Tribute with a distinct beat
Drummer Francisco Aguabella sits alone during a rehearsal break earlier this week, quietly tapping his hands on two cocktail tables at the Pasadena Jazz Institute, where he’s scheduled to perform tonight in a tribute to his late colleague, Carlos “Patato” Valdez, the dean of Afro-Cuban percussionists. His beats are barely audible, but the rhythm is visible in the fluid movements of his wrist.
Aguabella, member of an exclusive club of drummers whose art is informed by the ancient traditions of Afro-Cuban religion, has had to practice his silent technique in the United States. Here, people complain if you play too loud, says the soft-spoken maestro, who lives alone in an apartment in the flight path of planes landing at LAX. Neighbors can put up with jet noise, apparently, but not spirited conga playing.
“In Cuba, you play day and night and nobody complains,” says Aguabella, 72. “You have to learn every day, more and more. But players are very limited here, so they don’t evolve.”
Devotion to the drum as a way of life distinguishes artists such as Aguabella and Patato, who died last month at age 81 after taking ill on a cross-country flight after a West Coast performance. Though both left their homeland in the 1950s, then lived on opposite coasts, they shared deep cultural traditions preserved in ceremonial drumming by the offspring of Yoruba slaves, known in Cuba as Lucumi.
That may sound like an esoteric art, but these traditional percussion patterns and the corresponding religious spirit have informed the best of the music we know commercially today as salsa.
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Rich heritage
The Patato tribute in Pasadena, along with a reprise on Sunday in Long Beach, will provide a glimpse into this rich Afro-Cuban culture and its relationship to modern jazz. Fans will get a taste of rumba, the folkloric genre with roots in Matanzas, the Cuban province where Aguabella was born and learned to play the ceremonial bata drum.
There will also be lively Latin jazz featuring a quartet led by Chuchito Valdes, latest in the piano dynasty that includes his grandfather, Bebo Valdes, and his father, Chucho Valdes of the band Irakere. Two other distinguished Cubans now living in L.A. -- drummer Raul Pineda Roque and bassist Jorge “Sawa” Perez -- round out the band.
These musical memorials, along with one held in New York, come more than a month after Patato’s death from emphysema Dec. 4. The strange circumstances surrounding his final days prevented members of the tightly knit music community from promptly paying their last respects.
Patato’s in-flight illness had forced the plane to make an emergency landing in Cleveland, where he was hospitalized, far from friends and family in New York and Puerto Rico. What shocked some people was the decision to cremate his remains, a violation of Afro-Cuban custom that calls for specific burial rituals.
One of the most vocal critics was salsa violinist Alfredo de la Fe, a longtime friend who has worked with stars such as Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri. But by Thursday, when I spoke to him from Miami, the musician had toned down his objections.
He and others, including producer Greg Landau, who have spoken to Patato’s widow and daughter, say the family made the decision in accordance with what they report were Patato’s wishes. (Although Patato and his wife, Julia, were married for six decades, they lived apart for the last two decades -- he in New York, she in Puerto Rico.) But Enrique Fernandez, a friend who served as Patato’s health proxy and lived in the same Harlem apartment building, says he asked Patato on his death bed if he wanted to be cremated. The answer, says Fernandez, was a resounding, “No!”
Be that as it may, the crisis showed the loyalty that Patato inspired, even in people he had never met, such as Cleveland musician Rey Cintron. After learning that Patato was sick and stranded in his hometown, Cintron kept a round-the-clock vigil in his hospital room as if he were family, translating for doctors who couldn’t communicate with the patient.
As for the missed memorial, “we gave it to him just the same,” says De La Fe, who attended this week’s New York event that turned into a big “rumbon,” a festive gathering of drummers. Friends and fellow musicians remembered Patato as a free spirit who loved to dance, cook and play practical jokes but who could also be brutally blunt with some people.
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Blazing trails
Patato was a pioneer, musically and socially. He was the first black musician to play with the society band of Casino de la Playa in Havana, says Landau, for which he was dubbed the “Jackie Robinson of the conga.” He was also the first to add tuning keys to the instrument, an innovation that made obsolete the use of kerosene lamps to heat the skins. He was known for his melodic style of playing, using as many as five drums tuned to different notes.
“He lived happy, made music the way he wanted and was never hypocritical,” says De La Fe, who toured the world with Patato in 1979 and 1980, when both were part of the Tito Puente Latin Jazz Ensemble. “Anybody who wants to learn jazz has to study Louis Armstrong, and anybody who wants to play Afro-Cuban percussion at some point in his training must turn to Patato.”
The Puente Ensemble was a top-notch band put together by businessman and producer Martin Cohen to promote his line of instruments, LP. Cohen, who first saw Patato play with Willie Bobo in the 1960s, could not be reached for comment. But he posted a tribute to his friend, along with a photo gallery, on his website, www.congahead.com.
“Myself a Jew living in New Jersey would have been rejected by his crowd of rumberos had it not been for him saying I was cool,” recalls Cohen. “It was an instant ‘kosher’ stamp and I became known and respected by his inner circle.”
It was even tougher for drummers to join that exclusive conga club, says Landau, who produced two mid-’90s albums that have been rereleased on one CD, “Patato: The Legend of Cuban Percussion,” by Six Degrees Records.
“To get into it you have to really show your dedication and your chops,” says the San Francisco-based producer and music historian. “You have to be willing to sacrifice for it, because there’s really no commercial benefit from it.”
In contrast to Patato’s flashy and colorful style, Aguabella seems almost stoic. During rehearsal, his body remains still except for his arms moving economically across three tumbadoras, or congas. It’s amazing to see how much polyrhythmic snap he coaxes from the drums with the subtle flutter of his fingers on the skins.
“I keep up the tradition so it won’t disappear,” he says. “In Cuba, without the rumba there would be no country. Everybody would die of sadness.”
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“A Tribute to Patato, Legendary Percussionist,” with the Ultimate Afro Cuban Quartet, featuring Francisco Aguabella and Chuchito Valdes. 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. today, the Pasadena Jazz Institute, Paseo Colorado, 260 E. Colorado Blvd., Suite 206, Pasadena. $20 and $25. For information: www.pasjazz.org or (626) 398-3344. Also 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Sunday at the Sea Bird Jazz Lounge, 730 E. Broadway, Long Beach. $20 and $25. Information: www.lucumiyque.com or (562) 606-0250.