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 Timbalero
Manny Oquendo played percussion more than 60 impressive years, 35 of
which he was at the helm of his innovative nine-piece ensemble, Manny
Oquendo & Libre. His many other recording and performing credits
are also stellar, including six years with Eddie Palmieri's La Perfecta,
in which Oquendo injected the rhythms of Cuba into the sizzling salsa
scene of 1960's New York.
Oquendo's fascination with Cuban rhythms started when he was a kid
and his family lived over a Latin-music record store in New York. In
an interview, Manny recalled, "The store had speakers outside,
and they played Cuban music constantly." Young Manny was
captivated by the big-band sounds of Machito, especially by Ubaldo
Nieto's playing on timbales, and soon began his self-guided journey
on bongos and timbales.
Already by the late 1940's Oquendo was playing with New York's top
bands, including Juan "El Boy" Torres and Chano Pozo, and
in 1950 he joined Tito
Puente's orchestra, on bongos. In the mid-'50s
he worked with Tito Rodriquez' orchestra, then freelanced for a few
years -- with Pupi Campo, Noro Morales, Miguelito Valdes, Johnny Pacheco,
and Larry Harlow.
Oquendo settled in with Palmieri's influential La Perfecta in 1962,
about the same time that a rhythm known as the Mozambique was being
popularized in Cuba by Pello El Afrokan. In Cuba, the Mozambique was
a complex carnival rhythm (a "camparsa") played by a large
ensemble of percussionists. Oquendo heard recordings of the Mozambique,
and adapted it for timbales by "playing the comparsa with one
hand and the basic drum beat with the other." He persuaded Palmieri
to incorporate his new Mozambique and other Cuban rhythms into La Perfecta's
dance numbers, thereby introducing the hypnotic beats to North America.
The Oquendo-style Mozambique is now part of the repertoire of timbal
players everywhere.
La Perfecta eventually disbanded, and in 1974 Oquendo co-founded Libre
(originally Conjunto Libre) with Perfecta's bassist Andy Gonzalez.
Their musical concept was to maintain Latin roots, but to be free ("libre")
to incorporate jazz, Afro-Cuban, and alternative influences. Libre's
rugged sound drew devoted fans across Europe, South America, Africa,
and the US. Their notable albums include "On the Move" and "Mejor
Que Nunca," in which Oquendo put a soulful mambo-guaguanco beat
to Marvin Gaye's "I Want You."
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