Eddie Pamieri in Chicago, Illinois, June 27, 2016. – Credit: Paul Natkin / Getty Images
Eddie Palmeri, the virtuoso keyboardist and visionary conductor who helped to define and then extended the aesthetic parameters of the salsa genre, died at the age of 88. His death was confirmed by her daughter, Gabriela Palmieri, who said The New York Times He died following “prolonged disease”.
Radical experimentalist who nevertheless remained faithful to the roots of Afro-Caribbean dance formats and their ability to stir the body and the soul, Palmieri has created what is undoubtedly the most monumental discography of tropical music. From his legendary Perfecta group, the Zesty beginnings in 1962, he explored salsa, Latin jazz and boogaloo – generously borrow from classical music, Psychedelia and Funk, Acid -Rock and Boricua Folk. Its 1974 session The Latin music sun was the first album to win a Grammy Award in the best category of Latin recording.
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Born in New York of Puerto Rican parents in 1936, Palmieri was influenced by his older brother Charlie, pianist and conductor whom he has always called “the real king of the keyboards”. The brothers would develop parallel careers during the 1960s and 70s. But while Charlie favored a more traditional salsa brand, Eddie presented her rebel trends for adolescence. For a while, he dropped the piano and became a timpani player, only to return to the keyboards after being tired to wear his drums around the Tropical Club circuit in New York. Before training his own group, he was also shaped by the flashy dress style of the Puerto Rican Crooner Tito Rodríguez – a major star of the Mambo era of the 1950s – which he accompanied on the piano.
Palmieri impulsive, Palmieri has changed his sound, orchestrating the style and the session players throughout his career. He was also clever in his ability to transform the practical limits of time into his favor. Perfecta began as a daring Afro-Cuban together With four trumpets, until the budgetary limitations inspired her to replace the trumpets with the double trombone range of Barry Rogers and Jose Rodrigues. Known as a thrombankThis format revolutionized New York salsa in the 1960s. The booming riffs of the trombones left space for the rhythmic section – including a solid and solid manny, to breathe freely. Perfecta quickly became known as one of the most grumpy orchestras of the time. This helped that the Palmeri directory was filled with self-written sheets, simmering assembly From “coffee” to noisy Guarantee of “Muñeca”. Palmieri also had the right judgment to use one of the most inspired singers of his time as a singer of the Perfecta: Ismael Quintana, whom he met during a hearing.
If the first four albums of Palmeri gave the fans of salsa a taste of his sound revolution, 1965 Pa `sugar I found it in total order of his job. He opened with the solemn bolero “Sólo Pensar en Ti”, then caught fire at the end of the side A with “Azúcar”, an epic of nine minutes of reckless salsa and one of the unequivocal hymns of the genre. Palmieri had “Azúcar” tests led to the test during his live concerts in the Palladium nightclub, and supported the fact that he was particularly popular with black dancers. Information that he was to the same extent by the roots of jazz and Latin, it was natural that he finds a way to merge black and Latin dance music, confirming New York as a cultural epicenter of the time. In Salsa Lore, “Azúcar” is widely recognized as the first tropical track where the piano is held at a pace Tumba With one hand while playing a melodic solo with the other.
Like Tito Puente, Palmieri had the talent to incorporate the trends that emerged around him. But while Puente was happy to digest new styles and play them with authority, Palmieri tended to assimilate and overthrow them. When Boogaloo fashion threatened to go bankrupt the old guard of New York in the late 1960s, he joined the Pancho Cristal producer and recorded the years 1968 Champagne – Probably the best Boogaloo record of all time – for the Tico label. Surrounded by Quintana, drummer Joe Cuba, singer Cheo Feliciano and Cuban Master Cachao on the lower right, Champagne was a commercial and artistic triumph. This has also proven that Palmieri’s vision could prosper anywhere, whatever the generational context.
At that time, he struck a sympathetic collaboration with American Vibist Cal Tjader, recording two albums together – The new sound For verve and Garbage can For Tico – which presented a more refined sensitivity. While Rock ‘N’ Roll spent most of the 1970s to expand its scope on an unlimited existential search, Palmieri followed a similar path. It was the decade of his greatest experiences: in the 1970s OverlapHe inflated the Arsenio Rodríguez “pa’huele” lascivious standard with a tight arrangement and a bad and dissonant solo which posed salsa as a mature field for a progressive expansion. A year later, Let’s go upWith Eddie joined by the older brother Charlie on organ, offered a return to the countryside as part of his ongoing socio-political awakening.
The Latin music sun marked a complete reinvention: the new label (Harvey Averne’s Coco Records), new main singer (Future romantic sauce Star Lalo Rodríguez), a long 15 -minute track (“A Beautiful Day”), a quote from the Beatles’ Abbey Road As majestic ContradicationAnd the violin of Alfredo de la Fe on the opening scorcher “Nada de Ti”. Released on Epic in 1978 Lucumi, Macumba, Voodoo Immersed even deeper into the Afro-Caribbean avant-garde. It was a sales failure, but Palmieri rebounded in 1981 with an eponymous LP known as “El álbum Blanco”. A masterpiece of symphonic salsa, he opened with Cheo Feliciano surrounding an ardent tropical reading of the moldy tango “el día que me quieras”.
The 80s were relatively silent for Palmieri. In 1992, he passed the first album of the Diva by Puerto Rican the India, then, suddenly, withdrew into Latin jazz. In concert, he would open most of the songs with a long solo improvisation, growled and grimacing, sometimes confusing his audience with obscure models and esoteric harmonic transitions.
After having recorded a strangely disappointing session with Tito Puente – 2000 Masterpiece – Palmieri returned with a concept which, on paper at least, seemed to be intended for failure: to revisit her first repertoire Perfecta with the old school Sonero Hermán Olivera, longer songs and a larger group. But connect with the successes of your youth had an energizing effect because both In Perfect II (2002) and Hot rhythm (2003) showed the world what a 66 -year -old maestro could look like: the extended piano solo on the revision of “Lázaro y su micrófono” is lyrical and incisive. “Y así se toca, boncó”, the choir sings after the trombone riffs on the bridge killed the house. “This is how this music is played, brother. At this stage, Palmieri seemed to underline the paradox of the genus salsa: music intended for dance and entertainment, but which, at the same time, enjoys a privileged point of view when it comes to expressing important truths on plurality and love, justice and philosophy.
In 2014, Palmieri underwent the loss of Iraida, his wife over 60 years old. The sorrow did not hamper his creativity, and in 2018, he published a beautiful tribute to their love story, My major lightWith invited spots by Carlos Santana and Gilberto Santa Rosa, including a blank Big Band blanket from “Sun Sun Babaé”.
Known for his relentless positivity, his infectious laughter and his eloquent speeches – in English and Spanish – about unlocking the secrets of the Afro -Caribbean shade, Palmieri was the last of the giants of the Salsa of the Golden era of the genre. He leaves behind a Byzantine body that would take decades to decipher and absorb. In his hands, Latin music has become unpredictable and a little more dangerous.
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