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Mongo Santamaria, the pioneering Cuban percussionist who was among the most acclaimed
exponents of Latin jazz and whose 1963 Top 10 hit "Watermelon Man" stands as a precursor of pop crossover
in Latin music, died Saturday at a hospital in the Miami area, where he had retired.
The conga player, who was 85, had been on life support after suffering a recent stroke.
"His band was like a school for so many musicians who passed through it," his son, Jose "Monguito"
Santamaria, said Monday.
The elder Santamaria, the Havana-born grandson of a former slave, spent more than half a century exploring the
nexus between the polyrhythmic music of his native country and various forms of American popular music, especially
jazz, funk and R&B.
In a remarkably enduring career, he worked with leading figures from both worlds, including trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie,
vibraphonist Cal Tjader, and fellow drummers and bandleaders Tito Puente and Perez Prado.
Santamaria's bands, which included such jazz musicians as Chick Corea and Hubert Laws, "were in large part
responsible for the gradual absorption of Latin rhythms into black music," states the New Grove Dictionary
of Jazz.
Though once admitting he had allowed record label pressures to define his repertoire on some of his scores of albums,
Santamaria remained true to the genuine spirit of Afro-Cuban drumming, including its religious roots. His style,
studied for its simultaneous power and lyricism, influenced a generation of percussionists, including Los Angeles-based
bandleader Poncho Sanchez.
Santamaria's melodic approach has been overshadowed by contemporary congueros who stress lightning-fast techniques,
said jazz radio host Jose Rizo. "But that's only a fad, because Mongo never played that quick, and he's the
greatest," said Rizo, host of the weekly "Jazz on the Latin Side" on KKJZ-FM (88.1). "He had
a way of providing the proper accents behind jazz harmonies, and that was his real touch."
Born Ramon Santamaria in 1917, he was raised in a poor Havana neighborhood rich in Afro-Cuban traditions. His mother
wanted him to play violin, but the drum held an early allure. He dropped out of school in his teens to become a
professional musician, working as a mailman by day and playing at the famed Tropicana club at night.
As a member of Havana's Casino de la Playa, he rubbed shoulders with a flamboyant fellow percussionist named Perez
Prado, who would soon spark the mambo craze of the 1950s. Santamaria joined Prado's band in Mexico City in the
late 1940s, then made the big jump to New York, where he debuted with Prado's band in 1950.
Santamaria settled in the U.S. at a time when jazz and Latin musicians were increasingly joining forces. He played
with the Tito Puente Orchestra during its 1950s heyday, and was featured on "Puente in Percussion" --
an album that is still considered a classic of the genre -- with a rhythm section that also featured Willie Bobo
and Carlos "Patato" Valdes.
After a falling out with Puente, Santamaria and Bobo moved to California to join a jazz band led by vibraphonist
Tjader, who recorded for the Berkeley-based Fantasy label. Tjader's legendary percussion section helped spawn the
cool West Coast school of Latin jazz.
In 1958, Santamaria started making his own recordings as a bandleader for Fantasy, starting with "Yambu"
and "Mongo," later reissued as a two-record set titled "Afro Roots." He made a mark from the
start with his composition "Afro Blue," which became a jazz standard, covered most famously by John Coltrane.
Though Santamaria never had another hit like "Watermelon Man" (which was written by Herbie Hancock),
he enjoyed a resurgence of popularity among Latin fans during the salsa boom of the 1970s, when he recorded under
the famed Fania Records umbrella. In 1977, Santamaria's "Chango," his 1955 classic of Afro-Cuban ritual
drumming, was reissued by Fania on its Vaya label as "Drums and Chants." That same year, he brought the
first Grammy to Fania for "Dawn," honored as best Latin recording.
In a sign of his enduring legacy, 14 catalog albums by Santamaria are still available from Fantasy.
Next month, the label plans to release another, "Montreux Heat," which features previously unreleased
cuts from a 1980 concert, including an extended version of "Watermelon Man," featuring Gillespie and
Toots Thielemans.
