Big Band Latino

Dance Mania, Tito Puente's best-known and best-selling album, came ten years into his career, but at a time (1957) when the craze for mambo and Latin music was beginning to crest. (Another landmark LP, Pérez Prado's Havana 3 A.M., had been released the previous year, and...

While the music that came to be termed "salsa" originated in Cuba, Puerto Ricans have been among its strongest supporters. One New York-reared puertoriqueno who soared to the top of the salsa world in the 1950s was timbale player/vibist Tito Puente. Boasting such early Puente gems as...

A stunner from Puente's golden age, this 1957 recording brought together Tito, Mongo, Willie Bobo, Aguabella, and Julito Collazo on percussion with vocalists that included Mercedita Valdez, in seven wonderful cuts of traditional and (then) contemporary Afro-Cuban skin-on-skin. Then as an...

The great Latin bandleader Tito Puente has long been one of the pioneers in fusing bebop with very danceable Latin music. On this Concord disc, Puente plays vibes and timbales and utilizes an 11-piece band featuring trumpeter Jimmy Frisaura, Mario Rivera on tenor, soprano and flute, pianist...

Although he was never inactive, the 1980s found Tito Puente in a bit of a renaissance. His exciting Afro-Cuban jazz band had found a home on the Concord Picante label, and his music was increasing in popularity again. This particular CD has a stronger than usual repertoire, including "Take...

In 1994, Bear Family released Top Percussion/Dance Mania on one compact disc, which contained two complete albums originally released on RCA -- Top Percussion (1957), and Dance Mania (1958) -- by Latin bandleader and percussionist Tito Puente. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide

Something of a re-release of the Dance Mania album(s) that Tito Puente released in the '60s, this album includes all of the master takes (those included on the albums) as well as a large number of outtakes. On top of this, a few of the master takes here include extraneous recording time...

In 1993, Bear Family released Night Beat/Mucho Puente, Plus, which contained two complete albums -- Night Beat (1957) and Mucho Puente (1964), both originally released on RCA -- by Latin jazz giant Tito Puente on one compact disc. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide

Tito Puente, the godfather of Latin jazz, celebrated 50 years in music with this sizzling CD. "Be-Bop" is launched with a duel between trumpeters Bobby Shew and Maynard Ferguson. Underrated alto saxophonist Bobby Porcelli and tenorman Mario Rivera make this version of...

For this particular Tito Puente recording, his exciting three-horn, three-percussion Latin jazz octet (which includes longtime saxophone soloist Mario Rivera) is joined by alto great Phil Woods on three of the eight selections, including Thelonious Monk's "Pannonica" and...

This Concord CD was Tito Puente's 99th as a leader and the music is particularly strong. Four jazz standards alternate with a quartet of Puente's originals and Chucho Valdes' "Cha Cha Cha," all of which are potentially good vehicles for jazz improvisations (although...

Although Latin percussionists (including Mongo Santamaria) are utilized on this set (a RCA album reissued in 1998 as a Koch CD), most of the selections certainly do not sound like they came from a Tito Puente record. For a change of pace, Puente is heard leading a fairly straight-ahead big band...

Treasure from the New York mambo era. Cuando... goes back to Puente's very earliest days as a bandleader in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, with recordings by his original conjunto and his first big band. This was the birth of New York mambo and one of the greatest of all New York...

Tito Puente leads a larger band than usual on Master Timbalero, a 13-piece orchestra that includes seven horns (including trumpeter Ray Vega; Mario Rivera on tenor, soprano, and flute; and Bobby Porcelli on soprano, alto, and baritone) and four percussionists. Throughout the colorful set, Puente...

Given Tito Puente's staggeringly prolific output of recordings, obviously no single disc can sum it up, so Concord Picante sensibly calls this compendium a "dance" collection. With the aim to keep the mambos, guajiras and cha chas moving and grooving foremost in mind, there is...

The sides of this album are unrelated. "Voodoo Suite" is Prado's classic orchestral composition combining Afro-Cuban and jazz in a "tone poem." It was recorded April 8, 1954, with a 22-piece band consisting of the Prado orchestra, Shorty Rogers, and other West Coast jazz...

This sizzling, spicy 11-track compilation of Tito Puente's greatest works including his hottest rumbas, mambos, and what is sometimes referred to as the double mambo, the chachachá, is the closest documentation of the "live" excitement and fervor that the genius brought to...

Tito Puente played the Monterey Jazz Festival for the first time in 1977, leading a big band that immediately ignited the crowd with his rousing "Para Los Rumberos." Before the conga player even gave the audience a chance to cool off, he immediately launches into "Oye Como...