Machito

Machito (born Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo, December 3, 1909 – April 15, 1984) was a Latin jazz musician who helped refine Afro-Cuban jazz and create both Cubop and salsa music. Ginell, Richard S. ''Biography''. Allmusic, 2011/ref> He was raised in Havana with the singer Graciela, his foster sister.

In New York City, Machito formed the Afro-Cubans in 1940, and with Mario Bauzá as musical director, brought together Cuban rhythms and big band arrangements in one group. He made numerous recordings from the 1940s to the 1980s, many with Graciela as singer. Machito changed to a smaller ensemble format in 1975, touring Europe extensively. He brought his son and daughter into the band, and received a Grammy Award in 1983, one year before he died.

Machito's music had an effect on the careers of many musicians who played in the Afro-Cubans over the years, and on those who were attracted to Latin jazz after hearing him. George Shearing, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton credited Machito as an influence. An intersection in East Harlem is named "Machito Square" in his honor.

Early life

Machito gave conflicting accounts of his birth. He sometimes said he was a native Cuban from Havana. Other accounts place his birth in Tampa, Florida, making him an American of Cuban ancestry. He may have been born in 1908 in the Jesús María district of Havana or in Tampa, 1909 in the Marianao Beach district of Havana or in Tampa, 1912 in Tampa or Havana, or even 1915 in Havana.

Regardless of his place of birth, Machito was raised from an early age in the Jesús María district of Havana, where his foster sister Graciela was born August 23, 1915. Her parents raised both of them. Young Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo, the son of a cigar manufacturer, was nicknamed "Macho" as a child because he was the first son born to his parents after they had three daughters. In his teens and twenties in Cuba, "Macho" became a professional musician, playing in several ensembles from 1928 to 1937.

Career

Macho moved to New York City in 1937 as a vocalist with Las Estrellas Habaneras (Havana Stars). He worked with several Latin artists and orchestras in the late 1930s, recording with Conjunto Moderno, Cuarteto Caney, Orchestra Siboney, and the bandleader Xavier Cugat. After an earlier attempt to launch a band with Mario Bauzá, in 1940 he founded the Afro-Cubans, and conducted their first rehearsal on December 3 at the Park Palace Ballroom located at W. 110th Street in Harlem. A big band-style brass section with trumpets and saxes was backed by a trap drum, piano, bass and a Cuban bongo. Several weeks later, in early January 1941, Machito took on Mario Bauzá as musical director; a role he retained for 34 years. As an instrumentalist, Bauza played trumpet and alto saxophone.

The band had an early hit with "Sopa de Pichon" in 1941. Its title is slang for "pigeon soup", a Puerto Rican joke about nearly starving as an immigrant in New York.

Machito and the Afro-Cubans, were among the first to fuse Afro-Cuban rhythms with jazz improvisation and arrangements for a big band. Machito was the front man and maraca player of the Afro Cubans, while Bauza determined the character of the band as musical director. Bauza, Machito's brother-in-law from his marriage to Machito's sister Estela, hired jazz-oriented arrangers and musicians to replace the band's founding member and original arranger, José "Pin" Madera, who had been drafted into the U.S. Military and served in World War II.

As a result, Machito's music greatly inspired such United States jazz musicians as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton. One of the items in the Kenton orchestra's repertoire was an idiomatic Afro-Cuban number known as "Machito," composed by Stan Kenton with Pete Rugolo and released as a Capitol 78 in 1947.

In April 1943 during World War II, Machito was drafted into the United States Army. After a few months of training, he suffered a leg injury and was discharged in October. Earlier, anticipating a long absence of the band's leader, Bauza had sent for Machito's younger foster sister Graciela, who traveled to New York from Havana where she had been touring with El Trio Garcia, and singing lead with the all-female Orquesta Anacaona. Graciela served as the lead singer of the Afro-Cubans for a year before Machito returned to front the band. Graciela stayed on — at performances, the two singers alternated solo songs and created duets such as "Si Si No No" and "La Paella". Adding to the percussion, Graciela played claves alongside Machito's maracas.

