Q&A with Latin jazz leader Eddie Palmieri

Eddie Palmieri cut his teeth-pounding keyboards with jazz greats during New York City’s salad days of Latin dance-hall music in the '50s and '60s. But a center stage seat didn’t keep him from developing a historian’s eye for the same music he helped put on the map.

“The evolution of Latin music is one of the most incredible, interesting stories of a musical genre that you could ever find in my opinion,” he said.

Performing with Tito Puente, Tito Rodriquez and his older brother, Charlie Palmieri, Eddie crystallized his own sound with the band, La Perfecta, that he put together in 1961. The nine-time Grammy winner will bring a revival of that period to the stage of the Rialto with La Perfecta II this Saturday.

Q: Your parents were born in Puerto Rico, so why do you say that Cuba’s music is the base you never veer from?

A: Cuban music was the one that I analyzed constantly. Puerto Rico has its folkloric and plena, but Cuba really got the world to dance. The bolero, the rumba, mambo, cha cha cha — all these rhythmical patterns came from Cuba. It formed my sense.

Q: Can you talk about the early years, playing the Palladium Ballroom in New York?

A: The ’50s and ’60s were very exciting years. You had great movie actors who would come to dance like Marlon Brando and Kim Novak.

I started playing the Palladium in 1956. ... Then in 1963, I started to play with my own orchestra ... until it closed in 1966, unfortunately for the music at that time, because it was really the greatest dance hall that you would ever want to see, ever, ever.

Q: What are some of your fondest memories of those times?

A: My brother and I were separated by nine years, so when I was 11 he was already playing with Tito Puente. My brother took me to the Palladium to see Tito Puente when I was 15.

I spotted my future wife and she didn’t even know who I was. I just looked at her, totally freaked out. What a beautiful woman! She loved to go dance and she was so hip on jazz. ... I’ll never forget that was the first time I ever saw her.

Q: La Perfecta became known as “the band with the crazy roaring elephants” for your use of trombones instead of trumpets. What inspired you to switch things up like that?

A: It was an economical move (laughs). I wanted the trumpets. I wanted the conjunto (a traditional Cuban ensemble) with three, four trumpets. And it was very difficult to get the trumpet players at that time because they went to the ... bands that had the best gigs. ...

But one day I had enough money to pay a flute and trombone player at the same time, and then I realized I had a complete, different sound, and that made my signature. People knew it was Eddie Palmieri.

Q: Percussion is such a big part of Latin music. How can one instrument set a genre apart?

A: Africans brought to Cuba by force used drums for religious ceremonies. In the Caribbean, there were ordinances against the drum, but they were allowed. But in the U.S., they weren’t allowed to bring their drums for fear [slaves] would use them to communicate and revolt. So the working of the plantations here gave birth to the vocal blues, which gave way to traditional blues.

Latin jazz brought the rhythmical patterns that are the most complex and exciting in the world to America. American jazz players, because the drum didn't grow up here, freaked out and found it intriguing to superimpose [Caribbean percussion] on their genre. They saw that the power of one percussionist could change the whole characteristics of an orchestra. When Dizzy Gillespie met Chano Pozo, he said, "Chano didn’t speak English, and I didn’t speak Spanish, but we both spoke African".