Tito Puente, Mambo King/Tito Puente, Rey del Mambo by Rafael López

He was just as comfortable speaking in English as in Spanish, and he idolized big-band jazz icons like Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa while studying piano with Victoria Hernández, a sister of the famed Puerto Rican bandleader Rafael Hernández. Growing up in New York, decades before the “Great Migration” in the 1950s of Puerto Ricans to the United States, Puente was a prototypical Nuyorican. In the 1980s, he found new ways to evolve Latin jazz by spotlighting the work of unheralded instrumentalists, and at the end of the century, he teamed with younger singers like La India and Marc Anthony. When stripped-down salsa bands of a new generation began to steal his thunder, he persisted by hiring both La Lupe and Celia Cruz - two brilliant and beloved Cuban singers - as his lead vocalists. He then went on to headline, becoming one of the stars of the glitzy Palladium mambo era - named for the club on West 52nd Street in Manhattan that attracted diverse crowds to dance to mambo orchestras with elaborate horn and percussion sections. He got his start playing with Machito and his Afro-Cubans, the band led by Frank (Machito) Grillo that pioneered Afro-Cuban jazz fusion. In a career that stretched over six decades, Puente was a clever innovator and a prized collaborator.

His irresistible swirl of energy helped make his main instrument, the timbales, emblematic of Latin music in the mid-20th century. Ernest Anthony Puente, known as Tito, was born in Harlem on April 20, 1923, and went on to create an enormous body of work (over 100 albums) while earning a reputation as a tireless performer.

Tito Puente, Mambo King/Tito Puente, Rey del Mambo by Rafael López