Music Lessons
The road was dotted for miles by various one up to three or four story buildings as it cut through the towns of Dorado, Vega Alta and Manati. Some of the buildings were constructed with make shift tin roofs, others all cement and firmly rooted, others dilapidated, a few modern with large windows and fancy looking signs. The signs along the road told the stories of the negocios: Conejo Muffler, Panedarias (bakeries), Ferreteria Jaime (Jamie’s Hardware), Farmacias, Tienda de Botas (wedding shops), Also dotting the road to direct and welcome the hungry were the cheerful signs of the small restaurants and food stands serving local fare. For Eddie, Hugh, and me, hungry adventurers that we were that night, we skipped the local fare in favor of the exotic late night repast of oily but damn good pizza. There in that shop, an open air stand lit by exposed bulbs on a string above the picnic like table, the soundtrack of cars speeding by the road mixed with crickets and coquis, in spite of the quasi industrial feel of the locale, the ambiance still one of immersion in the countryside vibe, the dark hiding the hills beyond on the south side of the road, and fields and valleys on the north, as I sat with Eddie and Hugh, I could feel some major chemistry, something abrew; I knew we had a band, it just lay before us, and we hadn’t yet played a note.
The notes (and rhythms) came easy and natural, but were also continuously surprising and delightful. Our first rehearsals were constant discovery, the sound at the cement company studio tight and warm, the collective sound percolating. We added a percussionist Randy, and later Tito Colon, who became a life-long friend – his English at the time a bit slow, complaining from the back seat on a car trip with Hugh and me talking too fast, “Yo existo!” Tito – never forgotten! And we played music that made us laugh (Eddie especially – his giggles often echoing in sync to the tempo), and gasp, and feel exhilarated seeking that slight improvement, that little thing, that little part that matters a great deal, and is recognized by your bandmates, and annunciated with shared breaths of approval. And it seemed that, with the intensity of the playing and musical connection, we were answering the call of my esteemed teacher Joe Manieri for that hard to find love line. But here, no longer so elusive.
The music we made was driven by the clave, the inner heartbeat of the Latin pulse, and now that Eddie was joined by a compatriot percussionist (mainly playing conga), the core groove took on a greater strength and dimension, undeniable – like the experience of the living beast I had witnessed that revelatory night seeing Mongo Santamaria at the Village Gate. And Hugh’s bass lines rocked underneath, his no holds barred Mingus approach focused into the heart of the Caribbean, matching the strength of the machismo of the drum groove. In my first stay in Puerto Rico, on one of my first experiences playing salsa with Puerto Rican musicians, the bass player looked my way and in a terse almost throw away line said “toca ma’(s) macho” (play more macho) – one of the best lessons (certainly the shortest) I’ve had playing Afro-Cuban music. So from my end, it was about digging deep into the grooves, playing with authority and making the whole that much larger with the weaving montuno lines, chord stabs, and expanding the sonic world via harmonic invention and tonal creations.
The music was muscular but not short on tenderness and subtlety; we were pulling out all our stops, bringing everything to bear, our Miles Davis influences, Bill Evans, rock sentiment, classical sweetness, all of it. Back on the rhythm front, Eddie’s clave obsession was not limited to the standard four beats to a measure. He had an idea to transform the the 3-2 clave (the Bo Diddley beat) by simply taking out the last beat of the second measure – the result, a 7/4 clave that was easy to feel, and catchy as catch can be. /*’’*’’*’/’’*’*’/ (asterisks represent the struck beats, the ‘ represents a rest note..) Somewhere along the way we managed to meld this groove with Wayne Shorter’s composition Nefertiti, a piece filled with a majestic chord sequence, obscure yet sensical, supporting a slow weaving melody – long lines that let the rhythm flow underneath. The mix of this long mellifluous cry with the 7/4 rhythm was magical. This piece became a sort of theme song for our band, a statement of our journey, and a theme that would roar and soar through my head in a later magical side trip along this journey.