Eddie Palmieri

Eddie Palmieri's keyboards capture the essence of Latin music. His way of adding sophisticated jazz sensibilities to the rhythms of Cuba and Puerto Rico is that rarest of blends. tarting out in New York in the 50s, Palmieri followed his older brother, Charlie, also a keyboardist of great talent, into the world of Latin dance bands, which were then thriving.

While jazz was also popular and rock and roll just starting, the mambo and other Latin styles were incredibly popular at Latin clubs, like the Palladium, where dance bands like Tito Puente's and the Palmieri's bands fired up the floor. 

Eddie Palmieri's keyboards capture the essence of Latin music. His way of adding sophisticated jazz sensibilities to the rhythms of Cuba and Puerto Rico is that rarest of blends. Starting out in New York in the 50s, Palmieri followed his older brother, Charlie, also a keyboardist of great talent, into the world of Latin dance bands, which were then thriving. While jazz was also popular and rock and roll just starting, the mambo and other Latin styles were incredibly popular at Latin clubs, like the Palladium, where dance bands like Tito Puente's and the Palmieri's bands fired up the floor.

In the 60s, Palmieri's great band, La Perfecta, broke many Latin music conventions, ratcheting up the energy level and loosening up the jams with songs like "Azucar." Later forming different kinds of Latin orchestras, Palmieri began composing more complex and exciting compositions, all the while becoming one of the most respected and exciting Latin pianists around. As the Latin dance craze tapered off, Palmieri moved increasingly into Latin jazz. His releases welded the complexities of jazz onto the complexities of Latin music as if they had never been apart.

Palmieri's recent bands feature both the cream of New York's Latin rhythm players and incredible jazz soloists like trumpeter Brian Lynch, among many others. His recent show at Tokyo Blue Note found his band hotter than ever, with the crowd out of their seats dancing—which of course is where they should be. He took time in his hotel room to talk about his life and music.

I want to ask about when you got started.

My mother was a teacher in liberal arts and music. She arrived in New York in 1925 and my father a year later from Puerto Rico. My mother sponsored the whole family to come up by ship. My mother and father get married in New York and my brother gets born a year later. I was born nine years later, so, Charlie is the one really who I was influenced by. We would do these amateur hours and my mother dressed me up in uniforms. I would sing and my brother would accompany me on piano. Then I went on piano, and studied up to the age of 13. Then, I decided I wanted to play timbales, because at that time everyone wanted to play timbales like Tito Puente.

It was sexier.

Yeah, exactly. And Tito Puente had made it, and was so popular. My brother Charlie was already playing with Tito at that time. He had started playing professionally at 15, so by 1951, Charlie is already recording with Tito Puente because the pianist he had left for the Korean war. So my brother does these recordings with Tito, small groups, big bands, these great recordings. So, I'm thinking, timbales, yeah, wow.

Who did you play with at first?

I played with my uncle, who had a typical Puerto Rican orchestra, you know, with the tres and second guitar, then, trumpet, conga, me on timbales and bongos. We called it "My Tropical Heart," and I stayed with him for two years. I had this metal box into which I put the timbales to carry up all the flights of stairs. I'd be picking that up to go meet my uncle, carrying all these things. My mother said to me, see how beautiful your brother looks going to work; he doesn't have to carry an instrument. Why don't you switch? So I went to my uncle and made a deal and went back on the piano. By 1955 I start working with a professional orchestra led by Johnny Sequi. He was a copyist for Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez. So, when he copied a tune for them, he said, could I copy an extra for me, and they would say, sure, because once they recorded it, they didn't care. They were recording so much at that time because it was the era of the mambo.

How long did you stay with him?

