Tito Puente

Tito Puente (1923-2000), American percussionist, composer, and bandleader, known for his energetic performances on the timbales (drums). As one of the most popular bandleaders of the 1950s mambo era, Puente helped widen the audience for Latin American music in the United States.

Born in Harlem, New York, to Puerto Rican parents, Puente began studying piano at the age of six and percussion at the age of ten. He began playing professionally in the late 1930s as a drummer with the Noro Morales Orchestra. Later he concentrated on arranging music and performing the timbales, a pair of shallow cylindrical drums played with sticks. From 1942 to 1945, Puente served in the United States Navy. After World War II ended in 1945, he studied at the Juilliard School of Music. He also continued to play with other top Latin bands, including the orchestra of American bandleader Pupi Campo.

Puente began leading his own band in 1949, and his recording of the song “Albaniquito” that year became one of the first mambo hits to gain wide popularity with a variety of audiences. The mambo, an Afro-Cuban style of dance music, combined the instrumentation and arrangement techniques of big-band jazz with the rhythmic vitality of Cuban music. Between 1956 and 1960, Puente released a number of albums on the RCA Victor record label that established his position as a leading figure in Latin American, jazz, and popular music. These albums include Cuban Carnival (1956) and his bestseller, Dance Mania (1958).

Puente recorded extensively during the 1960s. His most popular songs from the period include “Caramelos” (from the album Pachanga Con Puente, 1961) and his classic “Oye Como Va” (from the album El Rey Bravo, 1962). His 1977 album The Legend was nominated for a Grammy Award, and he won Grammy Awards for his albums Homage a Beny (1978), Tito Puente and His Latin Ensemble on Broadway (1983), Mambo Diablo (1985), and Goza Mi Timbal (1989). Puente recorded not only with many Latin American music stars, but also with a number of well-known jazz musicians, including American trumpeter and bandleader Doc Severinsen and American clarinetist and bandleader Woody Herman. In the mid-1990s he established a college scholarship fund for aspiring musicians. In 1995 he opened a restaurant, named Tito Puente's, in City Island, New York.