Beginning in 1947, teenager Willie Bobo helped move the band's gear to gigs in Upper Manhattan, just so he could watch them play. Near the end of the evening, if there were no musician's union leaders in sight (he was underage), he borrowed bongos from José Mangual and played with the band. Later, Machito helped him get positions in other Latin bands. Many years later, George Shearing pointed to Machito and Willie Bobo as two musicians who helped him learn "what Latin music was about".

Machito accepted a recording date with Stan Kenton in December 1947, playing maracas on the tune "The Peanut Vendor", which was a hit for Kenton. Other Afro-Cubans at the date were Carlos Vidal on congas and José Mangual on timbales. The next month, the bands of both Kenton and Machito shared the stage at The Town Hall, New York setting off a surging interest in Cubop. Machito named that style of music when he recorded an arrangement of Bauza's "Tanga" with the new title "Cubop City" in 1948. Machito was sought after by record producers, and in his live shows he featured soloists Howard McGhee on trumpet and Brew Moore on tenor sax. Late in 1948, he took to the studio with Charlie Parker, and Flip Phillips on tenor sax. Machito's star was ascendant, and he played Carnegie Hall on February 11, 1949, on a bill including Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Bud Powell and Coleman Hawkins. An album derived from 78 sides recorded in 1948 and 1949 was issued: ''Mucho Macho''. For these recordings, the 14-piece band had three trumpeters (including Bauzá), four saxophonists, piano player René Hernández, a bass player, and three percussionists playing bongos, congas and timbales, augmented by Graciela on claves and Machito himself on maracas. A subsequent release was ''Tremendo Cumbán'' featuring arrangements by pianist Hernández and vocal additions from the Rigual Brothers. This recording includes Mitch Miller playing oboe on one tune, "Oboe Mambo".

Each summer from the mid-1940s to the late 1960s, a period of 22 years, Machito and his band played a ten-week engagement at the Concord Resort Hotel in the Catskills. Machito's album ''Vacation at the Concord'' was issued in 1958 as a representative experience of an evening's performance, but it was not recorded at the resort. Five-year-old Mario Grillo learned to play the timbales during the 1961 summer series, with lessons from Ubaldo Nieto, then returned to New York with his father's band and played his first gig, taking a single timbales solo at the Palladium Ballroom while standing on a chair next to Tito Puente.

In 1957, Machito recorded the album ''Kenya'', with mostly original songs by A.K. Salim, or Hernández collaborating with Bauzá. The only cover tune was "Tin Tin Deo" by Luciano "Chano" Pozo. Guest musicians include Doc Cheatham and Joe Newman on trumpet, Cannonball Adderley on alto sax, and Eddie Bert on trombone. Band regular and arranger band Ray Santos played tenor sax on the album as well. A seven-man percussion section (including Cándido Camero and Carlos "Patato" Valdés) rounds it out. The album has shown significant longevity: a half century after its release it was named by Robert Dimery in his book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Smaller format

In 1975, Machito's son Mario Grillo, known as "Machito Jr", joined the band for its recording with Dizzy Gillespie, ''Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods''; the album, featuring arrangements by Chico O'Farrill, was nominated for a Grammy Award. Later in 1975, Machito determined that he would accept an invitation to tour Europe with a smaller eight-piece ensemble. Bauzá quit; he had grave doubts that such an enterprise would work musically. Graciela left as well. The tour and the smaller band proved very successful; the start of perennial tours of Europe. (Bauzá admitted, years later, that he had acted too hastily.) Mario Grillo took over the duties of musical director in 1977. That year, the band earned another Grammy nomination for ''Fireworks'' — a change of tone signaled by the appearance of Lalo Rodríguez as co-lead singer and composer of three tunes. Further European tours were undertaken using the band name "Machito and his Salsa Big Band", and Machito's daughter Paula Grillo carried female lead vocals, stepping into Graciela's shoes. When the band appeared in London in February 1982, they accepted long-term engagements, making London their "home base".

