Chapter 1 – Looking Back: Carlos Santana & Mario Bauza
(Jimmy Smits): In the United States, this is Latin Music. And this is Latin Music. This is Latin Music. And
this is Latin Music. Its roots are sometimes obvious and sometimes not. It has accordions…. and it
doesn’t. It’s in Spanish ……except when it’s not. It’s a fusion with Jazz …or Reggae. New hybrids with
Country ….or Rock. It’s as diverse as the Latino experience, as American as it gets. Latin music, USA.
Bridges
(Carlos Santana): All the freeways were blocked like a science fiction movie. The people just abandoned
their cars on the freeway. 550,000. You know, half a million or more strong. All I could see was an ocean
of flesh and hair and teeth. The biggest door I ever walked through.
(Jimmy Smits): ON August 16, 1969, a little-known band from San Francisco, Santana, performed at
Woodstock. It became one of the most successful international debuts in popular music history.
(Santana): And when I saw the movie, I remember that I was under the influence of drugs. You know,
and I… then it all came back to me, like, “Darn! Why did I take drugs?”
(Jimmy Smits): Santana’s music was a fusion of rock, blues and Afro-Cuban percussion – a fresh hybrid,
bar far from the first. In fact, the story of how Santana’s sound came to be stretches back decades, to
before these musicians and their audience were born.
In 1930, a 19-year-old Cuban named Mario Bauzá arrived in New York. A classically trained clarinetist, he
had visited the city four years earlier and fallen in love with jazz. Now he was back, intent on making it in
the burgeoning Big Band scene. In Cuba, prejudice against his dark skin had held him back. New York had
race barriers as well. But in Havana, there was no Harlem.
(Mariou Bauzá): All the big clubs with all those terrific shows in Harlem then. At 3 o’clock in the morning
it was like 12 o’clock in the day in Times Square.
(Chris Washburne, Trombonist & Ethnomusicologist): In his own words, well, he found that it was a
place where he could walk down the street and not experience the same kind of racism that he was
experiencing in Havana at the time; that he could feel free as a black man walking down the street and
not feel that oppression in the same way.
(Jimmy Smits): Just a few years later, after a switch to trumpet, Bauzá was playing at the Savoy Ballroom
for Harlem’s King of Swing, Chick Webb. Bauzá became the orchestra’s music director and lead trumpet
player. Taken with Bauzá’s musicianship, Webb had personally rehearsed him in what he called the
vocabulary of jazz, helping him adapt to the feel of swing.
(Ray Santos, arranger): Getting more of da-ba-do, ba-da, ba-do, ba-da, ba-do, ba-da, ba-do, ba-da.
Whereas Latin is …it tends to be strictly bac-um, bac-um, bac-um, bac-um, bac-um, bac-um, bac-um,
bac-um.
(Jimmy Smits): Even as Bauzá made inroads into American jazz, Cuban music was entering the American
mainstream. In 1931, an orchestra from Havana released “El Manisero” –“The Peanut Vendor.” It
became a surprise smash hit. The million-seller launched the rumba dance craze of the ‘30s, and socalled “Latin” bands became a standard ballroom attraction. The stage was set for a musical revolution
led by Mario Bauzá. It started with an insult.
Chapter 2 – Only in New York: Machito & His Afro-Cubans
(Bobby Sanabria, Musician & Historian): Mario was insulted by some comments by a musician in the Cab
Calloway orchestra when he played him some of the music of Cuba. He said, “Hey, that sounds like
hillbilly music, country music.” He goes, “Yeah, it’s the music of my country, Cuba. But one day there’ll
be a band, just like this band, The Cab Calloway Band, real classy, elegant, with modern harmonies,
etcetera.” He said, “It’s going to have an Afro-Cuban rhythm section. And I’m going to tell you, it’s going
to sound better than this band.”
(Mariou Bauzá): You ever hear of lemon meringue pie? This is exactly what it is. Jazz in the top … AfroCuban rhythm in the bottom.
(Jimmy Smits): Bauzá’s first step was to recruit his brother-in-law, bringing him up from Cuba. To the
world, he’d become known as Machito.
(Bobby Sanabria, Musician & Historian): Machito’s real name was Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grill de Ayala.
