He May Be the King, but He Shuns the Crown

As a rookie on the congas, young Poncho Sanchez remembers hanging around Griffith Park where groups of men gathered for drumming jam sessions on Sunday afternoons. He was still in high school then, a Chicano kid from Norwalk way out of his element.

Sanchez would get the nerve to approach the best players, the Cubans and Puerto Ricans who carried this macho, Afro-Caribbean art in their blood.

“Can I sit in?” the kid dared to to ask.

“Tu eres Cubano?” they shot back.

No, Sanchez answered. He’s neither Cuban nor Puerto Rican.

An immediate disqualifier. The men wouldn’t let him in the circle, so he went to play with the amateurs under a tree.

“Chicanos no saben tocar la conga,” the men would say. “Chicanos don’t know how to play congas.”

Well, yeah, but they can learn. And that was Sanchez’s goal.

Eventually, Ildefonso “Poncho” Sanchez went on the become one of the most successful Latin jazz bandleaders in the U.S. After playing with Cal Tjader for eight years, he recorded 21 albums of his own, earning four Grammy nominations and winning once. He plays continually, locally and internationally.

Just one problem. No matter how hard he works or how successful he gets, Sanchez will never be Cuban. And some people still don’t let him forget it.

Recently, an article in Jazz Times magazine dubbed Sanchez the new king of Latin jazz. Nobody had laid claim to the throne since the death almost two years ago of Tito Puente, the Puerto Rican New Yorker whose career spanned more than half a century.

“Heresy!” screamed some critics in the Big Apple. Nobody has a right to the title. And especially not Sanchez.

“You’re pulling my leg, right?” wrote a fan in Yahoo’s Latin jazz discussion forum. “There are lots of cats out there whom Poncho Sanchez would have to stand behind in line before he received his crown, if there were crowns to to be awarded.”

“I second that motion,” wrote another critic. “Maybe the Karaoke King of Congas.”

The nastiness rallied others to Sanchez’s defense.

“I just hope that this has nothing to do with Poncho being Chicano,” wrote a fan named Chico. “This [garbage] has come up before: ‘Chicanos can’t play this music,’ or ‘Why don’t you play your own music?’ are ones I have heard.”

At his home in a working-class Norwalk neighborhood, Sanchez dismissed the critiques as the petty jealousies of parochial rivals.

“It’s almost silly,” said the burly, bearded musician, surrounded by old records and wall-to-wall memorabilia. “I didn’t say I’m the king, and I never would say it.... I just love this music. This is my life. But I’m not the king. No, no. How can a Chicano be the king of Latin jazz? No, that’s gotta be some other guy from New York crying for a local gig for Saturday night.

“Well, they can have it, because I’m laughing all the way to my concerts all over the world. You get the title, but I got the gigs.”

The controversy angered the bandleader’s old friend Jose Rizo, a fellow Mexican American who hosts “Jazz on the Latin Side” on KLON-FM (88.1) in Long Beach. Rizo, a part-time concert promoter who recently featured Sanchez at a Latin jazz show at Cal State L.A., says this East Coast-West Coast rivalry deprives good artists of the credit they deserve.

“We’re always left out, and that burns me,” says Rizo, a pioneer of Latin jazz radio in Southern California.

Sanchez says he’s worked hard for what he’s achieved, so the rejection stings a little. He’s only human.

But there’s no revenge like success. Sanchez has done so well, he’s moving to a big new home with a swimming pool and a spa up on a hill in nearby Whittier. At his old home, he was getting ready to pack his CDs, his rare old records by his idol, Cuban drummer Mongo Santamaria, and, of course, his Grammy.

In one corner of his crowded music room, there’s a collection of brightly painted congas by Remo with a brand-name plaque on the side: Poncho Sanchez Signature Series.

His instrument endorsement and his consistent record sales are the reason he can finally afford a nicer home.

“I used to get peanuts before, but now I get real royalty checks,” says Sanchez, the youngest of 11 children who moved here as a child from Laredo, Texas.

The 50-year-old percussionist taught himself to play by watching great drummers such as Puente, Tjader, Mongo and Joe Cuba when they came to town. Then he’d go home and try to play along with their records. Every day in his mother’s garage, he’d practice to the music.

Nobody in his neighborhood listened to this stuff in those days, except his older sisters, who played records and danced at home. His friends all dug Jimi Hendrix and Vanilla Fudge, leaving Sanchez in a world of his own.

Sanchez joined Tjader’s band in 1974, playing his first gig with the band on New Year’s Eve at the Cocoanut Grove in the old Ambassador Hotel. It’s been nonstop ever since, despite the naysayers.

His consolation is the steady demand for his work, Sanchez says. He opens a date planner and flips through the first few months of 2002, listing the places where he’s already been booked: Seattle, Istanbul, Caracas, Las Vegas and Sedona, Ariz., to name a few.

“What am I worried about?” says Sanchez, closing the black planner. “If there’s some jealous musicians in New York, it don’t bother me. They can say all they want. They can say they’re better than me, as long as I’m not late to my next gig.”

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Agustin Gurza is a Times staff writer.