At Avery Fisher Hall in 1978, Machito and his band played for the New York portion of the Newport Jazz Festival. Dizzy Gillespie soloed with the band. Following his set, Machito and Tito Puente both brought their bands to the stage. The two bands played the song "Mamba Adonis" for 15 minutes, a tune that was later renamed "Machito Forever" by Puente. Subsequently, Machito's band and Gillespie finished the set with the tune "Manteca", an arrangement from 1948.

In 1983, Machito won a Grammy Award in the Best Latin Recording category for ''Machito & His Salsa Big Band '82''. The recording was made in the Netherlands in about four hours, mostly one take per tune.

Notable innovations

Creation of Latin jazz

The first jazz song to be overtly based ''in-clave'' was "Tanga" (1942) composed by Mario Bauzá and recorded by Machito and his Afro-Cubans.

The first descarga uban jam sessionthat made the world take notice is traced to a Machito rehearsal on May 29, 1943, at the Park Palace Ballroom, at 110th Street and 5th Avenue. At this time, Machito was at Fort Dix (New Jersey) in his fourth week of basic training. The day before at La Conga Club, Mario Bauzá, Machito's trumpeter and music director, heard pianist Luis Varona and bassist Julio "Papi" Andino play something which would serve as a permanent sign off (end the dance) tune.

On this Monday evening, Dr. Bauzá leaned over the piano and instructed Varona to play the same piano vamp he did the night before. Varona's left hand began the introduction of Gilberto Valdés' "El Botellero". Bauzá then instructed Julio "Papi" Andino what to play; then the saxes; then the trumpets. The broken chord sounds soon began to take shape into an Afro-Cuban jazzed up melody. Gene Johnson's alto sax then emitted oriental-like jazz phrases. By accident, Afro-Cuban jazz was invented when Bauzá composed "Tanga" (African word for marijuana) that evening.

Thereafter, whenever "Tanga" was played, it sounded different, depending on a soloist's individuality. In August, 1948, when trumpeter Howard McGhee soloed with Machito's orchestra at the Apollo Theatre, his ad-libs to "Tanga" resulted in "Cu-Bop City," a tune which was recorded by Roost Records months later. The jams which took place at the Royal Roots, Bop City and Birdland between 1948 - 49, when Howard McGhee, tenor saxophonist Brew Moore, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie sat in with the Machito orchestra, were unrehearsed, uninhibited, unheard of before jam sessions which at the time, master of ceremonies Symphony Sid called Afro-Cuban jazz.

The Machito orchestra's ten- or fifteen-minute jams were the first in Latin music to break away from the traditional under four-minute recordings. In February, 1949, the Machito orchestra became the first to set a precedent in Latin music when it featured tenor saxophonist Flip Phillips in a five-minute recording of "Tanga." The twelve inch 78 RPM, part of ''The Jazz Scene'' album, sold for $25—Salazar (1997).

The right hand of the "Tanga" piano guajeo is in the style known as ponchando, a type of non-arpeggiated guajeo using block chords. The sequence of attack-points is emphasized, rather than a sequence of different pitches. As a form of accompaniment it can be played in a strictly repetitive fashion or as a varied motif akin to jazz comping. The following example is in the style of a 1949 recording by Machito. 2‐3 clave, piano by René Hernández.

