Mar 22, 2008 12:53 pm US/Eastern
Cuban Bass Player Cachao Dies At 89
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
Cuban bassist and composer Israel "Cachao" Lopez,who is credited with pioneering the mambo style of music, died Saturday at age 89, a family spokesman said. Known simply as Cachao, the musician had fallen ill in the past week and died surrounded by family members at Coral Gables Hospital.
Cachao left communist Cuba and came to the United States in the early 1960s. He continued to perform into his late 80s, including a performance after the death of trombonist Generoso Jimenez in September 2007.
Cachao was born in Havana in 1918 to a family full of musicians. He joined the philharmonic orchestra in Havana at age 13. He later wrote hundreds of songs in Cuba for bands and orchestras, many based on the classic Cuban music style known as son.
He and his late brother Orestes are known for the creation in the late 1930s of the mambo, which emerged from their improvisational work with the danzon, an elegant musical style that lends itself to slow dancing. The mambo was embraced early on and several Cuban composers and jazz musicians have tweaked it over the years.
Later, Cachao and his friends began popularizing the descarga ("discharge" in Spanish), a raucous jam session incorporating elements of jazz and Afro-Cuban musical approaches. In the United States, he collaborated with Latin music stars such as Tito Puente, Chico O'Farrill, Eddie Palmieri and Gloria Estefan. Actor Andy Garcia is known as a fan, and he produced two Cachao CDs.
A wake is set for Wednesday, and his burial is Thursday.
― _Rockist__Scientist_, Saturday, 22 March 2008 18:52 (eighteen years ago)
He was very impressive when I saw him in DC some years back. Check out the Ned Sublette quote in this obit:
Legendary Cuban musician 'Cachao' dies at 89
By ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ Miami Herald
Known to the world by his nickname, Cachao, bassist, composer
and bandleader Israel López died Saturday morning at Coral Gables Hospital
of complications resulting from kidney failure. He was 89.
Cachao was, in his last years, the most important living figure
in Cuban music, on or off the island. And according to Cuban-music historian
Ned Sublette he was ''arguably the most important bassist in
twentieth-century popular music,'' innovating not only Cuban music but also
influencing the now familiar bass lines of American R&B, ``which have become
such a part of the environment that we don't even think where they came
from.''
Cachao and his brother Orestes are most widely known for their
late-1930s invention of the mambo, a hot coda to the popular but stately
danzón that allowed the dancers to break loose at the end of a piece.
Typically modest, Cachao always admitted that it was bandleader Dámaso Pérez
Prado who made the beat world famous in the '50s.
A possibly more important move took place in 1957, when Cachao
gathered a group of musicians in the early hours of the morning, pumped from
playing gigs at Havana's popular nightclubs, to jam in front of the mikes of
a recording studio. The resulting descargas, known to music aficionados
worldwide as Cuban jam sessions, revolutionized Afro-Cuban popular music.
Under Cachao's direction, these masters improvised freely in the manner of
jazz, but their vocabulary was Cuba's popular music. This was the model that
wold make live performances of Afro-Cuban based genres, from salsa to Latin
jazz, so incredibly hot.
This majestic influence came from a man of sweet demeanor and
unassailable sense of humor. Fronting his band at a fancy dance in Coral
Gables when he was already in his late 80s, he seemed so frail he had to
lean his whole body on the contrabass to keep from falling. But a look at
his beatific smile proved that he was in heaven already, embracing his
instrument like a lover, like a strong friend.
Still, he no longer owned a bass.
''That's outrageous,'' said jazz legend Charlie Haden when he
heard this. ``I'll give him one of mine.''
But a contrabass took up too much room in his small Coral Gables
apartment. Besides, what need did he have to rehearse? Cachao carried his
bass, his music, inside him.
A marvel of the 20th century, Cachao was born into a family of
musicians, many of them bassists -- around 40 and counting in his extended
family.
As an 8-year-old bongo player, he joined a children's septet
that included a future famous singer and bandleader, Roberto Faz. A year
later, already on bass, he provided music for silent movies in his
neighborhood theater, in the company of a pianist who would become a true
superstar, the great cabaret performer Ignacio Villa, known as Bola de
Nieve.
His parents made sure he was classically trained, first at home
and then at a conservatory. In his early teens he was already playing
contrabass with the Orquesta Filarmónica de La Habana, under the baton of
guest conductors like Herbert von Karajan, Igor Stravinsky and Heitor
Villa-Lobos.
After a rich musical career in his home country, he joined his
fellow exiles in 1962, eventually landing in Las Vegas because, as he
admitted, ``I was a compulsive gambler.''
Though cured later in life, he nearly gambled away every penny
until his wife whisked him away from the town.
For a while, he had two distinct musical personae. In the New
York salsa scene he was revered as a music god, with homage concerts
dedicated to him, and records of his music produced by Cuban-music collector
René López. In Miami, he was an ordinary working musician who would play
quinceañeras and weddings, or back dance bands in the notorious Latin
nightclubs of the Miami Vice era.
It took a celebrity, Miami's own Andy García, to integrate his
musical personality into one: that of a legendary master. In the '90s,
García produced the recordings known as Master Sessions and big concerts
honoring his legacy. Since then, Cachao became again a household word among
Cubans and his reputation continued to grow.
But he remained a working musician, though now at a much higher
level of appreciation. Cachao continued to perform and record with all the
energy of a much younger artist. Though visibly moved at the funeral of his
fellow legend, trombonist Generoso Jiménez, in September 2007, he headlined
a rollicking concert in Miami a week later.
On March 9 of this year, days before being hospitalized, the
multiple Grammy winner was in the Dominican Republic receiving a lifetime
achievement award. Cachao was planning an European tour in August with
violinist Federico Britos, with whom he frequently collaborated.
The day before his death, Cachao told his friend Britos, ''When
am I supposed to record with you again? I have to get out of bed.'' And he
was in pre-production for a CD of new compositions.
''It was not only a great musician who died,'' said producer
Emilio Estefan, ``but a great señor -- a gentleman. Even in his deathbed he
would make sure his visitors felt at ease. He belonged to the people.''
Cachao, whose wife of 58 years, Ester Buenaventura López, died
in 2004, is survived by their daughter María Elena López and grandson Hector
Luis Vega, as well as nephew Daniel Palacio, who cared for the musician.
Funeral arrangements will be announced this Saturday.
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 22 March 2008 21:50 (eighteen years ago)