Puerto Rican Pioneers in Jazz, 1900–1939: Bomba Beats to Latin Jazz

By Basilio Serrano

Musicians from Puerto Rico played a substantial role in the development of jazz during the early years of the twentieth century, before and during the years surrounding the Harlem Renaissance. These jazz pioneers, including instrumentalists, composers, and vocalists, were products of the Puerto Rican diaspora in the United States and contributed to the early history of this uniquely American genre.

In this study, author Basilio Serrano provides a detailed look at the lives of these men and women and their contributions to the development of jazz and Latin jazz. Serrano explores how the music of Puerto Rico helped to shape them and offers a comprehensive review of the bands in which they played, studying specialists in a variety of instruments as well as band leaders and composers. This group included notable figures such as Fernando Arbello, the Bayron sisters, the Rivera family, Louis King Garcia, Joe Loco, Juan and Paco Tizol, Augusto and Willie Rodriguez, Augusto Coen, and Cesar Concepcion.

Covering a period from 1900 to 1939, Puerto Rican Pioneers in Jazz, 19001939 presents the stories of early Puerto Rican jazz musicians whose contributions to the genre have previously been overlooked.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491747704

Basilio Serrano

Basilio Serrano is Professor Emeritus from the State University of New York - College at Old Westbury. He holds a BS, MS, and Graduate Diploma from City College of New York (CCNY) and a PhD from New York University. He has published articles on the history and music of Puerto Ricans in the States and in the homeland. He author of: Juan Tizol - His Caravan Through American Life and Culture and Puerto Rican Pioneers in Jazz 190-1939.

Book preview

PUERTO RICAN

PIONEERS

IN JAZZ

1900–1939

BOMBA BEATS TO LATIN JAZZ

BASILIO SERRANO

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PUERTO RICAN PIONEERS IN JAZZ, 1900–1939

BOMBA BEATS TO LATIN JAZZ

Copyright © 2015 Basilio Serrano.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-4771-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-4770-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014920026

iUniverse rev. date: 7/10/2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

1. The Influence of Puerto Rican Music

2. Music in the Schools, Music in the Streets

3. Rafael Escudero– Jazz Pioneer

4. The 369th Regiment, Harlem Hellfighters; Boricua Jazz Pioneers in Europe & USA

5. Pioneering Jazz Family: The Rivera

6. Juan Tizol – Latin Jazz Progenitor

7. The Pianists

8. The Clarinets and Saxophones

9. The Trumpets and Trombones

10. The Strings: Double Bass & Violins

11. The Vocalists

12. Women Instrumentalists

13. Percussionist Extraordinaire

14. Conclusion and a look toward the future

15. Notes

Selected Bibliography

PREFACE

A variety of experiences contributed to the evolution of this book. As a teenager growing up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan I had the opportunity to experience jazz and Latin jazz on the radio, television, and at live performances. For those opportunities, I’m genuinely grateful. I vividly recall the warm nights of the summers when I would meet with friends at the benches of the Jacob Riis Houses on the Lower East Side neighborhood sometimes known as Alphabet City. Spring and summer, year after year we would listen to a radio program hosted by the late Dick Ricardo Sugar. His FM dial program was barely audible at times, but the music he played made an indelible impression. Once his program ended, we switched to the AM dial where on WEVD the unforgettable Symphony Sid Torin would continue the evening musical marathon. Those two radio personalities help shape my taste for music and developed in me an appreciation of jazz and Latin jazz.

My father loved music tremendously and sought ways of involving himself in the art form although he was not a musician. As a young person I heard everything that my father purchased to entertain family and friends. We heard the music of the Puerto Rican countryside as well as that of the urban centers. Singers such as Ramito, Odilio González, Felipe Rodríguez, Los Condes, Los Panchos, Los Hispanos and many others were heard through the week-end afternoons. We also heard and danced to the music of Rafael Cortijo, El Gran Combo and Rafael Hernández among many others.

At one point my father operated a social club that was similar to a night club to raise funds to support a sandlot baseball team that he organized. The entire operation was possible thanks to a New York State Charter that he secured to run the San Sebastián Athletic Club. The framed charter is a prized possession. He would hire local bands and they would attract huge crowds to the small club that was located on East 9th Street in a converted warehouse on the Lower East Side. The money paid for uniforms, bats, and baseballs. I helped my father in every way that I could at the club while also serving as a batboy for the baseball team.