Ten innovations

# The first band to make the triumvirate of congas, bongo, and timbales the standard battery of percussion in Afro-Cuban based dance music. Because of this, all three instruments heightened their roles in Afro-Cuban based dance music. The use of broken bell patterns by the bongocero in mambo horn sections, the increased rhythmic vocabulary of the conga drum and its function in a band setting, the increased importance of the timbales role in setting up figures played by the horns and accenting them as a jazz drummer would do in a big band. e.g. "Nague", also the first recorded example of all three percussion instruments playing as a section.
# The first band to explore jazz arranging techniques with Afro-Cuban rhythms. Cuban big band arranger Chico O'Farrill stated, "This was a new concept in interpreting Cuban music with as much (harmonic) richness as possible. You have to understand how important this was. It made every other band that came after, followers."
# The first band to explore modal harmony, a concept explored much later by Miles Davis and Gil Evans, from a jazz arranging perspective through their recording of "Tanga". Of note is the "sheet of sound" effect through the use of multiple layering.
# The first big band to explore, from an Afro-Cuban rhythmic perspective, large-scale extended compositional works, e.g. "The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite" by Chico O'Farill.
# The first band to wed jazz big band arranging techniques in an original composition with jazz-oriented soloists using an Afro-Cuban-based rhythm section, e.g. Gene Johnson on alto, Brew Moore on tenor, in the composition "Tanga" (1943).
# The first multi-racial band in the United States.
# The first band in the United States to use the term "Afro-Cuban" as the band's moniker (Machito & The Afro-Cubans), thus acknowledging the West African roots of the music.
# The first Afro-Cuban based dance band to overtly explore the concept of clave counterpoint from an arranging standpoint. The ability to weave seamlessly from one side of the clave to the other without breaking its rhythmic integrity within the structure of a musical arrangement.
# The band set a standard of professionalism and musical excellence that had to be met by band leaders such as José Curbelo, Tito Puente, Marcelino Guerra, Tito Rodríguez, Elmo García, and any group that followed. Although it could be clearly argued that Xavier Cugat had established an extremely high level of professionalism much earlier with his orchestra at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel (1931), the sound emulated by the majority of bandleaders in New York City was not that of Cugat but that of the Machito Afro-Cubans. Cugat performed for high society elite, not for the Latino community, which was concentrated in East Harlem (El Barrio) and the South Bronx. Cugat's sound was one they may have experienced through recordings on radio, but this community had little access to it.
# The Machito Afro-Cubans provided a proving ground for the exchange of progressive musical ideas for Afro-Cuban-based dance music and its fusion with jazz arranging techniques, along with jazz-oriented soloists in a multi-racial framework that had not existed before.

While he was music director for Machito, Mario Bauzá developed the 3-2 / 2-3 clave concept and terminology. A chord progression can begin on either side of clave. When the progression begins on the three-side, the song or song section is said to be in 3-2 clave. When the chord progression begins on the two-side, it is in 2-3 clave. In North America salsa and Latin jazz charts commonly represent clave in two measures of cut time (); this is most likely the influence of jazz conventions. When clave is written in two measures (above) changing from one clave sequence to the other is a matter of reversing the order of the measures.

From one side of clave to the other

The 3-2/2-3 concept and terminology was developed in New York City during the 1940s by Cuban-born Mario Bauza while he was music director of Machito and His Afro-Cubans.Bobby Sanabria quoted by Peñalosa (2009: 252) ''The Clave Matrix; Afro-Cuban Rhythm: Its Principles and African Origins.'' Redway, CA: Bembe Inc. Bauzá was a master at moving the song from one side of clave to the other. The following melodic excerpt is taken from the opening verses of "Que vengan los rumberos" by Machito and his Afro-Cubans. The melody goes from one side of clave to the other and then back. A measure of 2/4 moves the chord progression from the two-side (2-3), to the three-side (3-2). Later, another measure of 2/4 moves the start of the chord progression back to two-side (2-3). Clap clave along with the excerpt in order to hear and feel the melody move from one side to the other.

The first 4 1⁄2 claves of the verses are in 2-3. Following the measure of 2/4 (half clave) the song flips to the three-side. It continues in 3-2 on the V7 chord for 4 1⁄2 claves. The second measure of 2/4 flips the song back to the two-side and the I chord.
In songs like "Que vengan los rumberos," the phrases continually alternate between a 3-2 framework and a 2-3 framework. It takes a certain amount of flexibility to repeatedly reorder your orientation in this way. The most challenging moments are the truncations and other transitional phrases where you "pivot" in order to move your point of reference from one side of clave to the other. Clap clave along with this excerpt.

