Tito Puente 1972 Interview, Nina Y Senora Live
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00:00Good evening. My name is Felipe Luciano and welcome to Seoul. Puerto Rican music just
00:23about reflects the history of Puerto Rican people. And it took a long, long trip from
00:28the west coast of Africa to what is now known Nigeria, to Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto
00:34Rico. And that long route produced a lot of different sounds and a lot of good sounds.
00:39The mass migrations of the 1940s brought most of our parents here as garment workers, and
00:44they still are there. America took over Puerto Rico in 1898, still controls it. And most
00:49of our folks came here for want of looking for better jobs. And they had to look for
00:54a different kind of a sound. So the big band sound developed, influenced a lot by the jazz
00:59sound, also influenced by a lot of the Cuban greats. Names like Chapultín, names like
01:04Arsenio Rodriguez, who was the greatest, the king of guabanco, they call him. Names like
01:08Orquesta Sensación, Aragón, became household names among New York Puerto Ricans, since
01:12many of us, not being close to Puerto Rico, were not influenced by many of the things
01:16that were there. But we began to develop a new kind of a sound. And in the 50s, as we
01:21all know, there was a band hall called the Palladium. And one of the people that made
01:25that band hall very, very famous is the man I'm about to introduce tonight. Ladies and
01:30gentlemen, would you please welcome to Soul Tonight, Mr. Tito Puente.
01:33Tito, we're very proud of you because you are a New York Puerto Rican. You were born
01:54on East 117th Street. How did you first get started in music?
01:57Well, I was one of the fortunate ones to have been born with a talent, a natural talent.
02:03And my parents detected that at an early age and put me into music school right away.
02:08Twenty-five cents a lesson. There were no schools of music. Times are different now.
02:13What have you seen in terms of the development of Latin music? I mean, what was it then and
02:19how do you see that it's changed today?
02:21Well, it's coming back to what it was then, which I'm very happy to see because I am very
02:33fortunate in respect that I learned the roots of it at the time. That's why I can talk with
02:38authority nowadays and make myself clear and straight. The talent started, it left us a
02:44little while. I went to the bugaloo, I went to the pachanga, I went to all kinds of different
02:47rhythms. But today, it's back where it belongs and there's a lot of influence of Latin music
02:52throughout the world in all kinds of music. And unfortunately, in our field, we're very
02:58small. We're an ethnic group and our music is more typical. It's not very worldwide normal.
03:05We have a new generation right now and they dig the sounds and I think they'll put it
03:09over as big as any other kind of music.
03:11You definitely are one of the natural ones. What do you see as the future of Latin music?
03:18I mean, there's a whole bunch of amplification now, the electric instruments. What do you
03:21see? Let's say in the next 10 to 20 years, where do you see Latin music going?
03:25I see Latin music, well, the influence is starting right now in every type of music,
03:30especially rock. There's a lot of bongos and congas, a lot of percussion in there. So in
03:35the future, according to the generation that's growing up now, they love to dance and Latin
03:40music is dance music. And without the dance, we have no Latin music. So that's why Latin
03:46music will always be the greatest for me, as long as I live anyway, because everybody
03:50loves to dance and I love to dance it. I love to play for the dancers too and that's very
03:54important. Everybody's happy with that kind of music.
03:57You started out, and this shocked me when I first found it out, you didn't start out
04:01as a musician, you started out as a dancer. What happened? What caused that change?
04:05I used to dance a Frederic Steele type of dancing, the Continental, the Carioca. Anyway,
04:15in bicycle riding one time, I broke my ankle and that's when I stopped dancing and I went
04:21to the music. And I was going to school at the time anyway, and I used to play my gigs
04:25on Saturday night and some of the elderly musicians, I used to tie my foot to the drum
04:30pedal by 12 at midnight, I was always sleeping, so I went to play, my foot was tied to the
04:34drum pedal or to the chair. I used to go with my father, he used to take me to the dances
04:39and take me home early.
04:40Latin music, and this is a question I've been wanting to ask you for a long time, Latin
04:43music has kind of been stifled in the United States, I feel. Why do you think that is?
04:48Why is it that America still has not accepted our music as a natural form?
04:53Well, very easy, because they've been accustomed to hearing cherry pink and apple blossom white
04:59and can't take my eyes off you, cha-cha-cha.
05:12It's impossible, those kinds of tunes, which are Latin tunes were played with the,
05:17or even American tunes done in Latin flavor or Latin tunes done in an American flavor,
05:22but they haven't really caught on to the real typical nitty-gritty of the music.
05:27It's gotten much funkier.
05:29Well, Tito, thanks for the interview on Soul. Thank you very much. We're going to hear a
05:34little more of the more intimate side in just a while. Thanks for the interview.
05:47Thank you.
10:17Tito Puente! Tito Puente, the officer!
10:42Wow! What's up? What's up, fellas?