Tito Puente - The Complete 78's, Vol. 4 (2009)

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Tito Puente - The Complete 78's, Vol. 4 (2009)

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For most producers, the task of compiling Tito Puente’s 78 RPM recordings would pose a daunting challenge. Originally recorded for the Tico label between 1949 and 1955, many of the analog masters don’t exist and the few copies of the rare shellac pressings remain on collectors’ shelves.
But for historian, producer and Puente-phile Joe Conzo, the project was as easy as flipping through a family photo album. With the meticulous care of a librarian, Conzo collected and catalogued every record in Puente’s career, beginning with the master percussionist’s very first 1940 recording. He had already gone through the laborious process of digitizing the old, fragile 78 records, manufactured until the slower-turning (33 1/3 rpm) LP was mass produced in the 1950s.
Now for the first time, the entire set of 156 classic tracks by the King of Latin Music are available on CD as part of the new Fania series, “Tito Puente: The Complete 78s,” Volumes 1 through 4. The collection features many tracks that have not been available commercially for half a century.
For Conzo, a former social worker who became Puente’s friend and self-described “man Friday,” the release of the landmark series marks a personal vindication of sorts. His concern for conserving this cultural treasure even survived his own heroin addiction, which forced him to sell off his original collection. After recovering in the ’60s, he started collecting records all over again, becoming such an expert that even Puente himself consulted Conzo on his own catalog.
He admits that his lifelong devotion to Puente’s music had earned him a reputation as an obsessive fan, always urging friends to check out the collection of 78s in his basement. Now, he hopes others can understand what he’s been so enthused about for so long.
“What’s so important about these 78s?” Conzo asks rhetorically. “They show why Tito is called the King of Latin Music. They show you how he went from a conjunto and how he started to grow, how he became an arranger, how he became a composer, and how he had the best rhythm section in the world. This man was an all-around musician.”
Puente is arguably the most recognized figure in Afro-Caribbean music. He’s certainly among the most prolific, with scores of recordings made during a career that spanned more than six decades until his death in 2000. Yet, despite Puente’s fame and influence, his early recordings were in danger of being forever lost and forgotten. The failure to preserve the masters of the percussionist’s early work spotlights the music industry’s careless, even disgraceful treatment of Latin artists and their legacy.
“I have always taken the view that tropical artists deserve the same level of respect as rock and soul artists have been receiving,” says Dean Rudland, director of A&R at Emusica, which has been carefully restoring the entire Fania catalog. “However until we came along very few were receiving it. Tito is a heritage artist, whose ubiquity often means that his great artistic achievements are overlooked. By involving a lifelong confidant of Puente’s like Joe Conzo, giving him top level packaging and research, I feel that we are rectifying that.”
The new series, organized chronologically, is being issued in a four-volume, double-CD format designed to mirror the recent re-packaging of James Brown singles by Universal Music, notes Rudland. The first three Puente volumes were released last year and the fourth, focusing on cha cha chas of the mid-50s, is due May 12. The compilation features a host of famous collaborators, including singer Vicentico Valdes, pianist Charlie Palmieri and - in what Conzo calls the greatest rhythm section of all time — Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo. Also featured in Vol. 1 is the late timbalero Manny Oquendo, who went on to play with Eddie Palmieri’s la Perfecta and form his own band, the legendary Libre.
Conzo first started work on the compilation after Fania acquired the Tico catalog in the 1970s. He spent days with his 78 collection at La Tierra Sound, Fania’s famed salsa recording studio in New York, making transfers of the music, song by song, with the help of engineer Irving Greenbaum. (Each 78 had only two songs, one per side.) Because the label was so occupied with new releases in those days, Conzo recalls, the project was put on hold. Eventually, even Conzo lost track of the work and his digital transfers were feared lost.
After Emusica revived the project, Rudland located the tapes, unmarked and unnumbered. Some purists have criticized the label for using occasionally scratchy old records as masters, but Conzo notes there was no other choice. At least the music is now available for future generations to hear, and future historians to appreciate.
More than half the tunes in the series have never been available before on LP or CD, including the mambo “Abaniquito,” Puente’s first big hit in 1949. Vol. 2 opens with four rarities featuring the vocal harmonies of the De Castro Sisters. And it closes with four mambos that are the producer’s personal favorites: “Mambo Birdland,” “Mambo City,” “Mambo Mist,” and “Mambo Night.”
But Conzo believes the series works best when enjoyed like a book, from cover to cover.
“Listen very carefully,” he advises. “Sit down, take each volume and say, ‘Wow! Now I know why this guy was the king.’ ”