The avant-garde musician Eddie Palmieri, who was among the most inventive rumba and Latin jazz performers, has away. He was eighty-eight.
Palmieri’s passing was reported by Fania Records on Wednesday night. Gabriel, Palmieri’s daughter, informed The New York Times that her father passed away earlier that day at his New Jersey home following a protracted illness.
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Over the course of a career that included almost 40 recordings, the pianist, composer, and bandleader became the first Latino to receive a Grammy Award and went on to win seven more.
At a time when music was viewed as a means of escape from the ghetto, Palmieri was born on December 15, 1936, in Spanish Harlem, New York. Like his well-known brother Charlie Palmieri, he started learning the piano at a young age. However, at the age of 13, he started playing timbales in his uncle’s orchestra because he was so drawn to the drums.
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After a while, he stopped playing the instrument and returned to the piano.
According to the musician’s online biography, “I take it out on the piano because I’m a frustrated percussionist.”
He continued to release music into his 80s, performing livestreams during the coronavirus outbreak, and won his first Grammy in 1975 for the album The Sun of Latin Music.
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He answered with his typical modesty and sense of humor when asked whether he had any major tasks left to do in an interview with The Associated Press in 2011: Getting better at playing the piano. Playing the piano is one thing. Another is playing the piano.
As a pianist with the Eddie Forrester Orchestra in the 1950s, Palmieri experimented with tropical music. After joining the bands of Johnny Segu and Tito Rodriguez, he formed La Perfecta in 1961 with singer Ismael Quintana and trombonist Barry Rogers.
Not often heard in Latin music, La Perfecta was the first to use a trombone section in place of trumpets. The band immediately became part of the ranks of Machito, Tito Rodriguez, and other Latin orchestras of the era because to its distinctive sound.
With his brother Charlie serving as a guest organist, Palmieri released a number of recordings on the Alegre and Tico Records labels, including the iconic V monos pa l monte from 1971. In 1988, Charlie Palmieri passed away.
The publication of Harlem River Drive that year, in which Eddie combined Black and Latin genres to create a sound that included parts of salsa, funk, soul, and jazz, would further startle reviewers and fans with his unorthodox approach.
Later, in 1974, he and a teenage Lalo Rodriguez released The Sun of Latin Music. The record won a Grammy, making it the first Latin creation to do so.
Many admirers view his 1975 album Eddie Palmieri & Friends in Concert, Live at the University of Puerto Rico as a salsa treasure.
He received two additional Grammy Awards in the 1980s for the albums Solito (1985) and Palo pa rumba (1984).
With the creation of Lleg La India v an Eddie Palmieri in 1992, he brought the vocalist La India to the salsa scene. He had previously recorded salsa singer Tony Vega for the album La verdad in 1987.
He once again explored the furious salsa that has always defined him in his 1998 album El rumbero del piano.
In 2000, Palmieri collaborated with Tito Puente, who passed away that same year, on the album Masterpiece. It received two Grammy Awards and was well received by critics. The National Foundation for Popular Culture of Puerto Rico also selected the album as the year’s most excellent creation.
He distinguished himself as a composer, arranger, producer, and orchestra director during his lengthy career, which included performances and recordings with the Fania All-Stars and Tico All-Stars.
Two of Palmieri’s concerts were recorded by the Smithsonian Institute in 1988 for the National Museum of American History’s catalog in Washington.
In 2002, he received the Chubb Fellowship Award from Yale University, which is often given to heads of state from throughout the world, for his efforts to use music to foster community.
He made his National Public Radio debut in 2005 as the host of the Caliente program, which was broadcast on over 160 radio stations across the country.
He collaborated with well-known musicians such Puerto Rican bassist Bobby Valent, trumpeter Alfredo Chocolate Armenteros, trombonist Lewis Khan, timbalero Nicky Marrero, and bassist Israel Cachao L. Pez.
Palmieri claimed in 2010 that the passing of several of the rumberos he loved to perform with left him feeling a little musically alone.
He traveled to North Africa, Australia, Asia, and Europe, among other locations, as a musical ambassador, introducing salsa and Latin jazz.