While attending Haaren High School, then college, I began to hang out with friends, especially my buddy Juan Ramos. We were quite young but thanks to penciled mustaches, we were able to spend many nights in places such as the original Palladium; on Broadway. We also spent time at places like the tiny Latin Coterie, The Village Gate, The Chéz José, Manhattan Center, Chateau Caribe, Club Caborrojeño, El Hipocampo, El Cerromar, El Tropicoro, Broadway, Bronx and Happy Hills Casinos. This was during the heyday of the New York salsa music scene and there were too many clubs to name here.

In my many visits to the different venues I had the chance to meet many artists who courteously discussed their music with me. I had the opportunity to converse with Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, Joe Quijano, Ricardo Ray, Angel Canales, Frankie Ruiz, Ron Davis and many, many other musicians and bandleaders. They helped me appreciate their work and life from a perspective beyond that of a listener. As a college student and member of the Puerto Rican Student Union (PRSU), I helped organize fundraising dances. This is when I met Richie Bonilla, a promoter, agent and one of the finest people in the music business. From Bonilla I learned about the difficulties of surviving as a musician and promoter serving a relatively small, ethnic population. At one point I experimented with the trumpet and I was good enough to be part of a small band. That experiment did not last because college became a priority and because I understood the complicated challenges of a musician who received very little pay.

As a college student who lived in close proximity to Greenwich Village, I had the opportunity to spend time in many of the jazz clubs of the historic neighborhood. I learned about the Village when on my way home from City College to the Lower East Side, I would get off the train on the West 4th Street train stop. From there, I would walk east through the streets that would come alive with music in the evenings because of the many clubs and pubs. In the 1960s and 70s, no neighborhood in the States had more hangouts per square mile than the Village and East Village.

The summers in New York have always been a time when music outdoors becomes a reality and very often free to the public. I took advantage of those opportunities to see the best thanks to organizations such as The Jazz Mobile that provided music on wheels on a small stage constructed on a flatbed. It was fascinating and captivating to see and hear outstanding jazz and Latin jazz bands squeeze onto a flatbed truck without walls and perform live. At times they would leave the small stage and make their way to a nearby amphitheater such as the one located in the Jacob Riis Houses. Bands led by such artists as Eddie Palmieri and Billy Taylor performed their best on The Jazz Mobile at no charge for enthusiastic audiences.

My many experiences with the music world made me think of ways of expressing my gratitude for the many pleasures and lasting memories. One opportunity came when I was asked to prepare a nomination to secure an honorary doctorate degree for Ernesto Tito Puente. The request came from New York State Assemblyman Armando Montano Sr. who knew me as a professor at the College at Old Westbury. I worked with Montano, his staff, Joe Conzo, and Mrs. Margie Puente in the preparation of the candidacy; the first of its kind in the State University of New York (SUNY) system. The University approved the nomination and Tito Puente received his first honorary doctorate in 1989. The day of the ceremonies held at graduation gave me an opportunity to spend many hours with Mr. Puente and his family.

This book is another way of saying thanks to the musicians, past and present that made the music possible. This is also a way of recognizing them for their work, and, their contributions to the Puerto Rican people and all peoples of the world who have enjoyed their creative production. This book tells the story of many musicians who are essentially forgotten. Their stories deserve to be told and preserved since many of these pioneering ‘jazzers’ were among the first to achieve in ther respective roles as clarinetists, violinists, bassists, trombonists, trumpeters, and vocalists.

