The Cultural Warrior: Andy González

Text and photography by ©Eric González

Interview conducted on March 9, 2002; April 25 and 26, 2004; and March 26 and 27, 2005.  

INTRODUCTION

     The original title of this interview was going to be “The Experience, Passion, and Intensity of Andy González.” Experience, because he has been playing since the sixties, and has performed with the who’s who in afrocuban music in New York City. Passion, because in addition of being a talented bassist, he is also a historian of our music – he knows it very well. And Intensity, because he reflects it when he’s playing. You can see it in his movements; you can see it in his eyes. But, for some reason, I felt that my title was missing something. Maybe it had too much. It was Andy, himself, who suggested “The Cultural Warrior.” That was it for me. That’s what being creative all is about. Everything that he is, musically and historically speaking, is represented with this title.

     A native Newyorican, Andy González has seen it all, and, what he hasn’t seen, he has researched and can give you a reasonable answer. He has played with the best afrocuban groups and some of the best jazz bands in current times. At age sixteen, he was performing and recording with Monguito Santamaría. He graduated and moved on to be part of or record with the best bands, such as Ray Barretto, Dizzy Gillespie, Eddie Palmieri, Rubén Blades and Willie Colón, Willie Colón, Tito Puente, Bobby Vince Paunetto, Tito Rodríguez, Tito Puente, Kip Hanrahan, Deep Rumba, Astor Piazzolla, Virgilio Martí, La Lupe, Ismael Rivera, Chico O’Farrill, Grupo Folklórico y Experimental Nuevayorquino, and many, many more.  According to González, he has done over 800 recording from 1962 to 2005.

     However, Andy González’ legacy will mainly be remembered because he was an integral part of two very important groups: Libre and the Fort Apache Band. You can even ignore all his work with other bands, if you will. His contributions with Libre and the Fort Apache Band are sufficient for this fabulous bassist to secure a place in history.

     Created in the seventies by master percussionist Manny Oquendo and Andy González, Libre is a seminal group in the development of salsa music in New York. The have survived all these years, including the merengue and salsa monga periods that negatively affected afrocuban music as we know it. And they never, ever sold their artistry. They continue to create music for our enjoyment, and they are true heroes in salsa music.

     The Fort Apache Band is, in my opinion, the most creative group of this thing that we call Latin Jazz. With them, you really get both afrocuban music and jazz – you don’t need to burn your brain to figure it out.  As you will read again further down, I constantly tell people that Latin or afrocuban jazz can be divided into two groups: Before and After the Fort Apache Band. This is the school, my dear friends. What began as a group of fellas jamming and playing Latin Jazz, has evolved into an institution, under the experienced direction of Jerry and Andy González.

     My interview with el maestro Andy González took place in the Culver Hotel, in Culver City, California, not far from the MGM movie studios. The previous night, he performed a marvelous set with master bassist Cachao and the Johnny Polanco orchestra, with guest star Camilo Azuquita. Andy was not scheduled to appear in that presentation. He was in another part of Los Angeles, playing with a jazz trio. As soon as promoter extraordinaire Albert Torres learned that Andy was in town, he sent somebody to pick him up and bring him to the Sportsmen’s Lodge, where Cachao was featured. The result of this effort was memorable for all of us who witnessed that magic encounter of the teacher (Cachao) and the student (González).

     I interviewed Andy again by telephone two years later. He was convalescing in medical care facility in the Bronx, New York. Andy was recovering from surgery, caused by an infamous disease known as diabetes. He was in good spirits and very anxious to play music again. In fact, during both interviews —2002 and 2004—, this cultural warrior was always eager to talk about his career and his love for true artistry.

     The following day after my interview on April 26, 2004, a benefit for Andy González took take place in the world famous Birdland, in New York City. This gala was made possible due to the efforts of pianist Arturo O’Farrill, son of the late Chico O’Farrill. Some of the guests scheduled to appear were Ray Barretto, Manny Oquendo y Libre, Graciela, Eddie Palmieri, and many others.

     Andy González, together with Manny Oquendo, will also be honored in the 6^th Annual West Coast Salsa Congress, in Los Angeles, California, on May 27-30, 2004, organized by Albert Torres Productions. 

     It means a lot that this incredibly talented musician will be honored in his lifetime. His contributions to music, in particular to salsa and jazz, will stay, and stay forever.

Acknowledgements:     My gratitude to Israel Sánchez-Coll for generously making this interview more enjoyable to the eye. I am also very thankful to Eddie Zervigón, Albert Torres, and Carlos Rowe for all the help that they provided.

THE INTERVIEW:

Eric E. González (EEG): OK, Andy, it is my understanding that you were born on January 1, 1951. Is that right?

Andy. González (AG):  Yes.

EEG:  Tell me a little bit about your early years.

AG:   I was born in Manhattan, and raised in The Bronx. When I was around two years old, we moved to a low-income housing project – “the projects” – in New York City, called the “Eden Wald Housing Projects,” up in the North Bronx. At the time, it was the largest housing project in the city, and it still exists. Thousands and thousands of people lived there, families with low-income.

            My father used to work as a contractor; he used to do painting, fixing houses, and stuff like that. And he was also a singer. He used to sing with small bands. He got to sing with Claudio Ferrer, who is a very well-known Puerto Rican band leader, a folklorist.  When my brother Jerry was one-year old, he hired Claudio Ferrer’s band to perform at my brother’s first birthday party! Claudio Ferrer to Puerto Ricans is very well respected.

            We lived and grew up in the projects and went to public schools. That’s where we first got music lessons, in the public school system in New York City.  All the kids in the second grade started playing plastic flutes – a tonette, they used to call it. It was a plastic flute, with a two to two scale, one octave. So, I learned how to play the tonette, learned how to read.

EEG:  Approximately what year are you talking about?

AG:   Probably 1957. 