His nickname when he was a kid was Macho. And then the story goes that a promoter in New York City
told him, “That sounds, like, too harsh. Is there any way to make that a little bit softer? Like how would
you say ‘Little Macho’?” So he goes, “Oh, Machito.” So that’s how basically he got his moniker.
(Aurora Flores, Journalist & Bandleader): He was the kind of man that was the salt of the earth, really,
the salt of the earth. And what a pair of mara… nobody could play maracas like him. And the way he
sang was just completely endearing.
(Jimmy Smits): Bauzá’s fusion of an African-American big band with traditional Cuban rhythms was
groundbreaking, right down to its name.
(Chris Washburne, Trombonist & Ethnomusicologist): Just the fact that the name that they chose for
that band was Machito and his Afro Cubans says a lot
(Mariou Bauzá): “Machito and his Afro Cubans” A whole lot of people objected to that “Afro” thing
there.
(Chris Washburne, Trombonist & Ethnomusicologist): It’s the first time where we see this kind of public
acknowledgement through the naming of the band of something that is African derived.
(Mariou Bauzá): I’m of African descent. And the rhythm that produces the music we play…is African.
(Bobby Sanabria, Musician & Historian): Nobody was acknowledging Africa. All of a sudden this band
comes out and right in your face it says Machito and the Afro Cubans.
(Jimmy Smits): Bauzá and Machito had a strong base to work from. Granted U.S. citizenship in 1917,
over 30,000 Puerto Ricans had migrated to New York, many settling in East Harlem, which came to be
known as El Barrio, or Spanish Harlem.
(Jimmy Smits): The mix of jazz and traditional rhythms spoke directly to this new generation of New York
Latinos. They provided both an audience and musicians for the band.
(Frank Colon): I stood in front of that bandstand. It changed my whole life. It changed my whole life –
everything changed! I changed! You know, when I heard that band in person, in the flesh, and I heard
those drums and going…. And how they start, and I was looking around, you know I felt like that feeling
you get in your nose when you’re gonna cry or something, and you try to… It just… it just destroyed me.
Wow! And I’m looking around… Ooh, man… and I look at the people and the people were dancing and,
“Vaya, vaya Papi!” And I’m saying, “This is impossible, this is impossible.” You know, man, it changed my
whole life. That was one of the experiences that stay with me till I’m in the tomb.
(Jimmy Smits): An immediate success, in El Barrio, Machito and his Afro Cubans became a bridge
between worlds when they also found success with white audiences in midtown Manhattan, becoming
the house band at the La Conga Club for three years. Though the Afro Cubans succeeded with varied
audiences, that didn’t mean everyone heard the music the same way.
(Chris Washburne, Trombonist & Ethnomusicologist): It’s almost like a double performance, performing
a piece that was translating to a general audience as a swinging, killing dance piece, but at the same
time, there would be messages, coded messages for those people in the know.
“Boru boya”… You know, it goes by so fast, that you hardly recognize it. But anybody who was a
practitioner of Santería would look up ‘cause it’s a traditional greeting.
(Jimmy Smits): During the 1940s, the Afro Cubans developed what became a landmark composition and
the band’s theme song, “Tanga.”
(Chris Washburne, Trombonist & Ethnomusicologist): There is a nice balance there. It’s what Mario
Bauzá and Machito were really pushing for: jazz improvisation over really, um, you know, intense AfroCuban grooves.
(Bobby Sanabria, Musician & Historian): And you get this wall of sound happening with the horns. It’s
like a tidal wave of sound coming at you. It just stays on one chord. Boom. And it just gets more intense,
and more intense, and more intense, and more intense. It was the harbinger of the experiments that
Miles Davis would eventually start doing much, much later.
(Jimmy Smits): With music like “Tanga,” the Afro Cubans quickly drew the attention of the most
innovative jazz artists, including an old friend and bandmate of Mario Bauzá’s.
(Frank Colon): And who comes in at the very end? Dizzy Gillespie. He trumpets were here, sax over
there, the rhythm… he’s sitting right there. He wanted to hear that thing coming right through him. And
so Mario, seeing that Dizzy’s there, he said, “All right, let’s take out the heavy stuff.” Diz looked around,
told Mario, “Hey, baby, knock me out! Play some more of that stuff.” And I know when Dizzy left that
night, man, he didn’t where to put his brains in.