Another factor that motivated me to write this book and related articles is the lack of information in this area that is available to teachers and curriculum developers. As a teacher and curriculum writer, I realize that information related to the immigrant contribution to the evolution of the culture of the United States is constantly changing. The curriculum that is available to educators can only change if the information to develop it is available and easily accessible. This book addresses gaps in the development of jazz and Latin jazz while also adding to the knowledge of the evolution of the Puerto Rican and overall Hispanic community in the States. My hope is that more educators realize the importance of music in the curriculum at all levels and how music education can serve as a vehicle for teaching all curriculum areas.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Information for this book was made possible from a variety of institutions and agencies that I want to acknowledge; these include: the New York State Education Department and the website (NYSED.gov), the Ellis Island Museum Archives and the website (Ellisisland.org), Familysearch.org, the Social Security Death Index website, Ancestry.com, the Veterans’ Administration, the New York Public Library Schomburg Center, The Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, The Smithsonian Institution Duke Ellington Collection, The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), The Library of Congress, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños of the City University of New York at Hunter College, among others. Several people assisted with the research but most important was Rossana Duchesne who went out of her way to compile information on many of the musicians presented in the book. Rossana has provided especially valuable information on the musicians who made up the Harlem Hellfighters and The International Sweethearts of Rhythm. Musicologist Cristóbal Díaz Ayala provided valuable insight on the evolution of bomba music in Puerto Rico and Prof. Salvador Ferreras made his study on bomba music available through his website.

INTRODUCTION

This book is a follow up to articles that were originally published by The Center for Puerto Rican Studies Journal: Centro, and, El Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña music journal: Resonancias. The articles focused on my research on the roles played by Puerto Rican musicians in jazz during the years prior to World War I and before the start of World War II. The focus of those articles was on the musicians who were active during the incipient period of jazz and the Harlem Renaissance. This study represents a more comprehensive description of the many participants in the music and other cultural venues of that period that surrounds what is often called The Jazz Age.

The role played by Puerto Rican musicians who were members of orchestras that were active during the early history of jazz is a subject that has not received much attention. When we think of jazz we may not consider that musicians from the islands of Puerto Rico¹ occupied a space in the history of this uniquely American genre. When we consider their participation, we often overlook such figures as Juan Tizol and his contemporaries and think that it began with more contemporary artists such as Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, or Eddie Palmieri. The following is a case in point. The January 22, 2006 edition of El Nuevo Día, the Puerto Rico daily with a large circulation, had an interesting article titled ‘Pioneros del jazz’ and focused on the contemporary jazz environment there. The article described the work of Victor Orta Salamán who was the founder of a ‘big band’ jazz orchestra on the island in the 1960s. Orta Salamán is a pianist who recruited a number of leading instrumentalists who were devoted to the genre and these included the late trumpeters Juancito Torres, and Mario Ortíz, and saxophonist Lito Peña. That band also featured Elías Lopés, Tommy Villarini; drummer Tony Sánchez; saxophonist Roberto Jiménez, and Emilio Reales, among many others.² The article also addressed how there were few locations where jazz was featured on the island and as such, it was quite a struggle to find playing time before live audiences in those years.

Since the 1960s, the popularity of jazz and Latin jazz in San Juan, and other cities has grown incrementally. Today there are numerous venues for jazz and several annual festivals including the gigantic Heineken and Mayagüez Jazz Fests that are held every year. For several years, the north coast city of Carolina has offered an annual, weekend jazz fest in mid-August; Latin jazz trumpeter Luis ‘Perico’ Ortíz served as music director for 2011; the 2012 edition of this fest again featured Perico Ortíz and many outstanding soloists. The 2012 Carolina Jazz Fest was attended by thousands of aficionados; it was sponsored primarily by the municipal government.

Jazz, which is also known as música creativa among Spanish speakers, is now more widely accepted by the general public. For example, in recent editions of the massive, January street fest called Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián in Old San Juan, several jazz presentations were part of the overall program. A most impressive recent segment featured trumpeters Luis Perico Ortíz, Humberto Ramírez, Charlie Sepúlveda, and the pioneering Elías Lopés. For the past several years, the city of San Juan is also home to a free jazz concert that has taken place every last Sunday of the month. The concert is held at the impressive Parque La Ventana al Mar in the exclusive Condado neighborhood. The Heineken Corporation is a major sponsor. The 2013 live concerts featured leading island-based instrumentalists at this exquisite oceanfront venue where thousands can gather to enjoy the music and the tropical outdoors. In 2013, the Heineken Corporation announced that it would sponsor a second monthly concert series in the west-coast city of Mayagüez. At the same time the City of San Juan started offering a Latin Jazz concert series on Sundays at the new and spectacular bay-front park called Bahía Urbana.

Currently, the number of jazz promoting clubs, jazz bands, combined with concerts, and instrumentalists, make Puerto Rico, arguably, the leading jazz center of the Caribbean.