            The school that we went to was PS 78 (Public School 78), which was an older type of school in the New York City school system.  Now, PS 78 had a lot of old teachers there, which had been teaching in that school for years, probably since the early forties or something like that. And they were good music teachers. This was before the system changed to public school, elementary school, junior high school and high school. It changed. It used to be that elementary school used to go to the eight grade, and in the ninth grade you go to high school. There was no junior high school.  So a lot of these teachers came from teaching in this PS 78 school, teaching all these subjects, especially music education – a very good music education! --, all the way to the eight grade and then you would go to high school. So, when they changed the school [system] and they put junior high school, a lot of these teachers stayed in that school, in the elementary school, and then you would go to the sixth grade and then you would go to junior high school. But, in the third grade, they gave you a test for the music, to check your musical aptitudes, and in the fourth grade you took instruction from one of the teachers on the instrument. And, in the fifth or sixth grade, you played in an orchestra.

EEG:  What instrument were you playing at that time? AG:   I was playing the violin.  I picked the violin and played it for a year and a half.  I was in the orchestra already, and then one of the bass players – there were two bass players – moved away, so there was a need for a bass player, and I was the tallest violinist. I was playing in the second violin section.  And so they asked me if I wanted to play the bass, and I said, “Sure, I’ll give it a try.” So I started playing the bass then. EEG:  What was Jerry, your brother, playing? AG:   Jerry was playing trumpet. He was taking trumpet lessons in school. He didn’t start playing congas until the eight grade. EEG:  How older is Jerry from you? AG:   He is a year and a half older than me. EEG:   Did you use to play music together at home in those early years? AG:   Yes. EEG:  Did you continue studying music after you finished high school?

AG:    Well, yeah… Let me explain. The system of teaching music in the elementary school was excellent…excellent!  My teacher for our very first performance in front of an audience in the auditorium for the parents, she had us play a Duke Ellington tune! With violins! A tune called “Solitude.” And, you know, I never thought nothing of it, until years later, [about] how hip she was to have us play some Duke Ellington at such a young age.

EEG:  What type of music was listened in your home at that time?

AG:   We used to hear everything. My father had a good record collection – Machito, Tito Rodríguez, Tito Puente, Ismael Rivera, Cortijo. Mon Rivera… All these things we used to hear. And my family had many parties, and they used to play all these records at those family parties.

EEG:  What about jazz?

AG:    Not so much jazz. My father brought home our first jazz record, a Charlie Parker album. He brought home Dinah Washington with Clifford Brown, and a Dizzy Gillespie record.

EEG:  Where you listening to them, or they were boring to you at that time?

AG:   No, it wasn’t boring to me at all.

EEG:  Who got hooked on jazz first: Jerry or you?

AG:    Both of us. My uncle had a Cal Tjader record in the house, when we were kids, and it was a red record. I never saw a red record before —red viny—, and when we played it, we liked the sound of the vibes.

EEG:  I understand that Cal Tjader was a big influence in you.

AG:    Oh, yes, because they were really a more jazz-oriented Latin group.

EEG: I was able to learn about your tastes in an album that Manny Oquendo and you put together for Verve, named “More than Mambo,” a great compilation, with good liner notes. (1)  

AG:    Yeah. I compiled the music, and then me and Manny did the liner notes. I put it together in 20 minutes.  They gave me a list of their catalog – everything that they had. And then I went through it and picked out everything that I liked.

EEG:  There is a tune in that compilation that I really enjoy, named “Insight,” played by Cal Tjader.  It’s amazing that all the personnel in that track are non-Latinos, including the conga player – an African American named Bill Fitch --, who executed a great solo. And that was in 1963!

AG:   Bill Fitch was a smart guy that studied at Berklee School of Music, and he is a composer and a great percussionist. His idols were Mongo [Santamaría], Armando Peraza, and Tata Güines. You can tell, by listening to the solo. He influenced us, just from that record – “Insight” --, because we have heard that record a long time ago, and it was always a big influence on us.

EEG:  What happened to him? He kind of faded out of the scene.

AG:   Well, he had a problem, an alcohol problem. When he was with Cal Tjader, he got fired because the alcoholism had gotten too bad. He became irresponsible, drunk on gigs and stuff like that.

EEG:  Back to your early years. When did you begin taking the music to the next level?

AG:   Well, pretty early. I mean, I was playing the bass already by the sixth grade; I was in the orchestra playing the bass. And we started messing around, doing little jam sessions in the projects where I lived, with all the people that I knew that played congas. And then, my brother’s girlfriend father was a timbalero, and he had the Cachao records —“Cuban Jam Sessions in Miniature”—, and we went crazy over that!

            By the time that I got into Junior High School, we started a band. It was [with] a friend of mine —a vibes player. His name was Andy Langston, and we just called it the Andy Langston Quintet. He was an African American that played the vibraphone. 

            But the guy that really put us to really listen and play good music was Lew Matthews, who lives here in Los Angeles. He is the musical director for Nancy Wilson. When we were kids, he lived in the Bronx; he lived nearby, and he was the genius of the Bronx. He was, to my knowledge, the most talented musical person that lived in the Bronx. He was a few years older than us; he was in the Music & Art High School, which is a high school that I went to later on. He was there already. I was in Junior High School, and we met Llewellen Matthews, and he had us go to his house.

EEG:  Llewellen?

AG:    It’s an unusual name. They called him Lew —Lew Matthews—, but Llewellen is his real name. His dad was black and his mother was white, and he looked Latino, very Latino. In school, he was a French horn mayor – that was his instrument, the French horn. He played great piano, and he could play vibes, he could play bass… he could play all kinds of instruments. 

EEG: I guess that he also had his tumbao.

 AG:   Yes, and he had clave, and played like a Latino. He liked Latin music, especially Latin jazz.  I would go to his house, and I take my bass over there. Then he started a big band —I was thirteen or fourteen years old!—, and we played very mature, sophisticated Latin jazz at that time.

EEG:  Was Jerry with you all that time?

AG:    Yes!

EEG:  What type of bass was your first one?

AG:   I borrowed it from Junior High School; it was an instrument that they had in the school – a wood bass. I used to borrow it and take it to gigs.

            I remember our first big dance. I was thirteen, and we played at the Embassy Ballroom, on 161st, off of Third Avenue, in the Bronx. And this was a famous ballroom, you know. It was Sunday afternoon. Federico Pagani (2), the promoter, used to throw these Sunday matinees – ten attractions --, and we were the tenth attraction (LAUGTHER BY ANDY AND ERIC). The first on the bill was Tito Rodriguez, the second was Eddie Palmieri y La Perfecta, and the third was the Joe Cuba Sextet.

