinking, and engaging in petty criminal activities, the latter of which would land him a sentence in a youth reformatory. There are no official records documenting the crime for which he was sentenced, though at least one account has him causing the accidental death of a foreign tourist, adding to a record of thievery, assault, and truancy. At the age of 13, Chano was sent to the reformatory in Guanajay, where he learned to read and write, study auto body repair, and hone his already exceptional skill with a variety of drums."
Chano later moved to New York and became famous, though he lived hard and died young.
Here's Tito Puente "El Rey del Timbal" playing "Para los Rumberos" at the Palladium Ballroom in New York, a tribute to the great Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican rumberos who powered the Afro-Cuban Jazz movement, the mambo craze, salsa, etc.
Tito was born and raised in Spanish Harlem in New York City, but he learned from the great rumberos.
Here the clave is played on the cowbell so it can be heard over the brass. I can't hear it in the mix, but you can see the cowbell player in the middle of the percussion section.
...and here's one of my favorite tunes from the mambo era. See if you can guess why.
This is Prado's Mexico City band that used to play at the Teatro Iris on San Juan de Letran. I spent a few nights there stepping out with the vatos and chicas. There was a little blonde girl from Hermosillo...In my opinion Prado's was the tightest of all the big bands, American swing era, Cuban, Puerto Rican, you name it. Some were nearly as tight, but they didn't have that swagger and strut.
Prado moved to New York and made a fortune recording and playing at the Palladium and Roseland. Then he moved back to Mexico.
Eventually he sold his band, musicians, arrangements, the whole deal. Then a year later he hired a new band and reappeared with all new stuff he had written. He blew the old band off the map.
Prado reigned supreme in Mexico City for a few more years, then he did it again. Sold his band, arrangements, everything. Then reappeared a year later with all new musicians, all new stuff and blew the old band away.
"When we came back, I got a job playing trumpet in a mambo band."
Well of course I thought of that, (as well as the guitar part) but wasn't sure of the chronology. So you're in there somewhere? That's quite a claim to fame!
No, that's not me. The band I played in was a second string outfit in Washington DC. The hot bands were in New York, Mexico City and Havana.
The leader said, "Kid, I hired you for the high notes. You can read anything. I want you to work with the conguero. When he says you've got the clave, then you can solo."
Mambo trumpet was simple compared to Stravinsky. The conga player was Mongo Santamaria's nephew, or cousin, or something. He was good. We did a cover of Cherry Pink, and I got to solo. Stardom!
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