Contemporary Boricua³ communities in the States and in the homeland have produced a number of outstanding jazz artists. For example, in 2006, the late percussionist Ray Barretto received the coveted Jazz Masters award from the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) when they held their conference in New York in January. Other contemporary jazz greats of Puerto Rican heritage include the late Tito Puente and Hilton Ruiz. Current standouts include Giovanni Hidalgo, Angel ‘Papo’ Vázquez, William Cepeda, David Sánchez, Miguel Zenón, Dave Valentín, Néstor Torres, Eddie and Edsel Gómez, Carli Muñoz, Andy and Jerry González, Bobby Sanabria, Charlie Sepúlveda, Nelson González, Pedro Guzmán, José ‘Furito’ Ríos, Paoli Mejías, Angel David Mattos, Ricardo Pons, Elliot Feyjoo, Jorge Laboy, Bernie Williams, Carlos Henriquez, Sammy Figueroa, Ricardo Rodríguez, Roy McGrath, Ray Santos, and Mario Castro, among many others. One of the finest exponents, Eddie Palmieri was the recipient of the 2006 and 2007 Grammy Award in Latin Jazz; others have also received nominations in that award category. In 2012, Palmieri was granted the 2013 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Jazz Masters Award for his innovative creations in Jazz and Latin Jazz. In 2013, Boricuas Bobby Sanabria and Eddie Gómez were nominated for a Grammy Award for the best recording in the Latin Jazz category.

Although jazz may be relatively new to Puerto Rico, if we accept that it flourished in the 1960s, the Boricua participation goes back to the embryonic days of the genre, the early 1900s and the years that surrounded the Harlem Renaissance. The most influential early jazz pioneer was, arguably, Juan Tizol. Not long after arriving in the States in 1920, Tizol began to leave a legacy as an innovating composer of ballads, exotica jazz, swing, and Latin jazz.

The Harlem Renaissance covered a period of the past century, from the end of World War I to the mid-1930s, that witnessed an incredible swell in the cultural production of the African American community in the United States and beyond. African American novelists, poets, playwrights, actors, dancers, and musicians made a profound and everlasting contribution to the cultural life of the United States and elsewhere. This cultural surge produced opportunities for people of color from various communities, including the Caribbean.

A number of Puerto Ricans, who settled in the States during the early jazz and therefore, Harlem Renaissance period, had the good fortune of being active and contributing participants. Bibliophile and Africana artifact collector Arturo Alfonso Schomburg who was born and raised in the Santurce section of San Juan played such an important role that he has been called the documentor and patron of the Renaissance.⁴ He collaborated with many of the most distinguished leaders of that cultural movement in the process of compiling his famed collection. Today, the collection is housed in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. The Schomburg Center focuses on the history and cultures of the African Diaspora; it is among the largest and most important centers of its kind in the world.

Writer and folklorist Pura Belpré was another Renaissance participant and patron. She arrived at New York’s Ellis Island in 1920. She said that she was born on December 9, 1900 in Cayey. Her two older sisters arrived a year earlier; they also indicated Cayey as the birthplace. Pura Belpré became the first appointed Puerto Rican of the New York Library system and originally worked as an assistant at the 135th Street branch in Harlem where Schomburg was compiling his collection of artifacts. She is best known as a librarian and writer of children’s books. Her first book Pérez and Martina was published in 1932. She authored several outstanding children’s books. She was a true participant in the cultural rush of the period. The literary movement that unfolded before her eyes surely influenced this author to write books with special attention to the population she understood best. Today, the American Library Association (ALA) recognizes the outstanding Hispanic writer of children’s books with the Pura Belpré Award. Recently, the Pura Belpré legacy has been detailed in a biography.

San Juan native, Juano Hernández was born in 1896 but he often reported1901; his given name was Juano Guillermo Hernández y Cháves. He was an early jazz and Harlem Renaissance participant as a singer, dancer, and actor on stage, radio and film. After living in Rio de Janeiro as an orphaned youngster, he settled in New Orleans in 1915 where he began performing in a variety of situations. From there, as a baritone, he sang with a Protestant church choir and then appeared on radio with the Columbia Broadcasting. He took advantage of the opportunities offered by the Jazz Age when he made New York his home.

