Demo · Machito
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Tanga
Machito1943
Machito and his Afro-Cubans: from 1940, the orchestra that married Cuban rhythm to big-band jazz and brought New York to its feet.
Biography
Machito (Frank Grillo, 1909-1984) was a singer and maracas player who grew up in Havana, among the soneros of the 1920s, and came to New York in 1937.
In 1940 he founded Machito and his Afro-Cubans with his brother-in-law Mario Bauzá, a trumpeter from Chick Webb's band, as musical director. Bauzá wrote Tanga in 1943, and with it the orchestra laid Cuban rhythm, the clave, the congas and the bongó, under big-band jazz harmony: Afro-Cuban jazz. His sister Graciela joined as the band's singer.
They recorded with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, played Chico O'Farrill's Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite, and through the 1950s ruled the Palladium Ballroom on Broadway, the home of the mambo, alongside Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez. He won a Grammy in 1983 and was still on the road when he died in London, a year later.
Dates
22OCTThursday
Mambo Inn
Lincoln Center, Damrosch Park
New York
5NOVThursday
Tanga
SOB’s
New York
23NOVMonday
Sopa de Pichón
Prospect Park Bandshell
Brooklyn
18DECFriday
Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite
Apollo Theater
Harlem
Videos
Press
This was a new concept in interpreting Cuban music with as much (harmonic) richness as possible. It made every other band that came after, followers.
Notes from the Mambo Inn: The Story of Mario Bauzá, PBS, 1998 Living and playing with Mario, I found out that despite the language differences, Afro-Americans and Cubans were not destined to be total strangers, musically.
To Be or Not to Bop, 1979 The marriage of Cuban music with jazz was not a conventional union. It was a marriage of love.
quoted in Paul Austerlitz, Jazz Consciousness, 2005
Formats
Photos
Machito and Graciela at the microphone, Glen Island Casino, New York, 1947. William P. Gottlieb, Library of Congress Graciela, José Mangual on bongó and the band around Machito, Glen Island Casino, 1947. William P. Gottlieb The rhythm section on bongó, maracas and conga, 1947. William P. Gottlieb Machito on maracas, Graciela on claves, 1947. William P. Gottlieb, Library of Congress José Mangual on bongó, Glen Island Casino, 1947. William P. Gottlieb Havana, the Avenida del Puerto, on a postcard of the 1940s
Links
Book the band
Weddings, galas, festivals and dance nights, with the full big band or a septet. Tell us the date, the room and how many dancers, and we answer within two days.