Working in conjunction with the chord and clave changes, vocalist Frank "Machito" Grillo creates an arc of tension/release spanning more than a dozen measures. Initially Machito sings the melody straight (first line), but soon expresses the lyrics in the freer and more syncopated inspiración of a folkloric rumba (second line). By the time the song changes to 3-2 on the V7 chord, Machito has developed a considerable amount of rhythmic tension by contradicting the underlying meter. That tension is then resolved when he sings on three consecutive main beats (quarter-notes), followed by tresillo. In the measure immediately following tresillo the song returns to 2-3 and the I chord (fifth line)—Peñalosa (2010).

Personal life

Machito was somewhat short in stature, at in height. A lifelong Roman Catholic, he married Puerto Rican Hilda Torres on January 17, 1940, at which time he changed his nickname from "Macho" to "Machito". The cross-national marriage served as a sign to New York Latinos that it was possible to attain a sense of pan-Latino brotherhood. Frank and Hilda Grillo produced five children: Martha (1941), Frank Jr (1943), Barbara (1948), Mario (1956) and Paula. The family lived in Spanish Harlem at 112th Street and Second Avenue, where Machito enjoyed cooking for his children, writing the occasional song such as "Sopa de Pichón" while working in the kitchen.

Machito suffered a stroke before a concert in London, England in 1984, collapsing while waiting to go on stage at Ronnie Scott's club. He died four days later on April 19, 1984, at University College Hospital in London. His son Mario carried forward the legacy by leading The Machito Orchestra after his father's death. His daughter Paula, though dedicating her life to scholarly studies, has occasionally fronted the group as its singer.

Mario Bauzá died in 1993. Hilda Grillo, a patron of Latin music after her husband's death, died in July 1997. Having never married, Graciela died in April 2010 at the age of 94.

Legacy

In 1985, New York mayor Ed Koch named the intersection of East 111th Street and Third Avenue "Machito Square", a location in Spanish Harlem which is one block from East 110th Street, renamed "Tito Puente Way" after the 2000 death of Tito Puente. Machito lived as a young adult in an apartment on the southwest corner of the intersection. Originally appeared in ''The New York Times''.

A documentary film by Carlo Ortiz, ''Machito: A Latin Jazz Legacy'', was released in 1987, showing an elderly Machito and his wife in their Bronx apartment, as well as archival footage from performances in the 1940s and afterward.

Selected discography

As leader

* ''Mucho Macho Machito'' (Clef, 1948–1949)
* ''Kenya'' (Roulette, 1957)
* ''Vacation at the Concord'' (Verve, 1958)
* ''Machito with Flute to Boot'' (Roulette, 1959)
* ''Machito at the Crescendo'' (GNP Crescendo, 1961)
* ''Machito!!!'' ( Timeless, 1983)

As sideman

* Miguelito Valdés, ''Bim Bam Boom – An Album of Cuban Rhythms'' (Decca)
*Miguelito Valdés, ''Afro-Cuban Music'' (Decca, 1942)
*Charlie Parker, ''South of the Border'' (Verve, 1948 and 1951–1952)
*Dizzy Gillespie, ''Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods'' (Pablo, 1975)

See also

* List of jazz arrangers

References

Bibliography

* Austerlitz, Paul and Jere Laukkanen (2016).
Machito and His Afro-Cubans: Selected Transcriptions
'' Middleton, WI: A & R Edition. .
*

External links

*
Music of Machito and his Afro-Cubans
at th
Library of Congress

{{DEFAULTSORT:Machito
1909 births
1984 deaths
20th-century American musicians
20th-century Cuban male singers
Cuban conductors (music)
Cuban jazz musicians
Cuban emigrants to the United States
Grammy Award winners
Jazz bandleaders
Latin jazz bandleaders
Maracas players
Mercury Records artists
Musicians from New York City
Musicians from Tampa, Florida
Musicians from Havana
Tico Records artists
Timeless Records artists
Year of birth uncertain
Male jazz musicians
People from East Harlem