Johnny Sique fired me because I hit the piano too hard. The other guy was Pancho Cárdenas and he was known as "Pancho the keyboard breaker," but they fired me! But, that turned out to be the best thing that happened to me because then I went with Centigo Valdez. He was a Cuban that was the singer with Tito Puente, a great ballad singer. He leaves and makes a conjunto, an orchestra with trumpets and rhythm in 1953. My brother, who's been with a trio doing society jobs and hotel gigs would come into New York and work locally for a couple months. Then, when he would leave, he would recommend me. So that was a great way to get in. then, I went with Tito Rodriguez, which is another great band. He was one of the two Tito's at the Palladium. I started my own orchestra in 1961.

Were you influenced by jazz or by Latin music more?

With the change in government in Cuba, we didn't get fed, so to speak, with the arrangements and the records that were being sent. Then, that exchange was shut down, and Cuba on its own, went into the jazz world. But with jazz, in New York you couldn't avoid it because right across the street from the Palladium where all the Latin groups played was Birdland. And right around the corner on 52nd Street were approximately 40 jazz clubs. But I didn't get into jazz until later. I was more into the Cuban records and the structure. I wanted to have an exciting Latin dance orchestra. I wanted a conjunto, but it wasn't working out. I couldn't get the right trumpet players, because they would go to the top-paying job they could get. Anyway, there was this social club called the Tritons in the Bronx. They had these jam sessions on Tuesdays and I met the trombonist Barry Rogers. We start working together, a rhythm section and one trombone and a flute player, George Castro. The flute was happening at that time.

So, you were thinking of the people or of the sound?

I wanted to make an exciting dance orchestra, but I see that the trombone player was really phenomenal. He was into jazz, and rhythm and blues, and everything, so when he meets me he really gets into the rhythm section that I bring in. Now, he's really hearing the right players and he made it his business to really get into Latin. So, one night, with the trombone and the flute, it just happened. That was it. The dancers loved it and the crowd went wild. I said, this is it. And we started La Perfecta, with seven people, timbales, conga, bass, no bongo, two trombones, vocal and myself. Then, we got another trombone to get more power. They called us the sound of the roaring elephants.

Then, when did you start recording?

In 1961, we get recorded by Allegra Records, where my brother was, and so was Johnny Pacheco. A saxophone player, Al Santiago, had a record store and he formed this record label. Johnny Pacheco had a monster hit, so he could make a big independent label. The main thing was we meet this guy called Jose Rodriguez who was Brazilian. Tito Rodriguez brings in this trumpeter Victor Ponce from Venezuela, though he was Panamanian. Tito Rodriguez recommends another bongo player, Manny Oquendo and a conga player, Tommy Lopez, so then we have eight and we can do all these different sounds, a real conjunto. He would go from the conga to the timbales, so then I had the two different sounds within eight people. When we wanted to do the conjunto or charanga, we could. We went for the jugular. It was an incredibly exciting orchestra, to listen to, to watch, and to dance to.

At that time, everyone danced?

Yes, but everyone in their own way. The Palladium ballroom was open four nights a week. Wednesday nights was the Jewish crowd, and they had the mambo show. They had the amateur contest, too. Then, people like Marlon Brando or Kim Novak, the Hollywood celebrities would come by Wednesdays, also. Friday, you would get all the Latin gamblers, the night people, and they were all dressed up sharp. They'd grab all the tables, just leaving the dance floor and some benches. Then Saturday typically was the Puerto Rican, who was a big drinker. They worked all week. At that time, the migration was coming over from Puerto Rico more than ever. In the 50s, Puerto Ricans really made a second migration. They would really dance and drink and get into all kinds of Puerto Rican sounds. The combination of bands was amazing. Sunday was black. They were great dancers and came there to dance. You had to really play for those dancers on Sunday.

So, the Palladium was the place?

If you got the credentials of playing the Palladium and being a band that could really play and keep the dancers going, you were set. I couldn't get in, though, at first. So, I went to the extreme of renting a hall near the Palladium on Wednesdays. I was like a barker on the street, "Over here folks, come on in." The old man  at the Palladium went berserk. This agent, who later signed me, told the guy at the Palladium, "Well, then you will have to book him." So, they gave me like 90 gigs. That was like a lifetime, all I wanted. They didn't pay much, and had a pay scale that was quite abusive. And they had gotten raided and lost their liquor license. So, there were a lot of big bouncers and they found guns and drugs. Really, though, they wanted the Palladium out of there because they wanted to put up a big business high rise, which is still there today.

