Cachao López
Encyclopedia
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n musician and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
who helped popularize mambo in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in the early 1950s.
He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
, won several Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
s, and has been described as "the inventor of the mambo". He is considered a master of descarga (Latin jam session
Jam session
Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material, find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session. Jam sessions may be based upon existing songs or forms, may be loosely based on an agreed chord progression or chart suggested by one...
s).
History
Cachao was born in 1918 in Havana, into a family of musicians, many of them bassists—around forty or more in his extended family.As an 8-year-old bongo
Bongo drum
Bongo or bongos are a Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of single-headed, open-ended drums attached to each other. The drums are of different size: the larger drum is called in Spanish the hembra and the smaller the macho...
player, he joined a children's septet that included a future famous singer and bandleader, Roberto Faz
Roberto Faz
Roberto Faz was a Cuban musician born in Regla who reached the height of his popularity from the 1950s to 1960s. He was a singer and conductor of the Cuban band Conjunto Roberto Faz.Previously, he was a singer of Conjunto Casino. He specialized in many forms of Cuban music, like his contemporary...
. A year later, already on double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
, he provided music for silent movie
Silent Movie
Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...
s in his neighborhood theater, in the company of a pianist who would become a true superstar, the great cabaret performer Ignacio Villa, known as Bola de Nieve
Bola de Nieve
Bola de Nieve , born Ignacio Jacinto Villa, was a successful Cuban singer-pianist and songwriter, whose round, black face earned him the nickname by which he was always known....
.
His parents made sure he was classically trained, first at home and then at a conservatory. In his early teens he was already playing contrabass with the Orquesta Filarmónica de La Habana, under the baton of guest conductors including Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
, Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
and Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...
. He played with the orchestra from 1930 to 1960.
He played the acoustic bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
with his late brother, multi-instrumentalist Orestes López
Orestes López
Orestes López was a Cuban musician and bandleader, often credited with popularizing the musical form Mambo, together with his brother Israel "Cachao" Lopez....
. The brothers composed literally thousands of songs together and were heavily influential on Cuban music
Music of Cuba
The Caribbean island of Cuba has developed a wide range of creolized musical styles, based on its cultural origins in Europe and Africa. Since the 19th century its music has been hugely popular and influential throughout the world...
from the 1930s to the 1950s. They introduced the nuevo ritmo ("new rhythm") in the late 1930s, which transformed the danzón
Danzón
Danzón is the official dance of Cuba. It is also an active musical form in Mexico and is still beloved in Puerto Rico where Verdeluz, a modern danzón by Puerto Rican composer Antonio Cabán Vale is considered the unofficial national anthem...
by introducing African rhythms into Cuban music, which led to mambo. They co-wrote the danzon "Mambo" which was called the "Mother of all Mambos" by Cuban writer G. Cabrera Infante.
A possibly more important move took place in 1957, when Cachao gathered a group of musicians in the early hours of the morning, energized from playing gigs at Havana's popular nightclubs, to jam in front of the mikes of a recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
. The resulting descargas, known to music aficionados worldwide as Cuban jam session
Jam session
Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material, find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session. Jam sessions may be based upon existing songs or forms, may be loosely based on an agreed chord progression or chart suggested by one...
s, revolutionized Afro-Cuban popular music. Under Cachao's direction, these masters improvised freely in the manner of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, but their vocabulary was Cuba's popular music. This was the model that would make live performances of Afro-Cuban based genres, from salsa to Latin jazz, so incredibly hot.
These descargas were released in 1957 by the Panart label under the title "Descargas: Cuban Jam Sessions In Miniature." They have been named by many critics as one the most essential contributions to the Latin-jazz genre, including being cited by the book "1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die."
In the early 1960s, according to the documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
La Epoca, expected in theaters in September 2008, Cachao was one of two of the most in-demand bassists in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
(the other being Alfonso "El Panameño" Joseph
Alfonso Joseph
Alfonso "El Panameno" Joseph was born in the Republic of Panama, and immigrated to New York at 11 years of age, where he studied music and became one of the forefront bassists of Cuban legend Arsenio Rodríguez...
