RIP: Lou Harrison & Mongo Santamaria
Walter Davis
confirmation yet (it's quite elaborate for a hoax), but while searching
for it I found the obit for Mongo Santamaria. Sorry if the formatting
is crappy.
Lou Harrison:
Last night, while traveling from Chicago to
Columbus, Lou Harrison passed
away. We had sent Adam Schweigert and Joe
Panzner, two students in
Composition and Theory, to Chicago with a
University van to greet Lou and
his traveling companion, Todd Burlingame, and
drive them back to campus for
the Festival. Lou does not like to fly and took
the train, the California
Zephyr, from near San Francisco to Chicago. The
train arrived at about
5:15 PM. While en route to Indianapolis, their
overnight destination,
Adam, Joe, Lou and Todd decided to stop at a
Denny's restaurant in
Lafayette, Indiana, for some dinner. Lou
stumbled and fell upon getting
out of the vehicle and apparently suffered a
heart attack. He had great
difficulty breathing. Paramedics were called and
they arrived within
minutes. Lou was transported to the hospital but
was unable to be revived.
He passed away around 9 or 9:30 PM. We are
awaiting the coroner's
report for final confirmation of the cause of
death.
This is a great tragedy for the entire world of
music. Lou was as excited
about the Festival as we were. Our sympathies go
out to all in the world
of music and dance who treasured his great gift.
I will always remember
the joy in his voice when we spoke over the
telephone about the Festival.
He was an active participant in planning the
concerts. He had also
prepared a special seminar for OSU students in
composition. He was very
much looking forward to the CSO performances of
his Third Symphony in a
final revision that he had just completed. He
told me how honored he felt
to have so many of his compositions performed on
the Festival. Let
everyone know that the Festival will go on as
planned as a tribute to this
legendary American musician.
Lou Harrison will be cremated today; his remains
shipped back to
California. He was eighty-five years old.
Mongo Santamaria (from the NY Times)
ongo Santamaria, a Cuban conga player and percussionist who arrived in
New York at the beginning of the jazz-Latin fusion and was arguably the
most popular Latin musician of the 1960's, died on Saturday. He was 85.
He had been placed on life support at a Miami hospital after a stroke
last week, said Rosy Lopez, his niece and manager.
Most know Mr. Santamaria for two things: his version of Herbie Hancock's
song "Watermelon Man," which became a top-10 hit in 1963, and his
authorship of "Afro Blue," a song John Coltrane made famous. But those
more familiar with Afro-Cuban music know that Mr. Santamaria was at the
middle of the shift from the Afro-Cuban jazz of the 1950's to the salsa
sound of the 1970's.
"Mongo's major contribution," said the percussionist Bobby Sanabria,
"was that he applied the conversational aspect normally played on the
bongo to the conga drums. But more importantly, Mongo always represented
the close ties that Cuban music has to West Africa."
His given name was Ramon Santamaria. After establishing himself as a
professional musician in his hometown of Havana, performing at the
famous Tropicana Club with Conjunto Matamoros and Conjunto Azul, he
toured Mexico with a dance team. In 1950 he arrived in New York and
began working with Gilberto Valdés, playing charanga music, with its
recognizable, courtly flutes-and-violin mixture in the frontline. Soon
after, he worked with the popular bandleader Peréz Prado, and then for
six years with Tito Puente, trading fireballs of percussion with the
timbales-playing bandleader during the height of the mambo craze in New
York City.
At the end of the 1950's Mr. Santamaria left Puente's band to join Cal
Tjader, the San Francisco-based jazz vibraphonist, who was beginning to
mix jazz and Latin music. With Tjader, Mr. Santamaria made the album
"Mas Caliente," among others; it was a new, mellower Latin-jazz sound,
popular among jazz audiences and another affirmation of the wide
applicability of Cuban music.
While with Tjader, Mr. Santamaria recorded his own albums on the side,
first delving into his past, then into his future. "Yambu," in 1958, was
an authentic record of Cuban religious percussion and chanting, closely
linked to West African music; "Mongo," which included the tune "Afro
Blue," showed a stronger willingness to work with straight-ahead jazz
musicians in his own music. He went back to charanga for few years
afterward while still in San Francisco, but in late 1962 he wandered
back toward New York and the jazz side of the fence, convening a band
led by a trumpet and two saxophones.
One night when Herbie Hancock substituted for his regular pianist at a
Bronx nightclub, the group worked out a Latin groove underneath Mr.
Hancock's new composition "Watermelon Man"; Mr. Santamaria quickly took
it to the studio, and the song became the only time that Riverside, the
distinguished jazz label, had a song on the top-10 pop charts.
That marked the beginning of the Latin-soul sound, popular through the
1960's. Mr. Santamaria signed with Columbia and made 10 records in a
similar vein, Latinizing jazz tunes or R & B vocal numbers; when he was
signed to Atlantic in 1971, he was so inured to the process that he left
the decisions about the songs entirely to his musical director, Marty
Sheller.
Though he never had another commercial breakthrough on the level of
"Watermelon Man," Mr. Santamaria maintained an identifiable sound, and
using top-level musicians like Chick Corea, Ray Vega, Sonny Fortune, La
Lupe, Hubert Laws and Mr. Sanabria, he recorded through the 90's for
labels like Concord, Vaya, Roulette, Chesky and Milestone, playing in
clubs and festivals around the world.
Mr. Santamaria retired from performing several years ago and had split
his time between Miami and New York for the last 15 years. He is
survived by six children: Nancy Anderson, Jose (Monguito) Santamaria,
Rosa Santamaria and Felipe Santamaria, all of Miami; Felicia Santamaria
of Los Angeles; and Ileana Santamaria of New York City; two sisters,
Alicia Valdez of Miami and Rosa Mendiola of New York; eight
grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.
marc faris
> confirmation yet (it's quite elaborate for a hoax),
the part about Lou Harrison is apparently and sadly true; i just got an
email from Cathryn Davis, who recently completed a documentary on Black
Mountain College and had been working close with Lou.
marc