But you got in?

I got in. At the same time, they had social clubs who would rent hotel ballrooms for private dances and then come and get a band. They would come to my agent to ask for Eddie Palmieri, and he would tell them, "No, it is impossible. He is at the Palladium." I would get all these requests to play those dates, but we would work four nights a week at the Palladium, and the pay was terrible. But the agent would tell these people, "Give me a call tomorrow and I'll see if I can do something." As soon as he puts the phone down, he calls up the Palladium and says, "I'm pulling Palmieri." So the Palladium had to pay me more money. The band was working constantly and those were great years, until 1968 when La Perfecta came to an end.

Did your piano playing change?

It started to get more evolved harmonically. And then the jazz started to come in then. I would exchange albums with Barry Rogers and I'd give him a unique Celia Cruz album and he would give me "Kind of Blue" and Thelonius Monk. I started to hear more jazz, and started to study. And then I went more into the jazz harmonies and we put that into the orchestra.

Did La Perfecta change other aspects of the music?

In the way of recording, at that time, you were supposed to do 12 compositions of 2 minutes and 45 seconds each. On the third album, though, I record "Azucar" and it turns out to eight minutes. It's the first approach to a dance composition, sung in Spanish, with an open format that brings in jazz. It is a controlled jam session and keeps building and building to a long piano solo, Barry's solo and then the flute gives it another turn. The dancers loved it. Live, it would be really long. Then, the word went out, wait until he solos on piano, then we can still go out on the dance floor and have plenty of time to dance. "Azucar" becomes a monster hit, so it burns the place up. Then, the Palladium closes, but the band keeps going until 68.

Did you tour all during that time?

We didn't tour really a that time. We went to Venezuela and Puerto Rico, but we weren't really touring to Europe. The other bands weren't traveling either. It was dance music. The music wasn't really accepted in other categories. It was all New York. In all the four boroughs, the Italians liked to mambo and the Catholic Church ran dances on Saturdays, the Jewish temples on other days and all the other churches in Brooklyn, basically. The priests were raking it in.  They kept the bands working, and we didn't tour like the jazz bands that went to Europe. Maybe only Tito Puente went. Touring for us started later, past the 80s, and I didn't start to tour really until 1984 or so. People said, Mr. Palmieri, we've been waiting for you here for ten years. I should have  been traveling in the 70s, but it wasn't happening. The records were certainly not getting there.

Now, you got three jazz guys up front, which must be different from those bands.

Well, this is really Latin jazz, so it's another genre. Those bands always had vocalists. Now, this is really Afro-Caribbean Latin jazz. When I went into Latin jazz, it's another kind of fingering and more chordal changes. In Latin, the more simple the chord changes, the more synchronization you'll have with the rhythm section. In Latin jazz there' s more chords and I had to change my style. I wasn't weaned in to the jazz library that fully before. Now, on the latest CD, "Listen Here," is the first time I used three or four classical standards, "Tin Tin Deo," "In Walked Bud," Horace Silver and Eddie Harris tunes.

You had great guests on the last CD, too.

The last CD is really special because of Richard Seidel. This was the third one for Concord Picante, and he was able to get all the invited guests. He knew all these people and had recorded with them. They all agreed to do two compositions with us. Michael Brecker was sick, but came out and played. Eddie Harris, John Scofield, Nicholas Payton, and David Sanchez, Horacio El Negro Hernandez and John Benitez were there. So, it just all came together. It's doing very well. CDs are hard to sell, especially in the genre of Latin jazz. There's just no airplay. But we sold out at the Blue Note.

(Jazznin October 2005)