EEG:  What band were you playing with at the Embassy?

AG:    We played there with the quintet, with the Latin Jazz Quintet, a copy of Cal Tjader, but Lew Matthews was the piano player.

EEG:  Who were the other players in the quintet?

AG:    Jerry [González] on the congas, I was playing the bass, Lew on the piano, Andy Langston on the vibes, and Arnold Saunders on timbales. Arnold was a black guy that was neighbors with Andy Langston and he knew how to play timbales.

EEG:  Did Arnold Saunders have clave? 

AG:   Yeah! There were many African-Americans that liked Latin music. In those years, black people used to go dancing at the Palladium. So there was a lot of cross-fertilization.

EEG: The Palladium was famous for catering to several ethnic groups. They had Latin nights for Italians, Jews, African-Americans, Latinos, and mixed.

AG:   Sure, sure… Everybody used to dance Latino!  In the projects where we lived, we used to go to the parties of our friends. And we used to go to white people’s parties; white people could dance Latin!

EEG:  I understand that you also played in the Catskills.

AG:   Yeah, yeah!  Las Villas, they used to call it. Villa Alegre, Villa Toto, Villa Victoria, Sunny Acres… Every villa had a name. Those were places to which city people went all summers, and stayed for a week, or two weeks. They had swimming pools and all that, and they also had New York bands playing there.

EEG:  Which bands did you played with in the Catskills?

AG:    Well, I played with the band that my father used to sing with.  My father was an MC in the Catskills.

EEG:  What was his name? AG:    Gerardo González.  EEG:  What was the band’s name? AG:    Augie (de Agustín) Meléndez y su Combo. The band’s sounds were similar to La Playa Sextet —guitars, trumpets—, that kind of sound. They copied the arrangements of everything that was popular at the time: Tito Rodriguez, Machito, la Playa Sextet… They never recorded —never—, but they played a lot. There were many places to play during those times. They were also hired to play a whole summer in Las Villas.

EEG:  What was your mother’s name?

AG:   Julia Toyos. Some members of her family went to Cuba, and there is a bakery in Old Havana, which is very famous, and that’s the Toyos bakery.

EEG:  What happened next?

AG:  We were with Andy Langston and his group for about two or three years. Then, I met Mongo Santamaria’s son —Monguito—, began playing with him, and made my first recording in 1967.

EEG: How many albums did you do with Monguito? 

AG:   Three records: “On Top” (1967), “Hey Sister” (1968), and “En una Nota” (1969). When I did “En una nota,” I wasn’t in Monguito’s band anymore, because I joined Ray Barretto’s band. (3)

EEG:  I imagine that you played a lot of boogaloo with Monguito.

AG:   Boogaloo, Latin jazz..., you know, we played everywhere, because there was a boogaloo fever at that time. There were a lot of young bands playing those genera.

EEG: Tell me a little bit about Monguito. Little is known about him. How was he as a person and as a musician?

AG:   Well, he was a good person... But he was not a strong pianist. He wasn’t the best piano player in the world – let’s put it that way. He had enough technique to play the gig, but he wasn’t a great pianist. He could play the boogaloo stuff, and he could play solos, but he wasn’t Lewellen Matthews, who was a great pianist. And he wasn’t some of piano players that were around at the time. But he was good enough to just play the gig.

EEG: Did you learn or accomplish anything during your time with Monguito?

AG:   Well, we made our first recordings, and then, in the group there were good people:  Jackie McClean’s son – great saxophonist, Rene McClean.  We had good musicians; I think that Monguito was the least accomplished one of the bunch. And he was the leader! (LAUGHTER BY ERIC) There were also José Mangual Jr., who was the bongocero, and Sam Turner on the congas. Sam Turner also got to play percussion with Lionel Hampton and other people.

EEG:  Whatever happened to Monguito? He kind of disappeared.

AG:   Yeah, because he just decided not to involve himself in music anymore. He used to work for years as the manager of an off-track betting [agency], you know, horse racing. And then he moved to Miami; he lives in Miami now.  But we did some good things. We worked in the circuit; we did all the places where they had dances.  We also traveled to Puerto Rico.

EEG: It is my understanding that some of the bassists that you were listening to were Sabino, Cachao, Bobby Rodríguez, and Cuco Sánchez.  Please tell me about Sabino and Cuco Sánchez.

AG:   Sabino Peñalver was Chappottín’s bassist. Cuco Sánchez was the bassist for Melodías del Cuarenta and he also played with Arcaño’s Orchestra.  Sabino was Chappottín’s bassist since the beginning, and played all the way to the end, I believe, when Chappottín died or was about to die. He was a great bassist, not so much in technique, but in the feeling and the tumbao – he always had un tumbao sabroso!

            Cuco Sánchez was a bassist in Cuba. He played with Arcaño, with Melodías del Cuarenta, and with a great charanga. He had an incredible swing and ability with the bass. The only bad thing is that he didn’t know how to read, and, when he moved to New York, he stopped playing the bass, and began playing the timbales.  He is included in a couple of Cal Tjader’s recordings — “Ritmo caliente” being one of them—, and Cuco is there playing the timbales. Cuco was friends with Mongo Santamaría, and he played in a charanga —El Nuevo Ritmo de Cuba—, which was a charanga from Chicago, with great Cuban musicians, and Cuco was the timbalero. He teached Víctor Venegas to play bass with tumbao. Víctor Venegas was a jazz musician, and it was Cuco who taught him tumbao. (4)

EEG: I was recently listening to the album “Mongo Introduces La Lupe,” and you can notice Venegas playing with that tumbao that you mention. It sounds funky, when that style was not popular in afrocuban music.

AG:  I know that record really well.  I copied a lot of things from that record. I was listening to a lot of records. We were buying records, we were buying all the popular records, [like] Alegre All–Stars, which is one of my favorite Bobby Rodríguez [albums].  And I used to go see Tito Puente’s band playing and watch Bobby Rodriguez. I was standing in front of Bobby Rodriguez, and I wouldn’t move a muscle —I watched everything he did. 