Chapter 3 – Dizzy Gillespie & Chano Pozo: Champions of Latin Jazz
(Jimmy Smits): In the late 1940s, a handful of Cuban conga players arrived in New York and began
transforming popular music almost immediately. One was Candido Camero. Along with his peers –
congueros like Mongo Santamaria and Armando Peraza – Candido would introduce the U.S. to an
entirely new level of conga mastery. The instrument itself would be at the heart of a new fusion in jazz,
created by one of the Afro Cubans’ greatest fans, Dizzy Gillespie.
As a founder of bebop, Gillespie had already revolutionized jazz, but he saw one aspect of it as
stubbornly resistant to change.
(Chris Washburne, Trombonist & Ethnomusicologist): In his autobiography he said, you know, the
rhythm o fjazz was boring in the sense that it was ding-dinga-ding, dinga-ding for the most part.
(Jimmy Smits): With an upcoming concert with his big band at Carnegie Hall late in 1947, Gillespie asked
Bauzá to suggest someone to play, in Gillespie’s words, “one of those tom-toms.” Bauzá introduced him
to Chano Pozo, who had recently arrived in New York from Cuba, where he was a successful songwriter,
showman, and conga player. He had risen out of one of the roughest tenements in Havana.
(Bobby Sanabria, Musician & Historian): Chano’s a street dude, man. He’ll cut you, he’ll slap you. Chano
was so famous for getting into fights, etcetera. He had, like, a bullet lodged near his spine; they couldn’t
get the bullet out. You got this guy who’s like pure street, but he’s got all of this incredible folkloric
knowledge and mystical knowledge and rhythmic knowledge.
(Jimmy Smits): At Carnegie Hall, Chano Pozo performed in a two-part number written to feature his
playing, “Cubana Be, Cubana Bop.”
(Ray Santos, arranger): Chano’s appearance went over very big.
(Chris Washburne, Trombonist & Ethnomusicologist): People went absolutely nuts.
(Frank Colon): So, the band that did the most way-out Afro-Cuban jazz was Dizzy’s!
(Jimmy Smits): Afterward, Dizzy asked Chano to stay with the band. Not everyone was pleased.
(Bobby Sanabria, Musician & Historian): Most of the musicians in the band, they were all AfricanAmerican, did not want him in the band. “Jungle music – we’re beyond that.”
(Jimmy Smits): Communication wasn’t easy – Chano didn’t speak English, no one in the band spoke
Spanish. But a bridge between cultures was found in music when Chano approached Dizzy with a tune
he’d made up, “Manteca.”
(Dizzy Gillespie): He said, “Dizzy… first the bajo” – the bass. He gave me the bass lick. I wrote that down
– bi-di-bi-di-bi-bom-bim-bom. And then he said, “After that goes, um, saxo” – saxophone. Bom-bim,
bom-bim. The trombone – bom-pu-bibi-pi-bom. And the trumpets – aaahhhh! And all these were going
at the same time and it sure sounded good to me.
(Arturo Sandoval, Bandleader): “Manteca” is probably one of the… the most, you know, distinctive, uh,
tune. Really it identified what is… Afro-Cuban jazz all about.
(Bobby Sanabria, Musician & Historian): Dizzy wasn’t the first one to create what we call Afro-Cuban
jazz, or Latin jazz. That title goes to the Machito Afro Cubans. But Dizzy was the first person to champion
it outside of the realm of… the close-knit society of those musicians that were from the culture.
(Arturo Sandoval, Bandleader): Unfortunately, one year later, somebody killed Chano in a bar in Harlem.
But he left such a great impression on Dizzy. Dizzy never stopped talk about Chano.
Chapter 4 – The Mambo Craze: Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez
(Jimmy Smits): In the early 1950s, the mambo burst onto the international stage with hit records by
Dámaso Pérez Prado, a Cuban working in Mexico City. Despite Pérez Prado’s popularity, he didn’t invent
the mambo. Musicologists still debate who did.
