Latin Jazz Conversations: Jose Madera (Part 1)

February 25, 2009 by chip
Filed under: Jazz, Latin Jazz, Podcasts, Soul/R&B, SoulSites, SoulTrackin' 

A true lifetime in the music world breeds a different kind of artist, a complete artist that goes beyond the mastery of an instrument or a musical approach. An artist raised in a musical family hears their art form while still in the womb; they are born with a unique connection to music that simply cannot be matched. They generally have access to instruments, recorded music, and live musicians at a young age, giving them an exposure that drills music into their head. They build an understanding of stylistic elements and musical differences early in life, allowing them to dig deeper into their chosen field. When they finally take the leap into performance, they have a built-in set of mentors and a catalog of life lessons to guide them into a rich artistic development. As they progress to a professional level, their early friends and role models become instant connections that can lead them towards jobs and exposure. When these musicians continue through a long career, they eventually take on the role of artistic leader, exerting their own influence upon the greater musical role. The act of making music becomes less of a job or pleasure, but rather a lifestyle that guides their time on earth.

Percussionist, arranger, and Latin music icon Jose Madera has lived a lifetime in music, and carries a history that contains legends galore. His father, Jose “Pin” Madera, became a well-established musician in New York’s Latin music scene during the 1930s and eventually became a founding member of the Machtio Orchestra. Madera watched his father’s world, becoming closely acquainted with the music and musicians that surrounded him while studying percussion on his own. As he built his skills, Madera worked his way through the New York circuit, playing with Machito and eventually becoming a permanent member of Tito Puente’s band. He honed his skills as an arranger, which led to a staff position at Fania Records, where he shaped the sound of New York salsa. As Puente changed his format to focus upon small group Latin Jazz, Madera remained in his group, touring the world and eventually serving as the band’s musical director. After Puente’s death in 2000, Madera joined together with fellow Puente alumni Johnny Rodriguez and Mitch Frohman to form The Latin Giants of Jazz, an exciting big band performing in the style of the great Palladium mambo bands. Madera has become one of the cornerstones of contemporary Latin music, combining his life experiences with numerous legends into his own, now influential, musical personality.

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LATIN JAZZ CORNER: You were born into the music with your father being an original member of the Machito Orchestra. That must have been an incredible experience growing up. Can you share some of your early memories growing up around your father and the Machito Orchestra?

JOSE MADERA: Yea, sure, my dad came to New York in 1928 and he immediately became involved in the theater and a little dance circuit that was going on. He played at the Teatro Hispano which was on 116th Street and Fifth Avenue; they had a lot of Spanish shows there. There were a whole lot of theaters in New York at the time. I can’t remember a lot of the names now, but that was one of the most prominent ones. He was also a member of Noble Sissle’s band and he also worked with a gentleman by the name of Jose Budet who had a Latin band at that time. And he became a member of Alberto Iznaga’s band. Machito had been in New York for a little while and had done some of the Cuarteto recordings and stuff. So Machito decided to start a band, he went and he raided Alberto Iznaga’s band. He brought Alberto Iela who was the pianist and he brought my dad. So my dad started with Machito in 1939, this was before Mario Bauza actually. My dad wrote a lot of those first arrangements like “Sopa de Pichon,” “La Paella,” “El Muerto Se Fe De Rumba,” those things. My dad continued to write; he wrote for Rivera, he wrote for Cugat, and as time went on, he wrote for the Tito Rodriguez band, and a lot of different people at that time.

I first saw the Machito band in 1957 at the age of 7 at the very famous recording on Roulette which is called Kenya. Which for me is still the best Latin Jazz record ever done. You could still put that on today and it still kicks just about anyone else’s butt. They did that a few days before Christmas in 1957. It was done at the Odd Fellow Temple, which was located on 106th Street and Park Avenue. Roulette recorded there for a few years; Roulette/Tico – Tico being the Spanish subsidiary, which Mars had bought from George Goldner.