        When I was with Monguito, we played a gig opposite Tito Puente at the Corso, and Bobby Rodriguez asked me to play with the Tito Puente band so that he could go to the bar. (LAUGHTER BY ERIC)

EEG:  I imagine that that was a highlight for you.

AG:    Sure! Playing with Tito Puente’s band? I was sixteen-years old!

EEG:  Did you ever play with Puente for a long period of time?

AG:   I played occasionally with the Big Band as a substitute. When I was with the Golden Latin Jazz All-Stars, we did long tours. Before that, in 1978, I went with the very first Latin Jazz ensemble to Japan —it was the Tito Puente and the Latin Percussion Jazz Ensemble.

EEG:  Is that the same group that played at the Montreux Jazz Festival?

AG:    Yes, but they fired me when the Montreux album came out, for some stupid reason. (5)

EEG:  Mike Viñas replaced you, I believe…

AG:   Yeah, Mike Viñas. I wasn’t fired from many bands, but I was fired from that one, because there was some problem with Martin Cohen, not with the musicians. I brought Jorge Dalto into the band —nobody knows that. 

EEG:  I was lucky to see Jorge Dalto performing with Ray Barretto in the 80s. Tell me about him.

AG:   Jorge Dalto was a beautiful pianist, man, great musician. He started playing with us with the Fort Apache [Band]. 

EEG: Now that you mentioned the great Fort Apache Band, and before they recorded “Ya yo me curé,” Who were the original members of the band, the creators?

AG:   Well, on that very first record, Steve Berrios is not there —that was Don Alias. Don Alias played the trap; he only played on one tune, though. 

EEG: How come Don Alias didn’t continue with Fort Apache?

AG:   He was our friend. He played percussion with Miles Davis and many others, including the Brecker Brothers (Randy and Mike) and David Sanborn. So he could not be with us. 

        He is from the Caribbean island of San Martín. He used to play Latin jazz, and with small groups in Las Villas, before he got involved with jazz. But he has always been our friend.

EEG: When did Jorge Dalto play with the Fort Apache Band?

AG:   Well, Jorge Dalto was the pianist that worked with us in “River is Deep.” That was the first “official” Fort Apache record, because “Ya yo me curé” wasn’t a Ford Apache record. That was Jerry’s [González] first recording session, and he didn’t want to put it under his name. He wanted to put a group name, and I said, “Put it under your name! Make it your record. Why not? You might as well start now.”

EEG:  So “Ya yo me curé” is not a Fort Apache Band recording.

AG:   No. It’s “Jerry González —Ya yo me curé.”

EEG: And the first Fort Apache is “River is Deep.” Interesting. I would have never known. OK. Let’s continue with your career. What happened after you left Monguito Santamaría’s band?

AG:  I left to go with Ray Barretto’s band. Ray Barreto saw me play. Monguito Santamaría had a good band; we had a very tight band!  And we had a guy singing English vocals, like a soul singer —Ronny Marks was his name, and he put on a good show! We opened for the “live” recording of the Fania All-Stars in the Red Garter. That first record, we were the other band!

EEG:  Can you please tell me more about that concert?  That was the first attempt for the creation of the Fania All-Stars, which was not successful.

AG:   I remember all the things that I heard on the record, all the people that were there. Ray Barretto saw me play with Monguito, and he came and asked me if I could join his band.   

EEG:  Who was the bass player that you replaced at Barretto’s band?

AG:  Mike Amitín. He was the bass player for Orquesta Broadway for years, but at that time he was working with Barretto.

EEG:  Why did Barretto wanted to replace him?

AG:   Because there was a fire in the “Corso,” and I don’t know, but he —Mike Amitín— did something weird that Barretto didn’t like, so he fired him.

EEG:    What do you think went wrong at the concert of the Fania All-Stars at the Red Garter, that didn’t allow them to take off?

AG:    I don’t think that anything happened; there wasn’t anything wrong. See, at the time, the Alegre All-Stars had a few records out already, so Fania wanted to copy that.  And the Tico Alegre All-Stars put something out at the Village Gate, so Fania wanted to get into the ball. They went and they got Eddie Palmieri, who wasn’t a Fania artist, and a couple of other people who weren’t Fania artists, but they put them together. Bobby Rodríguez was the bass player, which was good. I thought that those records weren’t bad.

EEG:  Bobby Rodríguez was really good.

AG:   Of course! – him and Cachao are my two daddies, man.  (ERIC’S LAUGHTER)  I didn’t copy them, although if you ask me to play like their styles, I can do that. But I never copied them.

EEG:  If you have to compare your style with somebody, who would that be?

AG:  Oh, I couldn’t tell you, because I have too many influences. I learned something from every bass player that I have ever heard.  What I do is a combination of everything that I have learned, so I can’t pin it down.  But, if you tell me, “Play like Cachao!” I can play just like him. If you tell me, “Play like Bobby Rodriguez!” I can play just like him.

EEG: What can you tell me about Salvador Cuevas?  He was very funky, and I don’t think that you are too much into that.

AG:   Well, funky is what? Slapping the bass? That, he did on a bass guitar. Sal Cuevas comes from the tradition of the trios, he played guitar. So playing the bass guitar was very easy for him. He brought the funk technique or slap technique to Latin music, with Willie Colón and Rubén Blades

EEG:  He was the first one?

AG:   Yes, he was the first one.

EEG:  But Víctor Venegas also does some funky bass on the CD with Mongo and La Lupe.

AG:    Nope, there was nobody else, man. No, no, no, no. I know that solo by heart.

EEG:  OK. You did three albums with Ray Barretto: Barretto Power, The Message, and Together.

AG:   “Together” was the first one in 1969.  But I left the band after two years. I left the band to go with Dizzy Gillespie. Then I came back to Barretto and stayed another year.

EEG: Was Jerry, your brother, ever part of Barretto’s band? You can see him in the cover of “The Message.”

AG:   Jerry used to come and sit in with the trumpet section, and a couple of times Barretto got sick, and Jerry played the congas for him.

EEG:  When did Jerry switch from congas to trumpet?