But the first piece to be called a mambo was written in the late 1930s in Cuba, by the pianist Orestes
López and his brother bassist, Israel López, better known as Cachao. They were searching for a way to
liven up a Cuban form of ballroom dancing called danzón.
(Israel “Cachao” Lopez): The Mambo emerged when we spun the ship around 180 degrees…because we
wanted to do something entirely different. So we used a totally syncopated rhythm. (demonstrates
rhythm)
(Jimmy Smits): The intriguing López mambo was picked up by other Cuban composers and arrangers,
including one who traveled to New York and worked with Mario Bauzá and Machito in the early 1940s.
(Frank Colon): I heard it from Mario, he said, “Hey, mira tienen algo nuevo de Cuba y se llama mambo,
hay que tocarlo asi.” You know, that means, “There’s something new from Cuba, it’s coming up, it’s
coming into New York, and you play it this way. They got a new dance for it, you know, and there’s
saxes, you know?” That’s when you heard figures like (demonstrates the rhythm). They never had those
figures before.
(Jimmy Smits): So while most of the U.S. and the world saw Pérez Prado as the king of the Mambo, New
York with its jazzier sounds and decades-old Latin music scene had its own royalty, known as The Big
Three. Machtio and his Afro Cubans were the elder statesmen; the two other contenders had grown up
in El Barrio.
Tito Rodríguez was born in Puerto Rico and moved to New York as a young boy. By the 1950s, the suave
singer led his own band. While his hot numbers burned, Rodríguez was also known for his romantic
boleros.
(Larry Harlow, Musician): Tito Rodríguez was a crooner. He used to dance with the women…take his
microphone and just look into their eyes and just sing these beautiful ballads, and the girls would just
melt on the floor.
(Jimmy Smits): But there was another Tito, too. Tito Puente was born in El Barrio just three years after
his parents arrived from Puerto Rico. Always interested in music, as a teenager, he turned away from
that of his parents. For Puente, nothing beat swing. At 14, he saw drummer Gene Krupa at the
Paramount Theater. “I knew right there what I wanted—to be Gene Krupa,” he later said.
But Puente found immediate work in the local Latin bands and took up timbales. He soon found himself
under the wing of Mario Bauzá.
(Tito Puente): He was one of my mentors. He taught me a lot about playing, performing, rehearsing
bands. I worked with Machito for quite a few years. Then the war came around and I was drafted.
(Jimmy Smits): A bugler and gunner’s mate in the Navy, Puente saw combat in World War II. He also
played saxophone in bands to entertain the crews. By the end of the 1940s, Puente was running his own
band and revolutionizing the role of the timbales.
(Bobby Sanabria, Musician & Historian): He starts making the instrument a vibrant force in the
orchestra. Very much like Gene Krupa. Before Gene Krupa, drummers were not featured artists or
anything like that. All of a sudden Gene Krupa comes out and he’s like a featured soloist. Tito does the
same thing.
(Jimmy Smits): Puente was just getting started. His career as a consummate musician, bandleader and
arranger lasted over 50 years.
(Bobby Sanabria, Musician & Historian): As Mario Bauzá said many, many times, nobody has done more
for Afro-Cuban music than Tito Puente. Nobody.
Chapter 5 – Mambonicks: The Palladium and its Dancers
(Jimmy Smits): The Big Thee battled nightly for supremacy in New York before legions of new fans.
(Larry Harlow, Musician): We were called mambonicks, with an N-I-C-K-S on the end. And we were like
guys that liked to mambo and liked to dance and really, the only place to go was the Palladium.
(Jimmy Smits): In midtown Manhattan, the Palladium had once been a dance studio. Now it was the
Home of the Mambo.
(Barbara Craddock, Dancer): The first time I was at the Palladium I would say was one of the highlights of
my life. I was just a teenager and I was out to dinner with my parents and they took me to the
Palladium. And we sat down, and my mother was wearing a mink coat and jewelry, and here was this
mixture of people—every race, every color, every creed—all dancing together. The emcee came out and
said, “And here they are, the couple you’ve been waiting for, Cuban Pete and Millie.” And the audience
went crazy, absolutely crazy. They came out and they did this wild mambo. And you have to remember
that he was tan—café con leche…and she was white. And in 1955, to have a mixed couple…dance on the
stage, any stage was…had never been done before.