In his quiet retirement, Santamaria spent his days immersed in his three passions: baseball, politics and music.
He had a large record collection that included old 78 rpm discs, but kept current with the new music coming from
his homeland, listening to bands such as Irakere and Manolito y su Trabuco.
Santamaria's greatest satisfaction, his son said Monday, was knowing that he had nurtured many musicians in his
band.
"I'm not a hero," Santamaria told Down Beat magazine in 1999, "but I did my best to make everybody
happy."
He was buried Monday at Woodlawn Park South Cemetery in Kendall, Fla., where he lived. The service featured the
reading of poetry and the playing of a rumba at his graveside by fellow percussionist Daniel Ponce and other musicians.
In addition to his son Monguito, who briefly pursued his own recording career in the 1970s, Santamaria is survived
by five other children, Nancy Anderson, Rosa Santamaria and Felipe Santamaria, all of Miami; Felicia Santamaria
of Los Angeles; and Ileana Santamaria of New York City; two sisters, Alicia Valdez of Miami and Rosa Mendiola of
New York; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
P.S. What follows is an e-mail from Mr. Santamaria's widow:
Mongo was born April 7, 1917, he was 85 years old .He was married to Yolanda H. Santamaria
at his time of death, he was 45
years older, but she gave him NEW LIFE! He met her when she was 17 years old, she was his 3rd wife and they had
no children, she LOVED HIM VERY MUCH. The rest of the article is correct as for of the six children (grown &
previous) eight grand-children and one great-grand child.Also two sisters who LOVED the ground he walked on! THANKS
FOR THE CORRECTION, Mongo would be proud & grateful.
**************
Mongo Santamaria, an internationally renown percussionist, died on February 1st at a
hospital in Miami. The Cuban-born bandleader was eighty-five.
Santamaria's propulsive skill as a conguero was a trademark of more than four decades of recording and performing,
and punctuates his classic 1963 cover of Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man," an unlikely, pre-Beatles
hit in 1963 that hit Number Ten on the pop charts. Santamaria may be better known in improvisational circles as
the writer of "Afro Blue," a beautiful, melodic composition that worked its way into the repertoire of
jazz mainstays from Dizzy Gillespie to John Coltrane. The latter took a particular shine to the song, using it
as a touchstone for his developing sound: From early, faithful and pretty interpretations circa 1963 to a 1966
free jazz deconstruction in Japan.
Ramon Santamaria was born in Havana on April 7, 1917. His professional start came in the city's legendary Tropicana
Club in his twenties, before moving to New York in 1950. There Santamaria learned to swim in the deep end of the
pool, first performing with legendary Cuban bandleader and King of the Mambo Perez Prado, followed by stints with
fellow percussionist Tito Puente and vibraphonist Cal Tjader. Fusing the Latin rhythms that were practically his
birthright with Americanized styles like R&B and jazz, Santamaria made his first recordings as a bandleader
in the late Fifties with Yambu and Mongo.
With the cover of "Watermelon Man," Santamaria found himself garnering the acclaim of his former mentors.
He would even visit the pop charts once again - a feat that, among his mentors, only Prado ever accomplished -
in 1969 with "Cloud Nine." And he recorded prolifically through the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties,
before slowing things down last decade. But with the success of 1996's Buena Vista Social Club album, more eyes
turned to the music of Cuba. Santamaria's music drew attention four decades after its start, with the release of
several compilations, including Rhino's career-spanning, two-CD Skin on Skin: The Mongo Santamaria Anthology and
Legacy's The Best of Mongo Santamaria, which put a light on his late-Sixties output.
"I have two sons, one's named Mongo and the other is Tito," Grammy-winning Latin percussionist Pancho
Sanchez told Rolling Stone in 2001. "You know how much you respect a man if you name your son after him. Everything
I do and have done can be traced back to those two men. They're my heroes."
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