AG:   He didn’t switch from congas to trumpet.  He always played the trumpet. And he started playing the congas because of a “lucky” accident: he broke his leg.  When he was in the eight grade, and I was in the sixth grade, near the housing projects where we lived there was a forest behind our Junior High School. And, in that forest, they had woods, in which we used to go and play, and there was a swing —a rope, that they tied to a tree. And Jerry swung from that rope, and it was on a hill, so when you go out, the hill was far down.  So he did like Tarzan, you know, he swung on the rope and jumped down, and he did all right, but nobody saw it. So he wanted to show everybody —show up—, and said, “Watch this!”, and did it again, and he fell and broke his legs in three places. (LAUGHTER BY ANDY AND ERIC)  He had a full cast and he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t go to school. So they had somebody come and teach classes to him in our apartment.  So he had a lot of time in his hands, and somebody loaned him a conga drum, and he started practicing with records —with Mongo Santamaría records, with Tito Rodríguez and Tito Puente records…That’s how Jerry learned how to play the congas.

EEG:  When did you begin getting musicians together at home? Was that during Barretto’s years?

AG:   It was during Barretto’s time, because my parents moved us out of the projects when I was still with Monguito, and they bought a house.

EEG:    Is that the one showed in the movie “Calle 54”?

AG:   Yes!, that house. I started going to high school then, when I was with Monguito. I went through my first year of Music and Arts High School. Oh!, and in Junior High School, in my eight and ninth grades, I started studying with jazz bass player Steve Swallow, a very well-known composer and bassist. At that time, he was the bassist for Stan Getz, when he was recording “The Girl of Ipanema,” with Astrud Gilberto. Then, he left to play with vibraphonist Gary Burton and his quartet. So I studied with him for about two or three years.  He helped me get into Music and Arts [High School]. He wrote an adaptation of a Bach Cello Suite that I played to get into Music and Arts for my audition.

EEG:  How long were you at the Music and Arts High School?

AG:   Three years, the usual three years high school. That school brought students from all over the city, so I was in touch with good musicians from all over -- people like Dave Valentín, Eddie Gómez, Larry Willis… A lot of people went to Music and Arts. If you were talented in music, there were two schools of music that you would go for high school: Music and Arts High School and Performing Arts High School.

EEG:  I understand that René López was also very important in your life.

AG:  René López lived in my neighborhood. I met him through Nicky Marrero; Nicky lived in the neighborhood, too. Nicky was playing with Eddie Palmieri and I was playing with Ray Barretto, and we found out that René had one of the greatest collections of Cuban 78’’. And he loved to play them, he loved to have people listen to them. He had a good hi-fi system, and those 78’’ sounded great on that system – the bass, a powerful bass!  So I fell in love with Arsenio Rodriguez and all the Cuban bands!  All the Cuban bass players… I listened to everything!  And then I started collecting records, too.  I started collecting 78’’, because there were still places to get them.

EEG:  Can you name some of those places?

AG:    I’m talking about places like “La Cigueña.” There was [also] a place at Westchester Avenue and 163rd Street. “La Cigueña” had a whole basement full of 78”, and they wanted to get rid of them! 

      At the time, we started a radio show —the first Sunday salsa show. And we started playing Cuban music on the First Sunday salsa show. They never heard that music on the radio. Ever!  

      Felipe Luciano was one of the Young Lords —that was political group like the Black Panthers —, and they were trying to fight for the rights of the Puerto Ricans in el Barrio, because there was no good health care, the children were not having food, a lot of things – and they were fighting for those things.  Felipe Luciano was one of the leaders of that group. We started hanging out, and he was also a music fan, and then they gave him an opportunity to have his own radio show. First, it was Sunday midnight through six in the morning. It was a Latin radio show.  So he asked me and René López, and we were the ones that programmed the music. And, for the first time in years, we were able to hear Cuban music on the radio, because you never heard Cuban music on the radio before that.

EEG:  What was the name of the show?

AG:   It was the Sunday Salsa Show with Felipe Luciano, and the station was WRVR.

EEG:  Was that before Polito Vega?

AG:   Yes. At the time, he (Vega) didn’t play salsa in his show. He played popular Hispanic music. Ours was more into salsa.

EEG:    So that was before Fania began buying radio time.

AG:    Yes. This was the first time that any kind of show – not only music –, that talked about the history of the music, or anything like that, had been done, because this was a non-profit radio station. In other words, there were no sponsors, so you could play what you wanted!  WRVR sold the station, but the program switched to WKCR, which is Columbia University’s radio station.

EEG:   So your show was probably originated years after Dick “Ricardo” Sugar.

AG:   Oh, yes. Dick Ricardo had a show in the mid-sixties that was very popular. That was a show that I listened to a lot. They had two radio shows: the Dick “Ricardo” Sugar on FM, in the mid-sixties, and on AM was “Symphony” Sid. “Symphony” Sid used to be a jazz radio DJ, and then, little by little, he started going into Latin jazz, and then into salsa.

EEG:  Where the records that you played in the radio show Cuban originals?

AG:   Sure! RCA Victor, Panart, all the labels…

EEG: Now that you mentioned Panart, and that you are also a music historian, Was Julio Gutierrez responsible of creating the first descargas, instead of Cachao?

AG:   No! Wrong! Not even Julio Gutierrez. Julio Gutierrez was a piano player and mostly a bolerista —boleros, shows, and hotel music.  He played on that Cuban Jam Session album, but he wasn’t the leader of it. The real piano player, who really should have gotten credit, was Peruchín. Peruchín was the piano player on the best tracks of that [album]. And he wasn’t even the inventor of the descarga!  You know who it was? Bebo Valdéz.  Bebo Valdéz did the very first descarga record.

EEG:  Do you remember the name of that recording?

AG:   No, but it was in 1954. 

EEG:   Going back to your house, which became kind of famous because great musicians used to hang out at the basement. When did that start?

AG:   It started the first minute me moved in, we started jamming, because me and my brother had the basement apartment for ourselves. We had a piano… we had everything. We had a full studio in there. I had three reel to reel tape decks, I had a good hi-fi system… So we used to jam all the time —all kinds of music, not just música latina.

EEG:  How big was that basement? Can you tell me the address?