(David Rubenson, Record Producer): Going dancing at the Palladium was it. That was Madison Square
Garden, you know? You went there to dress up and to show off and to dance.
(Chris Washburne, Trombonist & Ethnomusicologist): What the music did was bring together a wide
array of cultures: Jews, Italians, uh, African-Americans, different Latino cultures. And the dance floor
served as the meeting point that enabled people to coexist peacefully.
(Bobby Sanabria, Musician & Historian): It was the beginning of integration, true integration in New York
City.
(Jimmy Smits): The cosmopolitan scene of the Palladium struck a chord with many young Jews in New
York, including some who would play key roles in popular music in the coming years. Wolfgang Grajonca
had been born in Berlin and come to the United States an orphan, his mother killed in the Holocaust. At
the Palladium, using the Americanized name Bill Graham, the future rock impresario would develop a
lifelong passion for Latin music and dance, even once winning the ballroom’s amateur dance contest. He
later said, “Why should I ever want to be President of the United States? I’ve accomplished something
better.”
(David Rubenson, Record Producer): I-I have no idea. I wouldn’t want to speculate on why Jewish
people, um, love Latin music or Chinese food, but it’s just kind of the way it is.
(Robert Greenfield, Graham Biographer): I think what Bill Graham and a lot of other people of his
generation heard or got from the Latin music thing…When you danced with somebody…wow.
(David Rubenson, Record Producer): Expatriate Jewish immigrants in the United States had nothing to
dance to. You turn on the radio of the 40s and 50s and it just couldn’t be more alien to the experience
they had come from. Gentile music. But the Latin music, that wasn’t Gentile music, that was soul music
and I think that they could really relate to it.
(Jimmy Smits): The ongoing fusion of jazz and Latin music found a comfortable home at the Palladium as
well. Located near the New York jazz clubs, the ballroom attracted the leading players of the day. Soon
movie stars began making the scene. The Palladium had become a hipster’s paradise.
(Larry Harlow, Musician): But the Palladium had one rule. They didn’t care what color you were, they
didn’t care how old you were, they didn’t care how fat you were, but you had to be able to dance.
(Jimmy Smits): The best of the Palladium dancers developed professional careers. Millie Donay, an
Italian-American, and Pedro “Cuban Pete” Aguilar, a New York Puerto Rican, set the standard. Cuban
Pete’s mambo evolved over time, shaped by friendships with the musicians and invented in
collaboration with Donay. She died in 2007.
(Pedro “Cuban Pete” Aguilar): She taught me a whole lot. I used to flirt with her on the floor and they
came out to be steps. I tripped once and fell. You know what Millie said to me? “Do it again! That was
great, do it again!” I said, “I’ll kill you.” She was the best. Really. She was the best.
(Jimmy Smits): Another team used the Palladium as a stepping stone to a career that lasted decades.
Augustine “Augie” Rodríguez at first only watched.
(Augustine Rodríguez): I used to study dancers. Cuban Pete was the best. And I did six months of just
looking and trying to study…I felt it, but…
(Jimmy Smits): He also kept an eye on a young Puerto Rican from East Harlem, Margo Bartolomei.
(Augustine Rodríguez): I used to try to be the first guy to go there; 20 guys were on her already and
she’d dance with them. She looked great.
(Jimmy Smits): They finally met after Margo’s sister approached her to enter a dance contest with Augie.
(Margo Bartolomei): And we went in and we won the contest. The first time we ever danced together.
Of course we weren’t professional. We weren’t trained, but we had it.
(Jimmy Smits): Bitten by the dance bug, they applied to schools on scholarship, which soon transformed
their mambo.
(Margo Bartolomei): We went to school, dance school, and whatever we learned that day, we used to
come in and put it into the mambo.
(Augustine Rodríguez): Ballets.
(Margo Bartolomei): Unknowingly, we were creating a style. And we were the first ones, really, to put in
turns, slides, and tricks into the mambo. I used to spin and we always had to end with that.