Juano Hernández debuted on Broadway in 1927 as part of the cast of the classic musical, Show Boat. One of his early films was called Harlem is Heaven that was produced in 1932. On March 23, 1934 he was part of the Cotton Club Parade. This production also included Lena Horne and Adelaide Hall and featured the Jimmy Lunceford Orchestra, among others.⁵ One source indicates that Hernández was known as a Cotton Club Boy and Lena Horne a Cotton Club Girl. He appeared in Lew Leslie’s jazz extravaganza Blackbirds when he was also paired with the incomparable Lena Horne.

In 1939 Hernández assumed a lead role in a jazz musical titled Swingin’ the Dream that featured the Benny Goodman Sextet.⁶ Hernández also played a jazz trumpeter turned tutor in the 1950 jazz classic, Young Man with a Horn. The laudable film told the story of a jazz trumpeter Bix Biederbecke and featured Kirk Douglas. In 1958 Hernández played Rev. Charles Handy in St. Louis Blues, a film based on the life of blues composer W.C. Handy. The film featured several jazz artists.

As late as October, 1961, Hernández found himself in the jazz milieu when he played a retired jazz trombonist King Lewis in an episode of the television period series Route 66. The episode featured Ethel Waters as a dying jazz singer, clarinetist Coleman Hawkins, and Roy Eldridge as drummer. The 1961 broadcast was titled Good Night Sweet Blues. Hernández and the entire cast were splendid. This specific program has been available in its entirety through youtube.com.

Hernández established a significant reputation as an actor before returning to his native land to write for theater and start his own school for actors; Liceo de Arte. Despite an outstanding career in the States, the ‘pull’ of his homeland was too much to resist. Hernández died as he was promoting the production of his latest work; a drama based on the life of boxing champ Sixto Escobar.

This book will focus on the participation and accomplishments of Puerto Rican pioneers in jazz before and during early years of jazz surrounding the Harlem Renaissance from the 1900s to the 1930s. In doing so, we will better understand the full range of their participation that goes far beyond the contributions of Juan Tizol. We will also understand why jazz and Latin jazz becomes part of the music repertoire of the Boricua communities of the States and in their homeland. Their participation and their back and forth migrations from the Puerto Rico archipelago to the US, in part, explain the evolution of contemporary music in their Caribbean home.

As previously indicated, the Puerto Rican participation in jazz predates the Harlem Renaissance although it was during that period when, arguably, the greatest early contributions were made. By that time hundreds of Boricuas, including many who were musicians, were recruited to work at sugar plantations of Hawaii at the turn of the past century, starting around 1900. A number of musicians and artisans settled there and reproduced the music and the instruments of their homeland.⁷ On the way to Hawaii the ships carrying unemployed and underemployed workers stopped in New Orleans. We also know that a number of Boricuas who landed in New Orleans and later in San Francisco refused to continue to Hawaii. Among early jazz and ragtime musicians of New Orleans, considered the cradle of jazz, many had Spanish surnames.⁸ Those Spanish surnamed musicians came from various parts of Latin America including México, Panamá, and the former Spanish territories of the Caribbean. Puerto Ricans who fled the US recruiters working on behalf of Hawaiian farmers were most likely reluctant to identify themselves for fear of being arrested or placed on a train headed for the Pacific, as such, we may never know how many stayed behind in New Orleans. A publication titled The Second Line that was published by The New Orleans Jazz Club in 1978 identified two Puerto Ricans of a contingent of musicians. One was identified as a guitarist known only as Tafoya, the other was a bassist, Frank Otara (plausibly Otero).

Years after the initial arrivals in New Orleans, Puerto Ricans continued to choose the southern city as a preferred destination. This was the case for one Agustín Serrano who arrived with a shipload of compatriots in 1918.The ship’s manifest listed 28 passengers who came from various municipalities including: Aguadilla, Aguas Buenas, Arecibo, Bayamón, Carolina, Cataño, Corozal, Fajardo, Humacao, Manatí, Maunabo, Mayagüez, Ponce, Río Grande, Río Piedras, San Germán, San Juan, and Vega Baja.⁹ The Porto Rico Line (New York & Porto Rico Steamship Company) provided service between the Caribbean and New Orleans in the early