AG:   It wasn’t big, but it was comfortable. [The address] was 1963 Gildersleeve Avenue, in the South East Bronx, in New York.

EEG:   Can you share any significant moments that you had in that basement?

AG:   Oh!  The beginning rehearsals of Libre, the beginning rehearsals of Grupo Folklórico Experimental Nuevayorquino, rehearsals with Eddie Palmieri —we used to rehearse in my basement sometimes; very few rehearsals. Dizzy Gillespie used to come to my house… Many people— just about everybody at one time or another had been to my house. 

EEG:  I read that Bobby Paunetto’s first album was created there.

AG:   Yeah. We rehearsed it. They used to come from Boston to New York and rehearse in my house. A four-hour drive!

EEG:  Did you play in that album? What else can you tell me about Bobby Paunetto.

AG:   Sure, [I played] in that album. Bobby Paunetto is a composer and vibraphonist, and I know him since I was a kid, since I used to rehearse with the big band in Lew Matthews’ house. He used to come to the rehearsals. At that time, he started his own Latin jazz band, and he put out a record on Mardi-Grass Records, called “The Modernistic Sounds of Bobby Paunetto.”  It was a vibraphone and a rhythm section; I think it had a sax, but I don’t remember. Then he went to the army, and, when he came out, he went to the Berklee School of Music, and studied composition and arranging. When he graduated from school, he started a very, very modern band – probably one of the most modern Latin jazz bands of its time—, and I was part of it.  We recorded two albums: The first one was called “Paunetto’s Point” and the second one was “Commit to Memory.” All that music was rehearsed in my house! (6)

EEG:  He didn’t have a long career, Right?

AG:   No, because he got sick with multiple-sclerosis.  But he [recently] came out with new music again!  He’s not playing, but he’s writing, and he did two records, [with] all new music. It’s more jazz.

EEG:   OK, let’s get back to track. You spent some time playing with Dizzy Gillespie. How did you hook up with him?

AG:   Jerry got the gig first. Jerry got the gig to play congas with Gillespie, and they needed a bass player that could feel Latin music, and know some jazz, so they called me.

EEG:  What year are we talking about?

AG:   1970. I was nineteen years old, and I spent eight months working in his band. And then, after that, we were in touch all the time, you know.  When he had his 70^th birthday party, I was at the concert. I was there, and he saw me, and he brought me up to the stage and introduced me and [said] that I used to work with his band.

EEG:   So Gillespie was the entrance to the major leagues in jazz.

AG:   Well, yeah, playing with a big name…Yeah, definitely! But, at the same time, I knew Kenny Dorham, Jackie McClean… lot of musicians that we knew when we were kids.

EEG:   What do you consider was your schooling in jazz?

AG:   Mostly through records. When I was a kid, somebody’s father wanted to get rid of all his Downbeat magazines. I took them, I took hundreds of them, going back to the early fifties. And I studied them. I have been reading books, and I have been reading about the history of jazz since I was a little kid. So I got my knowledge from all the books that existed on jazz – the history, the biographies… And the records! I have a big jazz collection, so I know about everybody. I can tell you about every bass player in jazz going back to the beginning of jazz. I used that same technique when I started studying Cuban music; it was more difficult because there were no books! There were very few books on the subject. So I have to get my information from just listening to records.

EEG:    Did you ever made a record with Gillespie?

AG:   Yeah! We made one record; it’s called “Portrait of Jenny.” Jerry played [in that recording], Patato played, and Nicky Marrero played. It’s on Perception Records. (7) EEG:   Did you record jazz before that album? AG:   Kind of. When I was even younger, some guy was opening a new studio in White Plains, New York, and this drummer named Alvin Queen —he was a very famous jazz drummer— invited Lewellen, and Lewellen brought me and Jerry, and we did a jazz recording when we were kids. I have never heard it to this day, but I remember doing it. It was recorded just to see if the recording equipment worked right.

EEG:  It disappeared.

AG:    Yeah, yeah, it disappeared. But I have a 45’’ of a Rhythm & Blues thing; it was the very first recording I ever did —me, Jerry, Lewellen… Lewellen was the one that wrote the arrangements. It was “Freddy Tartt and the Emanons,” like “no names” but backwards.  Freddy was a guitarist from the projects where I used to live. (LAUGHTER BY ANDY AND ERIC)

EEG:  So that was your first “official” recording, before Monguito. Do you remember the date?

AG:   Yeah, I have a copy of it. That was before Monguito. [It was] 1964. The playing wasn’t that bad, but the singing was horrible. It’s still funny to listen to. (LAUGHTER BY ANDY)

EEG:  What can you tell me about your time with Barretto? Was it a good learning experience?

AG:   Well, to this date, a lot of people think that the band that I was with was the “classic” Barretto band, [with] Orestes Vilató, Roberto Rodríguez, Papy Román, Tony Fuentes, John “Dandy” Rodríguez on bongós, Louis Cruz on piano… A lot of people to this date say that that was the “definitive” Barretto band. Everything that came afterwards or before was OK, but this band had something special.

       What we had going was that we were all friends with each other. My thing was Latin jazz, and then I started studying Cuban music, so I was trying to apply what was I learning in Cuban music to Barretto’s music.

EEG:  Was Barretto understanding?

AG:   He didn’t tell me what to play. What I would do is, we would play the music, and I would memorize everything, and I would never have to look at the charts [again]. So then, what I would do is I would start changing the bass lines, little by little. And then, by the time I left the band, another bass player would come in and they would play the charts and the band would complain that that wasn’t what I played. I said, “Well, I changed the charts.” (LAUGHTER BY ERIC)

EEG:  You were the Barretto from 1969 to 1971.Why did you leave the band?

AG:   I was sort of getting tired, because all the time that I had been playing, my main thing was to play Latin jazz and to play jazz. I mean, Barretto was working a lot… I was in high school when I started with Barretto, [and] I almost didn’t graduate. (LAUGHTER BY ANDY)  But I managed to get through it.

       When I started with Gillespie, I was in college, and had to drop out!  I had to drop out, because we were traveling. With Barretto I was also traveling; I went to Venezuela, Panamá – we went to Panamá in 1970…

EEG:  Tell me about that trip to Panamá.