, who was the bassist of legendary Cuban tres
Tres
The tres is a 3-course, 6-string chordophone which was created in Cuba. A tres player is called a tresero in Cuba and a tresista in Puerto Rico.-Cuban tres:In Cuba, the son was created as a song and a salon dance genre...
player Arsenio Rodríguez
Arsenio Rodríguez
Arsenio Rodríguez was a Cuban musician who played the tres , reorganized the conjunto and developed the son montuno, and other Afro-Cuban rhythms in the 1940s and 50s...
for eight years until Arsenio's death in December 1970). Joseph and López substituted for each other over a span of five years, performing at New York City clubs and venues such as the Palladium Ballroom, The Roseland, The Birdland, Havana San Juan, and Havana Madrid. Mentioned in the film, La Epoca, while Cachao was performing with Machito
Machito
Machito , born as Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo, was an influential Latin jazz musician who helped refine Afro-Cuban jazz and create both Cubop and salsa music...
's orchestra in New York, Joseph was recording and performing with Cuban conga player Candido Camero
Candido Camero
Candido de Guerra Camero, also known simply as Candido is a Cuban percussionist who backed many Afro-Cuban jazz and straightforward jazz acts since the 1950s...
. When Joseph left Candido's band to work with Charlie Rodriguez and Johnny Pacheco, it was Cachao who took his place in Candido's band. Cachao was recently scheduled to be interviewed by Executive Producer Josue Joseph of the film in New Haven, CT where Cachao and Palladium-era dancer Cuban Pete were scheduled to perform at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. The film is about the evolution of Latin music and dance during the Palladium-era to present day, and Cachao was scheduled to discuss his contribution of the mambo rhythm, which he derived from Arsenio Rodríguez
Arsenio Rodríguez
Arsenio Rodríguez was a Cuban musician who played the tres , reorganized the conjunto and developed the son montuno, and other Afro-Cuban rhythms in the 1940s and 50s...
, documented in the film.
For a while, he had two distinct musical personae. In the New York salsa scene he was revered as a music god, with homage concerts dedicated to him, and records of his music produced by Cuban-music collector René López. In Miami, he was an ordinary working musician who would play quinceañera
Quinceañera
Quinceañera , sometimes called "Fiesta de quince años", "Fiesta de Quinceañera", "Quince años" or simply "quince", is the celebration of a girl's fifteenth birthday in parts of Latin America and elsewhere in communities of immigrants from Latin America...
s and weddings, or back dance bands in the notorious Latin nightclubs of the Miami Vice
Miami Vice
Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
era.
In the '90s, actor Andy García
Andy García
Andrés Arturo García Menéndez , professionally known as Andy García, is a Cuban American actor. He became known in the late 1980s and 1990s, having appeared in several successful Hollywood films, including The Godfather: Part III, The Untouchables, Internal Affairs and When a Man Loves a Woman...
produced the recordings known as Master Sessions and big concerts honoring his legacy. Since then, Cachao became again a household word among Cubans and his reputation continued to grow.
His nephew, Orlando "Cachaíto" López became one of the mainstays of the famed Buena Vista Social Club
Buena Vista Social Club
The Buena Vista Social Club was a members club in Havana, Cuba that held dances and musical activities, becoming a popular location for musicians to meet and play during the 1940s...
group.
Cachao played with artists such as Celia Cruz
Celia Cruz
Celia Cruz was a Cuban-American salsa singer, and was one of the most successful Salsa performers of the 20th century, having earned twenty-three gold albums...
, Bebo Valdes, Tito Puente
Tito Puente
Tito Puente, , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, was a Latin jazz and Salsa musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey de los Timbales" and "The King of Latin Music"...
, Willy Chirino, Paquito D'Rivera
Paquito D'Rivera
Paquito D'Rivera is a Cuban alto saxophonist, clarinetist and soprano saxophonist. The winner of multiple Grammys and other awards, D'Rivera has lived in the United States since the early 1980s. He has worked in a variety of contexts, but is perhaps best known for playing Latin...
, and Willie Colón
Willie Colón
William Anthony Colón is a Nuyorican salsa musician. Primarily a trombonist, Colón also sings, writes, produces and acts. He is also involved in municipal politics in New York City.-Early years:...