Chapter 6 - --I Love Lucy & Latin Music Across the US
(Mambo playing)
(Jimmy Smits) Augie and Margo weren’t the only ones riding the Latin dance wave of the ‘50’s to
success. Broadway and Hollywood turned mambo, and escalating ethnic tensions, into the hit West Side
Story (dramatic music plays). Post-war New York City now held over half a million Puerto Ricans, many
newly arrived. The musical transformed their hopes and struggles into song (America playing). Others
thought to repackage the craze for Main Street USA (Arthur Murray playing).
(Mrs. Murray) Even the records say, “what the heck is the mambo?”, and we know that you would learn
the mambo if it didn’t take too long and you could do it at home. Well, my husband says he could teach
you the foundation step of the dance in less than a minute. So here is your teacher, Arthur Murray.
(Jimmy Smits) As the mambo began to fade, Perez Prado came through with another number-one hit,
“Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.” For many it was the introduction to the new, easier, Cuban
dance, the cha-cha-cha.
(Chris Washburne) The cha-cha-cha was really popular especially with younger audiences, because it
was at a slower tempo, so it was easier to dance to.
(Robert Greenfield) The cha-cha, if you think about the dance stuff, is actually the idiot’s dance, because
it’s easiest to learn.
(Augustine Rodriguez) “Ooh, we’re gonna do the cha-cha.” The people, that’s what they were saying.
(Margo Bartolomei) The cha-cha was, uh, easier.
(Augustine Rodriguez) The cha-cha was easy.
(Jimmy Smits) The cha-cha-cha broadened music’s appeal. So did a new television show, “I Love Lucy”,
starring Cuban singer and bandleader Desi Arnaz and his wife, Lucille Ball. Before its debut, the two had
to convince network executives that the U.S. was ready to accept the premise: a cross-cultural marriage
between a Cuban man and an American woman. Top ratings proved them right. But the U.S.’s love
affair in the 50’s with all things Latin was not to last.
(Bobby Sanabria) Several things happened to force the decline of the music, culture…The main thing was
that Cuba was taken over by Fidel Castro and the source of the music was cut off.
(David Rubenson) The doors to Cuba slammed shut. And they slammed shut psychologically and
politically in the United States. Cuban music, Latin music, all of a sudden became the music of Castro
and the Cuban Revolution and the Communists.
Chapter 7 – The Secret Latin Sounds of Rock & Roll
(Chris Washburne, Trombonist & Ethnomusicologist): One of the worst things that could happen to
the Latin Music industry uh was the Beatles and the popularity of Rock n Roll in the mid 1960’s.
Because really, that captured the youth in the United States and the Caribbean for that matter.
(Aurora Flores, Journalist & Bandleader): I love my Rock n Roll. I loved the Beatles. I was affected by
all of that. The 60’s with the advent of rock n roll, R&B, changed the music scene even in East
Harlem. Because now you have a third generation that’s coming up. Their coming up in the projects.
Now this is my generation. And they are much, even much more English speaking than their
predecessors.
(Frank Colon): At that time, you know I could be sit down and start listening to rock n roll as good
as it was cause I liked, I liked the rhythm patterns. The drums especially all the things they did, but
musically, were talking about music, saxes, trumpets, and this and that and the the brightness, and
soft and loud and
(Ed Sullivan): Here are the Beatles.
(Frank Colon): We’re not talking about popularity and playing a concert with 60,000 people. You
know we were never able to do that.
(Jimmy Smits): Ironically many early rock songs like “Twist and Shout”, covered by the Beatles
contain Latin influences in their chord progressions, bass lines, and rhythms.
They were the works of song writers and producers in New York, in the Brill building, located just 4
blocks away from the Palladium. Many were Mambonicks, like Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman who
wrote hits for the Drifters including “Save the Last Dance for Me”. Pomas would call their work
Jewish Latin.
(David Rubenson, Record Producer): The influence of Latin music on Rock n Roll was seminal,
seminal. Latin Music was everywhere it was universal for us growing up in the 50’s. And naturally
when the musicians then turned to the recording industry and started writing songs, producing
records and so forth, people started making music that they’d heard all their lives which became
the Latin influence on Rock n Roll and particularly on pop music.