AAG: Oh, I loved it!  We went there during the carnival, and there were bandstands every couple of blocks, with all kinds of bands playing on them. Había gente vestidos como diablitos en la calle.

EEG: Of the albums that you recorded with Barretto, which one is your favorite?

AG:   I don’t know; it’s hard for me to be a judge of that. I put those records away for a long time; I didn’t hear them for twenty years. Then I listened to them, and said, “Hey, it’s not bad!” 

EEG:  You know, for some reason I believe that the sound of the Fania records of the early seventies was better than the late seventies. I didn’t enjoy the engineering during those last years.

AG:    Oh, yeah? You know why? Because they moved to a smaller studio.

EEG:   La Tierra recording studios?

AG:   No. La Tierra was a big place. It was another studio on 31^st St.  They moved there afterwards, when they sold Fania. They changed the studio; they got rid of La Tierra. La Tierra studios were big; those were the old WOR studios.

EEG:  Which studio you think was better: Good Vibrations or La Tierra?

AG:    Well, La Tierra had a bigger room; Good Vibrations is all right. 

EEG: Those studios, along with engineers Jon Fausty and Irv Greenbaum, were the most common names to see in LPs during the best Fania years.

AG:    Fausty engineered some of it, but Irv Greenbaum was the other guy. I saw him more than I saw Fausty. The Fania era and that whole scene, I didn’t care for too much.  As a matter of fact, they sort of caused their own doom, because they didn’t treat their artists right. And then, as soon as their artists could get away, they would leave.

EEG:  At the beginning everything was fine and it later deteriorated.

AG:  Yeah, yeah, because Masucci and his people were making all the money, and they were paying nothing to the musicians or the artists.

EEG:  Were you ever invited to be part of the Fania All-Stars?

AG:   Nope. Never wanted to be.

EEG:  Why?

AG:   Because I didn’t like them. I didn’t like all the egos, I didn’t like all the craziness. I did one recording, one tune only with the Fania All-Stars.

EEG: Which was…

AG:   “La Montaña,” de Santitos Colón. “La Montaña” is a bolero from Vicentico Valdés. (PROCEDES TO SING IT). Fania All-Stars did it, and Santitos sang it. That’s the only recording that I ever did for the Fania All-Stars.

EEG:  OK, back to your story. You went from Barretto to Eddie Palmieri. How did that happen?

AG:   (ANDY TAKES HIS TIME)  I don’t know. I was hanging out with Nicky [Marrero] a lot, and I had already recorded with Palmieri before I joined the band. Remember that “Superimposition” album? I was still playing with Barretto in those days. But then, Palmieri asked me if I wanted to join the band, and I said yes, so I left [Barretto].

EEG:  With Eddie Palmieri you did some classic recordings, like the album “Sentido”…

AG:   Yeah, but before that, “Live at Sing-Sing”…

EEG: There is not too much information available about the “Live at Sing Sing” albums. What can you tell me about these recordings?

AG:   Well, it was crazy. (LAUGHTER) It was after Governor Rockefeller passed a very strong drug law, the “Rockefeller Law.” Anybody that got caught selling heroin or cocaine, they were going away for a long time [to] federal prisons. So, some people that were close to the Palmieri band got busted and they were doing time in Sing Sing, and they asked Palmieri to come up. (LAUGHTER BY ERIC).

EEG:  Who were these guys?

AG:   One of the guys was Tony “Gorilla” —he’s the one that asked Eddie to come up. He was influential in having us play the Sing-Sing concert. He was a dope dealer, and he was doing time there. (LAUGHTER BY ERIC) He used to be an MC. A lot of dope dealers were friends with the bands, because they liked the music and they used to hang around Eddie Palmieri’s band or this band or that band. We used to see them all the time.

EEG:  What else do you recall from that concert?

AG:   Wow, so many things. The engineer was a guy that used to have a studio on 42^nd St.  He was from Mastertone Studios; that is where they recorded the first Alegre All-Stars album. His name was Cartagena, and he took equipment up there. The recording, some of it came out OK, some of it we had to fix.  Some of it, we had to go back to the studio and fix it up, because it didn’t sound right, like “Azúcar pa’ ti, part 2.”  We started up playing the regular “Azúcar” arrangement, and then, all of the sudden, it went to like… He had a funk drummer and he had an American vocalist, and then, right in the middle of it, it cuts into a Latin version. It’s very strange; if you listen to the recording, you hear it —it changes from funk and then it goes into Latin.  In the “Sing Sing” record they made “Chocolate” Armenteros do some overdub, and I think that Vitín Paz also did some, but I’m not sure.

EEG:  I guess that the singer that you are referring to is the one from the Harlem River Drive

AG:   Harlem River Drive? Yes, the singer from Harlem River Drive was there. This is at the time when Eddie was recording Harlem River Drive, too.

EEG:   Whatever happened to that group?

AG:   Nothing. They just made a record, and nothing happened with it.

EEG:  Which album followed Sing-Sing?

AG:   We did “Sentido”, and then “Live at the University of Puerto Rico”. 

EEG: I’m glad that you clarified this for me. I wasn’t sure which concert album was first: Sing Sing or the one at the University of Puerto Rico. Víctor Paz played all the trumpets in “Sentido”. What can you tell me about his time with Palmieri? Did you fight a lot? He is known to be very strict with the music.

AG:    No! We didn’t fight with Víctor Paz. Víctor Paz was a very straight guy and he was the kind of guy that wanted everything to be a certain way.  He would be upset with us sometimes if the music didn’t sound right, you know.  He is a very perfectionist kind of guy.  But he is good people; he knows me and my brother Jerry since we were kids, because he was a neighbor to friends of my family. We used to see Víctor Paz a lot when we were kids.

EEG: Tell me about the “Live in the University of Puerto Rico” album. Little is known about it.

AG:    That happened because of me!  (LAUGHTER BY ANDY)  There were two guys, one of them was a promoter for the concert, and the other one was his friend —Capitol and Blackie—, and they brought a reel to reel tape recorder into the [concert]. They had two microphones, and they didn’t even have mike stands; they put the two mikes on the floor.