, and his music has been featured on movies such as The Birdcage
The Birdcage
The Birdcage is a 1996 American comedy film directed by Mike Nichols, and stars Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, Hank Azaria, and Christine Baranski. The script was written by Elaine May...
and on the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtrack
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtrack
The soundtrack to the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City consists of music played on the various in-game radio stations the player can tune into after entering most types of cars and motorcycles, but it has also been released in a box set of seven separate CDs , with the European editions...
. Andy García produced two documentaries
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about this music, Cachao ... Como Su Ritmo No Hay Dos ("With A Rhythm Like No Other") (1993) and Cachao: Uno Más, which premiered in April 2008 at the San Francisco International Film Festival
San Francisco International Film Festival
San Francisco International Film Festival is the oldest continuously running film festival in the Americas. Organized by the San Francisco Film Society, the International is held each spring for two weeks, presenting an average of 150 films from over 50 countries...
. The inspiration for Cachao: Uno Más, made by San Francisco State University's DOC Film Institute
DOC Film Institute
The is an independent organization within San Francisco State University that is dedicated to support non-fiction cinema by promoting documentary films and filmmakers and producing original films on socially and culturally important topics which deserve wider recognition.DocFilm was created in...
, came largely from a concert Cachao played at Bimbo's 365 Club
Bimbo's 365 Club
Bimbo's 365 Club, also known as Bimbo's 365, is an entertainment club located at 1025 Columbus Avenue in San Francisco, California. It specializes in live rock and jazz shows. The location is one of San Francisco's oldest nightclub sites, and has operated under two names with a series of owners...
in San Francisco, and the film's premiere was followed by a tribute concert with the John Santos Band at Yoshi's
Yoshi's (jazz club)
Yoshi's is the preeminent jazz club of the San Francisco Bay Area.Started as a Japanese restaurant in Berkeley by Yoshi Akiba, a World War II war orphan, , and her friends Kaz Kajimura and Hiroyuki Hori, the club soon moved to a larger space on Claremont Avenue in Oakland, California and began to...
Jazz Club SF.
López died on the morning of March 22, 2008 in Coral Gables
Coral Gables, Florida
Coral Gables is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, southwest of Downtown Miami, in the United States. The city is home to the University of Miami....
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, at the age of 89. He died from complications resulting from kidney failure
Renal failure
Renal failure or kidney failure describes a medical condition in which the kidneys fail to adequately filter toxins and waste products from the blood...
.
His recording of "La Guajira" was used in the film "The Birdcage
The Birdcage
The Birdcage is a 1996 American comedy film directed by Mike Nichols, and stars Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, Hank Azaria, and Christine Baranski. The script was written by Elaine May...
" (1996).
Awards and recognition
López has won several Grammy AwardGrammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
s for both his own work and his contributions on albums by Latin music stars, including Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan
Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan; known professionally as Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-born American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen Of Latin Pop", she is in the top 100 best selling music artists with over 100 million albums sold worldwide, 31.5 million of those...
. In 1994, he won a Grammy for Master Sessions Volume 1. In 2003, he won a Latin Grammy for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album
Grammy Award for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album
The Grammy Award for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album has been awarded since 1984. The award has had several minor name changes:*From 1984 to 1991 the award was known as Best Tropical Latin Performance...
together with Bebo
Bebo Valdés
Bebo Valdés is a Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger. He was a central figure in the golden age of Cuban music, led two famous big bands, and was one of the 'house' arrangers for the Tropicana Club.Valdés started his career as a pianist in the night clubs of Havana during the 1940s...
and Patato Valdés for El Arte Del Sabor.
On June 11, 2006, López was honored by Union City, New Jersey
Union City, New Jersey
Union City is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. According to the 2010 United States Census the city had a total population of 66,455. All of the city is on land, an area of...
with a star on the Walk of Fame at Union City's Celia Cruz
Celia Cruz
Celia Cruz was a Cuban-American salsa singer, and was one of the most successful Salsa performers of the 20th century, having earned twenty-three gold albums...
Park.
López won a further Grammy in 2005, again for his own work, ¡Ahora Sí!.
External links
- CineSource Article on "Cachao: Uno Mas"
- Bebo Valdés Trio with "Cachao" & "Patato" - Biographical information and performance from ABC in Australia
- Cachaito Lopez biography
- Interview from The Miami HeraldThe Miami HeraldThe Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States...
- Cuba's Cachao is king of Tumbao
- Cachao gets star on Walk of Fame