(Jimmy Smits): Other classic songs have a direct lineage from Latin Music, like “Louie Louie”. It was
the Kingsmen’s version of an R&B record, which in turn was based on a Cha Cha Cha, written by a
Cuban, Rene Touzet. The riffs and rhythms of Latin music became part of the rock arsenol. One, two,
cha cha cha. Compare the Beatles, ‘Day Tripper’ with this Machito record from the 40”s or
“Calameros”, A Cuban hit from 1060 with the Young Rascal’s, “Good Lovin.”
(David Rubenson, Record Producer): When the records came out with the Cuban or Latin influence
in them, the people had no idea what they were hearing. They’d never heard it before. They just
loved it.
Chapter 8 – Bill Graham & the Evolution of the Santana Blues Band
(Jimmy Smits): Latin sounds disappeared into the mix that created rock, but not for long. Far away from
New York’s Latin scene, a blues rock group would take a Latin sound international. In the psychedelic
years of the ‘60s, the most influential rock venue in San Francisco was the Fillmore, run by former
mambonick Bill Graham. Graham ran his ballroom with a specific model in mind.
(Robert Greenfield, Graham Biographer): The Fillmore is – and then all the psychedelic ballrooms, ‘cause
they all take their cue from the Fillmore – the Fillmore is Bill Graham’s recreation of the Palladium circa
1953 in Manhattan. Crystal mirror ball turning with the lights going in all directions and people
perceiving that in a manner they hadn’t in the Palladium; bands playing and improvising and extending
their sets; people dancing. They danced. He… Bill always wanted everybody who came to the Fillmore
to dance.
(Jimmy Smits): He had also taken an interest in a young local guitarist, a kid he’d first met trying to sneak
into the Fillmore. His name was Carlos Santana. Santana was born in Mexico, the son of a Mariachi violin
player. He too played violin himself as a boy on the streets of Tijuana for change, as well as with his
father in local bars.
(Carlos Santana): It was one night where we were in the lowest part of Tijuana, you know, the … it
smelled like puke and vomit and urine in this… joint. Makes my stomach sick just to think about it. And
we were playing this music… and I just started crying, part crying and part anger ‘cause I didn’t want to
be there. So my father said to me, “What’s the matter?” And I says, “I don’t want to play this music and I
don’t want to be here. I know that you need me to help you… to pay the rent, but I can’t stand the
smell, and I can’t stand these people and I can’t stand this music. It’s just, you know, it’s making me sick
to my stomach.” So he said to me, “So what do you like, that American music?” which is like Little
Richard and Chuck Berry. And I go, “Yeah. Now, Dad, look at where we are. Could that music be any
worse than this?”
(Jimmy Smits): Leaving violin behind, Santana picked up the guitar and felt an immediate bond. In the
early ‘60s, Santana’s family moved to a Latino neighborhood in San Francisco – the Mission District. By
then Carlos was already playing in bands and in love with the blues.
(Carlos Santana): All of us are children of B.B. King, you know. Just like B.B. King might be a child of TBone and other people, we’re children of B.B. King.
(David Rubenson): Carlos’s heroes were not Mongo Santamaria. He didn’t know about those people. He
was from Mexico. He was from California. He was a California Dude.
(Jimmy Smits): The Santana band started out a s a blues-rock band, but evolved over time as members
came and went and different influences entered the mix. Mike Carabello, a high school friend of Carlos,
was the first to introduce the conga, having learned to play in drumming circles in the city.
(Michael Carabello, Conga, Santana Band): And it was everybody’s influence. Like, “Okay, let’s try a little
bit of jazz this time. Let’s do a little bit of Miles Davis. No, let’s do a little bit of Gabor Szabo thing this
time. Let’s do a little bit of a Beatles thing. Let’s do a little bit of a Stones thing.” And you mix that all
together and we still had our sound.
(Jimmy Smits): By 1969, the band had gelled, each member bringing something unique to the sound.
(Joel Selvin, Journalist): It’s very important to understand that the early Santana band was a masterful
creative collaboration. Carlos Santana was a great blues guitarist. Michael Carabello, the conga player,
and Chepito Areas, the timbales player, they brought the Latin battery to the sound. Gregg Rolie was a
huge contribution on organ. He was a great musician and, you know, ultimately sang their hit records,
but the organ was a big part of what they were doing. Michael Shrieve was the-the right drummer to tie
the whole package together. David Brown was African-American. He played fine bass and brought that
sort of United Colors of Bennetton thing to the scene that was so important to their message.
