Ray Barretto: Remembering the

Quintessential Nuyorican
4
By Bobby Sanabria & Elena
Martinez
On April 29, eighty-six years ago in
Brooklyn, Raymundo Barretto Pagn
(19292006) was born. Barretto was,
like one of his old employers,
maestro Tito
Puente,
the
quintessential Nuyoricana person
of Puerto Rican descent born and
raised in New York City. It gave Ray
the advantage of growing up with his
own native Puerto Rican culture and
that of Afro-Cuban music and jazz. By
the time he was two, his family had
moved from the Red Hook section of
Brooklyn to Manhattan's eastside
enclave of Puerto Rican, Cuban, and
Italian culture, El Barrio, aka Spanish
Harlem. At seven he moved to the
South Bronx. His boyhood friends
included pianist Eddie Palmieri,
bassist
Dave
Prez, timbaleros Orlando
Marn, Manny Oquendo, Mike Collazo, Benny Bonilla, and record store owner and producer Al Santiago. The
blind virtuoso of the Cuban tres, Arsenio Rodrguez, would invite him to participate in rumbas at his apartment and
the Club Cubano Inter Americano on Prospect Avenue. Barretto was also influenced by the music his mother listened
to, such as Daniel Santos, Bobby Cap, and Tro Los Panchos, while at the same time in the neighborhood he
could hear Arsenio Rodrguez, Machito, and Marcelino Guerra performing at local clubs.

Click on the photo for additional images

In 1946, when he was seventeen, Barretto enlisted in the U.S. Army. While stationed in Germany, Ray fell in love with
jazz. He was inspired by Dizzy Gillespie's recording of "Manteca," which featured Chano Pozo on conga. When he
returned home he bought some bongos, but he really wanted a conga drum so he spent $50 on one at what was most
likely Simns Bakery in Harlem. Back in the 1940s and 1950s, if you needed congas or bongos you couldnt always
stop into your nearest music store. Back then, many of New Yorks Latin music percussionists went to the Moderna
Bakery located at Lenox Avenue between 115th and 116th Streets, which was owned by Simn Jou. Simn was an
Afro-Cuban migr from Havana; it was not surprising to find a Cuban bakery on Lenox Avenue in the middle on

Harlem because since the 1930s Black Cubans had been settling in the area between Lenox and Lexington Avenues
from 110th to 118th St. Mario Bauz, the musical director for Machito and his Afro-Cubans, had arrived from Cuba in
1926 and fell in love with Harlem, where Blacks lived and worked. Being Afro-Cuban himself, when Simn returned and
settled in New York City in 1930, this is where he chose to reside. Most musicians remember Simn as a tall, whitehaired, kindly gentleman. Though he was kind, when it came to drums, he was very strict. If you stopped in requesting
a drum or skins for drumheads, he would make sure you were a serious drummer. He would tell you, Sintate, and
ask you to play a basic tumbao (repetitive rhythm) on one of the drums he had hanging in the room behind the bakery.
If you passed this test you could buy one of the drums. If you wanted a custom-made drum, he would trace your hand
on a piece of paper so he could get a drum head of the correct size.
Benny Bonilla, Nuyorican percussionist, remembers his early trips to the bakery:
Willie Bobo took me there. I just went with him at first because he was buying skins, but I kept going back
there. After you buy the drum you have to go back periodically because you have to buy new skins and attach
them yourself with nails. I used to go back every week because I liked what he had. I would notice, I didnt
recognize them at first, but as I got older, I noticed I was looking at all the stars of Latin music and rhythm. All
the drummers(Jos) Mangual, Mongo (Santamara), Chonguito (Vicente)he was the drummer for Tito
Rodrguez. . . . They would all hang out there in the back. It was like an open dooryou could see right to the
back where all the drums were, and they would be sitting there every day, except when they had to go down to
the union. He (Simn) had all the skins in a big box, thin, heavy, depending on how heavy your hand is. For
example, I would have to buy a thin skin to get a sound. Luis Miranda, Ray Barretto would get a thick muleskin
because their hands were like hammers. I wish there was more history on Simn because he did a lot for
musicians. That was the only place you could go for drums in the 1940s.
After choosing the instrument which would make him an icon, Ray began working with Eddie Bonnemere, Jos
Curbelo, and Tito Puente, as well as numerous jazz artists on recordings during the 1950s and into the 1960s,
including Dizzy Gillespie, Oliver Nelson, and Rudy Van Gelder; and he worked on pop records as well, such
as Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones.
Becoming a bandleader in the early 1960s, he had success with a charanga-style ensemble (a Cuban dance band
that utilizes flute and violins), forming La Charanga Moderna in 1961, incorporating the trumpet and trombone within
the traditional style. In 1962 he released the album Pachanga with Baretto. In 1962, TICO Records recorded the
album Charanga Moderna that included El watusi. With this song he became the first Latin music musician to
make the Billboard's Top 20 pop chart.

Click on the photo for images of the other Barretto's album covers mentioned in the essay

Ray signed with FANIA in 1967 and was given complete freedom to express his love for Cuban-based dance music
combined with a jazz aesthetic. Ray stated, "Jazz has always been at the core of what I do musically." After signing
with FANIA he dropped the charanga format he had been using and formed a conjunto (a small Cuban-style group
utilizing two trumpets). He then started to compose tunes that mixed R&B with Afro-Cuban elementswhat came to be
called Latin bugal. His early FANIA recordings include Acid, Hard Hards, and Together. These first three albums
redefined the Cuban conjunto sound that Arsenio Rodrguez had developed in the 1930s, with a harder edge
reflecting New York Citys urban environment.
Barretto received a blow when in 1972 his best musiciansAdalberto Santiago, Orestes Vilat, John Dandy
Rodrguez, Ren Lpez, and Dave Prezleft his orchestra to form the band Tpica 73. Depressed, he put together
an album project for FANIA that showcased his jazz ethos, The Other Road, which featured the legendary jazz rock
drummer from Panama, Billy Cobham. Ray finally retuned to the world of salsa in 1973 with an explosive comeback
album entitled Indestructible.
In January of 2006, Ray was given the National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Master Award, the highest award a
jazz musician can achieve in the United States. A fitting tribute to this son of Brooklyn, El Barrio, the Bronx, and jazz.
Bobby Sanabria and Elena Martinez. Published by permission in Centro Voices on 24 April 2015.
Hero image by Evelyn Collazo