Though diminutive in stature,
Pérez Prado was a giant in the world of
post-war popular music. Dubbed "The Mambo
King," he reigned supreme as one of the most
influential pop orchestra leaders of the early
1950s
By Joseph
Levy
As
the mambo rhythm spread across the continents, a society
emerged from the dark years of World War II to shed it's
inhibitions and embrace the frenzy of this Afro-Cuban
beat.
Early
Years
Dámaso
Pérez Prado, El Rey del Mambo, was born in Matanzas,
Cuba, on December 11, 1916. His mother was a schoolteacher,
his father a newspaper man. In early childhood, he studied
classical piano with Rafael Somavilla at the Principal
School of Matanzas and as a young man played organ and
piano in local cinemas and clubs. He was 26 when he moved
to Havana around 1942. There he played piano for the Orquesta
del Cabaret Pennsylvania de la Playa de Mariano and soon
moved on to a small band at the Cabaret Kursaal. He apparently
changed jobs several times in 1942-1943, playing piano
for the Orchesta Cubaney and then the Orchesta Paulina
Alvarez. He also began to arrange for Gapar Roca de la
Peer, some of whose songs were used by the Orquesta Casino
de la Playa, the most famous Cuban band of the day. It
was directed by Liduvino Pereira and because Cascarita,
the lead singer, especially liked these numbers, Prado
was hired as pianist and arranger.
Prado's
conception of the mambo began to develop in 1943.
He later said that four, five, and sometimes six
musicians would often play after hours jam sessions
on the tres (a small Cuban guitar) and the resultant
cross rhythms and syncopation give him the idea.
Jazz writer and critic Ralph J. Gleason reported
that "Perez" talked to him about the mambo
as being an Afro-Cuban rhythm with a dash of American
swing. According to Prado, the mambo is "more
musical and swingier than the rhumba. It has more
beat." He also explained,
"I
am a collector of cries and noises, elemental ones like
seagulls on the shore, winds through the trees, men at
work in a foundry. Mambo is a movement back to nature,
by means of rhythms based on such cries and noises, and
on simple joys."
Origins
of the Mambo
The
word mambo comes from the Ñañigo dialect
spoken in Cuba. It probably has no real meaning, but occurs
in the phrase "abrecuto y guiri mambo" ("open
your eyes and listen") used to open Cuban song contests.
In the Bantu language of West Africa, mambo means "conversation
with the gods" and in nearby Haiti, a Mambo is a
voodoo priestess.
The
mambo as we know it today is actually a rhythm whose tempo
may be slow or fast, and almost any standard tune can
be set to it's tempo. The saxophone usually sets the rhythm
pattern and the brass carries the melody. While Prado
is generally credited with popularizing the mambo, its
beginnings are often attributed to two other Cubans, Arsenio
Rodriguez and Orestes Lopez.
Arsenio
Rodriguez (1911-1970), "El Ciego Maravilloso"
("the marvelous blind man"), was a musician
of Congo descent who was born in Cuba and was blinded
at age twelve by a mule kick. He sang and played
bass, percussion, and tres in Havana with various
sextets and formed his own extremely popular conjunto
[orchestras with eight or more musicisans] in 1940.
He is known for spicing up the percussion and brass
sections of the son, an earlier Cuban rhythm, and
setting the standards for dance bands of the day.
Orestes Lopez played cello for a rival band, La
Maravilla
del
Siglo, which battled Rodriguez in groove-to-groove combat
in the recording studio, as well as on stage. Joel Selvin,
Pop Music Critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote,
"In the '30s, [Orestes and his brother, bassist Israel
"Cachao" Lopez] were playing together in a popular
but square danzon (dance music) orchestra, Arcano y Sus
Maravillas, when Orestes Lopez interrupted the stately
procession of the danzon with a dashing, dancing, molten
ad-libbed piano solo, as the other band members watched
in amazement. Shortly thereafter, in 1939, the brothers
formalized the inspired improvisation in a composition
they called 'Mambo.'"
Latin
percussionist Zeno Okeanos continued, "During the
'mambo' section of this danzon a conga drum was added
for the first time to the 'charanga' orchestration. Generally,
the term [mambo] seems to connote an 'Africanization'
of these other forms by increasing the 'aggressiveness'
of the rhythm." However, Cachao pointed out that
Prado's mambo was quite different from that of Orestes.
So
while it's clear that several rhythms and dances of the
period were given the same name, when it comes to the
big band mambo that we know today, Prado was most likely,
the innovator...TO BE CONTINUE
(This
is a re-print article appeared in La Aventure web site)