I saw them in ’57 as a little kid and that made an impression on me so I went ahead and became a musician. I started writing arrangements around 1968 or ’69. I joined Machito’s band around that time. At that time, Machito’s work had slowed down quite a bit, so they were working maybe one or two days a week, you know on the weekends. Tito Puente’s band was working seven nights a week. I came into Tito’s band on the bongo chair; in Machito’s band I played the timbale chair. On the weekends I would play Machito’s band and during the week I would play Puente’s band until I finally left Machito and stayed with Puente steady – I worked with Tito for 31 years. I became musical director of the band in 1986 and I stayed until the day he died, which was 2000.

My career was such that I wrote plenty of arrangements; I wrote just about for everybody in the Latin field. I started over at Rico Records, which was owned by Ralphie Cartagena, who eventually went on to own Combo records and owned the Gran Combo rights for a while. And from Rico I moved over to Fania and was there until Jerry Marsucci sold the label to Musica Latina Internacional . . . I don’t remember if that’s right, but I think that’s the company that he sold it to. That happened around 1982 or ’83. I kept writing; I kept writing for bands in Puerto Rico . . . that’s really it in a nutshell.

LJC: You’ve had an incredible career – you really touched on so many different eras. I’ve read before that you’ve mentioned Ubaldo Nieto, the timbale player in the Machito band, as an early influence . . .

JM: Right, my father’s buddy.

LJC: Do you have any particular memories about him?

JM: Well for me, he is still the best big band timbale player that walked the face of the earth. Actually Uba came in 1927 to New York and Uba was initially a pianist who played in his brother’s band. His brother’s name was Johnny Nieto, he was a saxophone player, and they had a little group in New York called Johnny Nieto and the Midnight Dukes. So he was the pianist there. He later went on to study drums with Henry Adler in New York and became the timbale player in Machito’s band around 1941 or something like that, I can’t remember an exact date.

His style of playing was such that, he would play his bell rides or paila things according to what was happening in the band. It’s not like today where everyone plays one way. He sort of approached the instrument like an American drummer who plays drum set and for me, he’s the best one that played. This is not a put-down of Tito Puente or anybody else who played, because Tito had his own style of playing and everything. But Uba was for me, the quintessential big band timbale player who a lot of people emulated. From Papi Pagani who played with Tito Rodriguez in the ‘60s, Mike Collazo who played for many years, Jimmy Sabaltero, all these guys. A lot of that stuff that they played came from Uba, not Tito Puente. Because Tito Puente had his own unique style of playing.

When I actually play the instrument, I try to play a little bit in Uba’s style, not Tito’s style. Because, Tito’s style was, like I said, unique and very much associated with him, part of his musical personality, if you will.

LJC: You were probably around these guys a lot; was someone like Uba a mentor, or was there someone you studied with?

JM: I didn’t study with Uba, I picked it up from watching him for many, many years. You know, it’s not like today, where you can go to a school like Boy’s Harbor Conservatory in New York or wherever else they may have schools where you can take conga lessons or bongo lessons or timbale lessons or whatever. As kids, we would put on a record and listen to these things and copy whatever things were being played on the record. If we were fortunate enough to sneak into a club to see these guys playing, they would do these licks and we would spend a few weeks trying to figure out how to do them. And then when we finally got them done; we snuck in, we found out we were doing them the wrong way! Where now you can go to a school and be taught how to do it; we didn’t have that way back then.

LJC: On the same token, you jumped into writing and arranging pretty early, you must have been 18 or 19 . . .

JM: Actually, let me see . . . I would say 17. Something like that.

LJC: You co-wrote that hit “Tender Love” for Orquesta Son, was that correct?

JM: Yes I did, I did the arrangement for it. Prior to that, I had been with a group called Orquesta Capri and they had a tune that was making a little noise back in 1968 – ’69, it was called “I Regret.” I had done the arrangement for that, and somebody else took credit for that. I got kind pissed, so I decided to take myself off the radio with this other one. And I successfully knocked that off the radio; “Tender Love” ran for a long time. I sort of kid about it – I attacked myself and took myself off the radio with another one.

And it started through there, you know, I kept writing. I had a fairly good amount of success writing things for people until we get to today.

LJC: Yea, it’s almost as a strong a part of your personality as your percussion playing, but it’s a totally different thing. Was that another thing were you just kind of listened and tried to emulate?