EEG:  I remember reading that is was Teac recording equipment.

AG:   Teac, yeah.  And they recorded the whole concert! They brought the tape to my room, because I had my bass amp and patch cords, and I plugged in the tape recorder play-back into my amplifier. And I heard it back —I heard the whole concert—, and I said, “Wow! This is good enough to put out as a record!”  So I brought Eddie Palmieri to my room, I played it for him, and he said, “Wow!” The owner of Coco records —Harvey Averne— heard it, and he wanted to release it as a record.  So we then took the tape into the studio, and cleaned it up a bit. There were parts in which the bass could not be heard clearly; I re-recorded the bass. We put out the whole concert!

EEG:    Was there a lot of overdubbing other than the bass parts.

AG:   No.

EEG:   Víctor Paz appears on the cover jacket of that album, but he is not in the…

AG:    No! Jerry González appears in the cover, and he was not at the gig. When we came back from Puerto Rico, Jerry returned to the band. Víctor Paz was not in the concert. Larry Spencer was the one that played the trumpet there. They did some overdubs afterwards.

EE:   How do you compare that concert with the one at Sing Sing?

AG:   The Puerto Rico concert was a lot better than the Sing Sing concert. It was truer, it was real. Sing-Sing was too disorganized. The concert in Puerto Rico was more organic. We played real good. Empezó bien y se tocó bien. There was a good vibe, you know, bien chévere.

EEG:    It also took place during the flower power days.

AG:   That is another thing: we were hippies already.  Eddie Palmieri, when we joined his band, was still wearing three-piece suits!  (LAUGHTER BY ERIC)  He had a goatee already, but then he grew a full beard, let his hair grow, changed his way of dressing… He started wearing hippie clothes – Indian shirts, sandals…

EEG:  Eddie Palmieri told me that the album “Unfinished Materpiece” was really meant to be named “Kinkamache,” but it didn’t happen due to problems with Harvey Averne. Care to comment?

AG:   They had a problem, because Eddie Palmieri was spending a lot of money on the studio… See, recording with Eddie Palmieri was not easy – it was more like a party, and, if we got any work done, it was like a miracle.  (LAUGHTER BY ERIC)  For “Sentido,” one time we were in the studio from six o’clock in the evening to six o’clock in the morning, and we only recorded one tune.

EEG:   A lot of dope?

AG:   Yeah!  (LAUGHTER BY ERIC)

EEG:   So what is the real reason why Eddie and Harvey had problems?

AG:  Eddie is a hard guy to control when it comes time to do things in the studio correctly.  He wants to do things his way, and sometimes is very wasteful, so I can understand Harvey Averne. I mean, I would be afraid to record Eddie Palmieri with my money, (LAUGHTER BY ANDY) because he would spend it quicker than I could.  So, I don’t understand why they had a falling out, but Harvey Averne had an almost finished record, and he wanted to finish it up. So he didn’t need Eddie Palmieri to finish the record. He brought Barry Rogers in to fix things here and there, and he brought me in to overdub some bass parts and stuff, and pretty much he finished the record, and put it out without Eddie’s participation in the final product.  So, when the record came out, Eddie went wild, suing him and everything. But, when the record won the Grammy, Eddie changed his mind… “It’s my Grammy!”  (LAUGHTER).

EEG:   You also participated in Palmieri’s famous “White” Album.

AG:    Yeah. I wasn’t working with Eddie Palmieri. They called me to do the session, because Sal Cuevas was supposed to do it, and he couldn’t do it.  I did the tango section of “El Día que me quieras,” and then I did the whole Side B of the album. Cheo Feliciano sings that.

EEG:   As we mentioned earlier, many wonderful things happened at your house’s basement. You once said that el Conjunto Folkórico Experimental Nuevayorquino (CFEN) had its origins there. What can you tell me about this?

AG:    Well, that started when we used to get together at René López’ house, and then René would go to our house when we had jam sessions.  At that time, we were listening a lot of Arsenio Rodríguez’ music, and we were playing rumba, guaguancó, and all that at home. Then, Jerry got us a gig —a concert —at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. They wanted a Latin band to play opposite McCoy Tyner, so we decided to put together a group to perform there, and that group was CFEN —Chocolate in the trumpet, Nelson González with the tres, Oscar Hernández at the piano... All this people that are in the album, the majority of them played in that concert.

EEG:   You used to practice in New York’s Central Park, Right?

AG:    We used to go there, but not to practice. It was to play, and to “pass the hat” —to pass the hat, and, whatever money we got, we would buy wine and get fucked up! (LAUGHTER BY ANDY AND ERIC).

     But the Central Park thing didn’t have to do with GFEN. That was something we used to do. We were crazy! We used to do crazy things.

EEG:   What musical concept were you trying to accomplish with GFEN?

AG:   We started playing, just playing.  There was no, like, direction that this was going to be this way. We just played, and whatever came out, that’s what we liked.

EEG:   How did GFEN’s classic album “Concept in Unity” came about? AG:   It came about because we already started playing concerts and places with this particular group, and we had a repertoire already. It had folkloric and experimental elements. And René López found out that Salsoul Records was interested in this. They brought the officials from Salsoul Records to my basement, and we had a rehearsal. And they heard the rehearsal, they liked it, and they recorded us EEG:    Man! How many people could your basement accommodate? AG:   Well, we used to fit a lot of people, but it wasn’t that big.  It was big enough for maybe fifteen people, instruments, and everything.

EEG:    CFEN’s first album was very successful, and you recorded a second one.

AG:      The first one came out when there was nothing like that happening. It had a lot of energy. The second album has some things like that, too.

EEG:  After the second album, the CFEN kind of faded out. What happened?

AG:   Well, we weren’t a steady working group, because everybody was involved in something else.  Milton Cardona was playing with Willie Colón, we were playing with Libre…

EEG:    Libre is my next question…

AG:   Now, a lot of people say that Libre came out of GFEN. That’s not true. We started before GFEN. 

EEG:   When did Libre start? 1974?

AG:   Yeah.

EEG:    When did GFEN start?

AG:   Around the same time. 

EEG:   OK. Tell about Libre’s origins.

AG: