Following the steps of Puente, Machito and Rodriguez
For those of you with graying hair, listening to music from almost half a century ago can bring back memories of better times. A time when going out dancing meant you had to be a good dancer and a time where, when you fell in love, you fell in love to the language of the Bolero.
From that era came The Big 3 –Tito Rodriguez, Machito (Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo), and Tito Puente, who played together many times, until they each formed their own bands. Such were the afternoons and nights at the original, Palladium Ballroom, located 53rd Street and Broadway, New York, where each bandleader followed the other with his own orchestra.
That era has now been revived by the sons of Machito, Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez, who grew up close to their parents – learning music before learning how to read and write.
It was Machito’s son, Mario Grillo’s idea, to put together a big band similar to the orchestras led by Tito Rodriguez and Tito Puente. Grillo approached the two Tito Jrs., and the orchestra became a reality. The main concept of The Big 3 Palladium Orchestra is to play their fathers’ music.
The Orchestra is a big band comprised of 24 musicians: five saxophones, four trumpets, three trombones, a full rhythm section of four musicians, plus three timbaleros and three vocalists.
According to Grillo, in 2003, The Big 3 Palladium Orchestra – named after The Big 3 -played at the Club Babalú for an hour and a half. During the marathon set, the orchestra played Machito’s Sambia, Mambo Inn, Babarabatiri and Oye la rumba; Tito Rodriguez’s, Mama Guela, Chévere and El Mundo de las Locas; and Tito Puente’s, Cayuco, Complicación and Oye Como Va.
“That was just a taste because we have 2,500 songs. That is, we can play forever, if we want to,” Machito’s son asserted in an interview last year.
The orchestra, which has toured worldwide playing Mambo, Chachachá, Bolero and Latin Jazz, comes to Los Angeles for a solo concert at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at the University of California.
The Big 3 Palladium Orchestra, which made its debut 3 years ago in New York, has developed. The original lineup of 24 musicians has been refined. The Big 3 is different because, according to Tito Rodriguez, Jr, Tito Puente, Jr has decided to pursue other musical opportunities. “He is into rap and hip hop. Mario Grillo and I have stayed with The Big 3.”
Unlike his father, Tito Rodriguez, Jr does not sing. He is the band’s timbalero, one of the instruments that his father taught him to play as a boy during rehearsals at the Palladium Ballroom.
In 1975, Tito Rodriguez, Jr, the son of El Inolvidable (The Unforgettable), made his first recording for the TR Records, a label owned by El Inolvidable himself. “Curious? Was my first tropical music album. The singer was José El Canario Alberto, with Rubén Blades and Adalberto Santiago on backup vocals. Sabor Criollo was the first song that José Alberto recorded in the United States,” recalls Rodriguez.
Twenty years after his debut, Rodriguez took up the timbales professionally and decided to form his own orchestra. Married and needing to support his family, Tito Rodriguez Jr. made a living at CBS network as a programs editor. “My work on television is also part of what I learned from my father. In Puerto Rico he used to do programs for television and I was one of his camera men”.
Tito was urged to start playing his father’s music because of the resurgence in Mambo due to the movie, The Mambo Kings’, popularity. “Then I got a call from the TTH label to record the album Eclipse. This time the vocals were done by Sammy González, Jr. The hit from this album was Mujer Erótica, a song composed by Sammy. This album is still getting airplay today,” notes Tito.
In 2003, Mario Grillo and Tito Rodriguez Jr. joined forces. “Mario called me to form a big band to play the hits that our fathers made famous at the Palladium. I liked the idea and decided to stay in the orchestra with the music of my father, Tito Puente and Machito”.
It’s not unlike swimming against the current of today’s rhythms: hip-hop, reggaetón, pop ballads and all forms of tropical musical that have developed during these decades. “The people that supported my father for many years remember that era. Many of them say that they got married listening to the boleros of Tito Rodriguez. And the young crowd that comes to our concerts also wants to learn from them”.
Tito Jr. knows that is not easy to book a big band. “The big band era is dying, but these arrangements that we play have been the standards for three decades and a good song with a good arrangement never dies. The music that they did was ahead of their time. And, yes, it is difficult to travel with twenty-three, but we want to maintain the sound of the big band, it has no equal.”
As a side note, Tito Rodriguez, Jr plans on recording annually now under his own label, TRJR Records, to continue the musical legacy his father left him. Look for a new Tito Rodriguez, Jr CD soon!
Publication: La Opinion, Espectaculos • Article by: Nelly Apaza Retamoso • Translation by: Ramón Muñiz Hernández