(Michael Carabello, Conga, Santana Band): How it happened that there was a Puerto Rican in the band, a
Mexican in the band, a Nicaraguan in the band, an Irish guy in the band, a Norwegian guy in the band
and a black guy in the band… We didn’t do that on purpose, you know, but the music came out of that.
(Jimmy Smits): Visually the band may have suggested world harmony, but coming from the Mission
District gave it an edge.
(Michael Shrieve, Drummer, Santana Band): It wasn’t any hippie thing. It was like a street gang, but the
weapon was music. You make a mistake, maybe like hippies would say, “Oh, you know, that’s cool, man,
you know, you’re making a good effort, and you know, try it again.” It was more like… you know?
(Joel Selvin, Journalist): They weren’t hippies. They walked on stage and it was the Mission District. You
know, I was sure they had switchblades in their pockets.
(Carlos Santana): Women started dancing differently to us than they were dancing to Jimi Hendrix and
Cream, the Grateful Dead. They weren’t catching butterflies. They were more like, you know, this is the
gift from God, and sensual. And Santana music can truly accentuate that without even trying.
(Jimmy Smits): As the band evolved toward a more Latin sound, it had a key supporter giving it work and
rehearsal space, even suggesting Latin songs to cover, like “Evil Ways.”
(Joel Selvin, Journalist): Bill Graham recognized it immediately. He understood it better than the guys in
the band what they were dealing with.
(David Rubenson, Record Producer): It gave him a chance to have his music reach the audience that he
wanted it to reach.
Chapter 9 – A Superstar is Born: Carlos Santana at Woodstock
(Jimmy Smits): Graham seized an opportunity for the band when the organizers of a rock festival near
Woodstock, New York, found themselves in trouble.
(David Rubenson, Record Producer): Bill got very much involved because he was the only one in the
country at that point who really knew how to put on a show for 100,000 people. And, of course, Bill
being who he was, he said, “You got to put my band on.”
(Carlos Santana): And he said to us, “There is going to be a festival that’s gonna, like, be the festival of
festivals and I want you to be in it. I know you haven’t…you know, your album’s not out, people don’t
know you from anything, but they requested my help and I told them the only way I’d help them is if
they put Santana on. What is Santana?”
(Jimmy Smits): The band arrived at the Woodstock festival on its second day, believing that they’d go on
in 12 hours. But in the afternoon, they were suddenly rushed on stage. Assuming he’d have hours to
come down, Carlos was under the influence of drugs.
(Carlos Santana): The guitar neck, it felt like a-a electric snake that wouldn’t stand still. That’s why I’m
making ugly faces, trying to make the snake stand still so I can, like, play it, you know. And inwardly I’m
just…I remember saying over and over, “God, I’ll never do this again—ever—if you can just keep me in
time and in tune.”
(Jimmy Smits): The Santana band’s performance, with its innovative use of Afro-Cuban percussion, was
one of the hits of the festival, but it became legendary when the Woodstock movie was released.
(Michael Shrieve, Drummer, Santana Band): So when the movie came out, when Woodstock actually
came out, we went to go to the show, all together, um, with everybody else. It wasn’t a special
screening or anything like that. In fact, we waited in line to buy our tickets. And I remember the
audience from the show before us were coming out and people were pointing at us. Then when we
went in and we saw it…I know we were all blown away. I know I was, completely. I didn’t know whether
to sink down in my seat or stand up and say, “That’s me, that’s me!” You know, like five or six of me up
there on the screen.
(Carlos Santana): I said, “Why did they put a camera on me that made me look like a bug?”
(Michael Shrieve, Drummer, Santana Band): And that just broke us internationally. After that…it was all
over.
(Jimmy Smits): After Woodstock, the band’s Afro-Cuban blues hybrid became an integral part of the
American soundscape. And Latinos in the U.S. had their first popular music superstar, Carlos Santana.
From Cuba to Harlem to the stage at Woodstock, the journey of the music had only just begun.