JM: Yea, sure, because, you know, having seen those bands from a little kid and then later going on to play in those bands, I certainly knew what the band really sounded like from having been on the stage and inside of it, if you will. And so you obviously learn all of that. My influences, as far as the arrangers, are great. I have the best arrangers for this music – Rene Hernandez, the great pianist for the Machito band. After him, you have Ray Santos, you have Chico O’Farrill, and you have my dad, who wrote a lot of those early things. So there’s quite a few people that I certainly listened to over the years. You have Harold Wainright who wrote for Tito Rodriguez’s band, and Artie Azenzer, the Argentinean pianist who wrote for Tito Rodriguez also. You have obviously Tito Puente, you know. So, those are really my influences. I don’t really put on a Latin record today and listen very much to it, because I don’t think that it has very much to offer as far as rich musical harmonies, and that kind of stuff. Everything sounds the same to me, you know? There’s no personality in it at all. Years ago, you put on a Tito Puente record, you knew it was Tito. You put on a Tito Rodriguez record, you knew it was Tito Rodriguez. You put on Machito, you knew it was Machito. They had all these styles. Now, you turn on the radio in the middle of the song, and it could be anybody, it sounds like anybody. There’s no personality, there’s no uniqueness, that’s sorely missing from the music today.

LJC: Machito, being such a distinct personality that created such an influence on the genre, was there one memory, something that you could isolate from you time playing with Machito that stays with you today?

JM: Well, you know, Machito was the world’s greatest Latin band, hands down, there was even nothing close to it. I would have to say, my only real good memory of it is actually sitting on the stage, playing, and listening to the band. Listening to the saxes and trumpets, and all the stuff that was going on, the voicings and all of that, which is really quite remarkable. For a band that actually got its beginnings in 1939, it set the standard for what big band Latin music should like.

LJC: That band lasted for a long time, and one of the interesting albums that you played on with Machito is the Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods album with Dizzy Gillespie and the Chico O’Farrill compositions. I’m just curious, that was 1975 . . .

JM: Yea, I was with Tito already, and they called me to do that, so I went over and did that. And that was done, I don’t believe that there was a rehearsal for that, because of the caliber of the musicians. Those things were maybe run down in the studio and if there were copy mistakes, or mistakes in the arrangement, they were fixed then and then they were recorded.

LJC: One of the things that I thought was interesting was that the band had been around for over thirty years at that point and they were trying new things still. Was that a band that just kept pushing forward, even in it’s later days?

JM: Well, you know, up until when I joined, and I wrote those arrangements that kind of brought Machito back to life on the Americana record, they started working three or four times a week then and had a lot of gigs. I don’t know if they really tried to push forward. In my musical opinion, I think Machito’s last good album was the Kenya one. And then they started on a steady and slow decline, which is when Tito Puente came up and obviously took it all over, and passed them by. The band, as you say, had been around, thirty-six years at the time they did that Dizzy Gillespie record. Mario Bauza had been real good friends with Dizzy Gillespie for many years. Mario was responsible for getting Chico involved in all this stuff, and getting Chico assignments to write for Count Basie, and all those kind of things. So, I guess, at some point, they had some type of meeting, and they got involved. That was out on Pablo, and that was recorded at 1695 Broadway in the basement, the studio, I can’t remember the name of it though. That was Norman Granz’s label still, and Norman of course, goes back to the Charlie Parker recordings with Machito in the ‘50s. Where they would start those sessions at 9 a.m., and Charlie wouldn’t show up until 11 a.m. – Charlie would show up in his pajamas and stuff. He didn’t know where his horn was, they’d have to go find the horn. And then Norman would have to buy heroin for him to shoot up, and then they would record like that . . .

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In Part 2 of our interview, we’ll be looking at Madera’s time with “El Rey,” Tito Puente, from the early days up until his death in 2000. In Part 3 of our interview, we discuss Madera’s current career and his work with The Latin Giants of Jazz. You’ve got to read these!

Check out Part 2 of our interview HERE.

Check out Part 3 of our interview HERE.

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Check Out These Related Posts:
Revisiting Latin Jazz Classics: Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods, Dizzy Gillespie y Machito
Essential Cachao Recordings, Part 2: Cachao In New York
Revisiting Latin Jazz Classics: Tanga, Mario Bauza And His Afro-Cuban Orchestra
Latin Jazz Standards: 10 Versions Of Mambo Inn

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