From: News and Views | City Beat |
Friday, June 02, 2000
By DAVE GOLDINER Daily News Staff Writer
El Rey" is gone, but his music lives on.
Tito Puente, the legendary king of Latin music who rose from the streets of East Harlem to put his indelible signature on six decades of jazz and pop music, has died of complications from heart surgery. He was 77.
The pioneering bandleader died late Wednesday night after undergoing 15 hours of triple-bypass heart surgery at New York University Medical Center.
Puente, universally known as "El Rey" or "The King," had severe hemorrhaging during the surgery, which was required after doctors detected a leaky heart valve, friends said.
"Our world is in mourning because one of the souls of Latin music has died," said Cuban-born singer Celia Cruz, a longtime friend and collaborator.
More than a half century before Ricky Martin and Marc Anthony hit the Billboard charts, Puente put the Latin beat on the musical map and kept it there with his groundbreaking musical style and magnetic showmanship.
Puente started playing at age 13, won five Grammys, recorded more than 100 albums, and performed for three Presidents.
He played the theme song for television's "The Cosby Show" and portrayed himself in the 1992 film "The Mambo Kings."
Puente's signature tune was "Oye Como Va," which he wrote decades before Carlos Santana turned it into a crossover hit.
"When you speak about Latin music, his name is the first to come up," said Ralph Mercado, his longtime manager, producer and friend. "He set trends and opened up doors all over the world." Many compared Puente with the giants of American pop music — Frank Sinatra, George Gershwin, Elvis Presley and Duke Ellington. He received a National Medal of Arts in 1997 from President Clinton.
"An entire, entire era has come to an end," actor Edward James Olmos said. "He truly changed the course of music."
Known for his boundless energy on stage, Puente had vowed to play until he died, and he was nearly good to his word.
He played his last show in New York on April 25 at Town Hall, then traveled to San Juan for a weekend of gigs with the Symphonic Orchestra of Puerto Rico.
After the April 29 show, Puente felt shortness of breath and was hospitalized in San Juan for a couple of days before returning to New York.
A smiling Puente was still joking with nurses and signing autographs for workers at NYU Medical Center until days before his death.
Minutes after Puente died around 11 p.m. Wednesday, heartbroken relatives and friends rushed to his home in Tappan, N.Y. He is survived by his wife, Margie, two sons, Ronald and Tito Jr., and a daughter, Audrey.
"I expected him to live 125 years," said Eddie Harris, who directed the video for Puente's Grammy-winning album "Mambo Birdland." "He had a huge heart. Long live The King."
Ernest Anthony Puente Jr. was born April 20, 1923, at Harlem Hospital, the oldest child of a Puerto Rican-born factory foreman and his wife.
As a boy, Puente quickly took to playing percussion, beating rhythms on boxes or window sills before getting his first gig as a young teen at a local club.
After dropping out of high school, the boy nicknamed "Tito" won a regular job with the groundbreaking Machito Orchestra, one of the first groups to fuse the Big Band sound with a Latin beat.
Puente's specialty was playing the timbales — a pair of single-headed drums mounted on stands. Back then, the timbales was regarded as a minor instrument confined to the back of the orchestra. But with his boundless energy and broad smile, Puente quickly earned a spot at the front of the bandstand.
He quickly stole the show. Wide-eyed, animated and constantly moving, Puente reveled in his work as the consummate showman.
Puente's fame soared with the '50s mambo craze. He moved to Hollywood in the '60s, working with such Latin American stars as Cruz, Ray Barretto and Mongo Santamaria.
But Puente never stopped playing and never stopped growing as a musician.
Even though he loved Puerto Rican salsa music and got his start as the "King of the Mambo," Puente hated being pigeonholed into any one musical genre.
Before anyone coined the term "crossover," Puente was performing with African-American greats like Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie and white singers like Tony Bennett.
Word of Puente's death spread quickly around New York yesterday.
Standing in front of his gift store on 116th St. in East Harlem, Tony Sanchez said Puente would never be forgotten.
"He was the best," said Sanchez. "I'm already missing him."
The memory of Puente's music and style also hung heavy inside Marcia Santos' Elegante Salon. "His music is the best bridge to bring people together," Santos said. "I feel so sorry, so sad." A coalition of community groups is pushing to rename a slice of 110th St. as Tito Puente Way; City Council approval is expected this summer.
On City Island in the Bronx, Puente's self-named restaurant was open yesterday only for private parties; workers handed out photos to a steady stream of mourners.
Serena Sierra said Puente's musical talent was only a small part of his greatness.
"He never made people in the Bronx feel poor," said Sierra, 27. "He was one of us. He made people feel rich inside."
With Emily Gest, Ralph R. Ortega and Elizabeth Hays
Services
Visiting for Tito Puente is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday and Monday at the Riverside Chapel, 180 W. 76th St. in Manhattan.
Donations can be sent to: The Tito Puento Scholarship Foundation, 425 Riverside Drive, Suite 15E, New York, N.Y. 10025
or to: The Tito Puente Memorial Scholarship Fund for Latino Outreach, Hackley School, 293 Benedict Ave., Tarrytown, N.Y. 10591, attention: Kathy Dalyi
Correspondence can be sent to: Debra Mercado, national director of RMM Records, 568 Broadway, Suite 806, New York N.Y. 10012, or by E-mail at debbie.mercado@rmmrecords.com. She can be reached by phone at (212) 925-2828, ext. 236.