Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Band bring Cubano bebop to Houston with specialguest Terence Blanchard

Let’s travel back in time to mid-1940s. All over the United States, people are buying and listening to these circular black vinyl objects called "records." Most of the records people are buying are jazz records. At the same time, the conga drum, a drum played with one’s hands, and the rhythms of Cuban music are beginning to have a profound influence on jazz musicians, including the bebop trumpet player and band leader Dizzy Gillespie. Gillespie had dreamed for some time of having a conga player in a big band, not only to introduce Afro-Cuban rhythms that were, in the 1940s, still new to jazz musicians and listeners, but to utilize it as a solo voice in the ensemble.

Arriving in New York City from Havana, Cuba comes Chano Pozo, a man who, in addition being somebody you simply did not want to mess with, is a virtuoso of the conga and a gifted composer. Soon after meeting, Pozo and Gillespie would go on to co-compose and record the very first examples of what we now know as Latin-jazz.

This Saturday, Oct. 15, Da Camera of Houston opens their 2011-12 jazz series with conga master Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Band, featuring Terence Blanchard on trumpet. The concert will feature music from Sanchez and Blanchard’s new CD Chano Y Dizzy, a tribute to the music Pozo and Gillespie created. The CD features fresh arrangements of classics from the '40s. The first track, for instance, is a wild amalgamation of three different compositions by Pozo, as well as more recent and brand new compositions by members of Sanchez’s band, the great Brazilian composer Ivan Lins, Blanchard and others.

Poncho Sanchez took time out to speak to CultureMap about his current project as well as the roots of Latin jazz:

CultureMap: Is it correct to say that with this project, you’re exploring the heritage of this music, but also rearranging it so that it continues to surprise and engage a contemporary audience?

Poncho Sanchez: Well, the opening track is “Chano Pozo Medley: Tin Tin Deo/Manteca/Guachi Guaro.” I’ve recorded all those tunes already…but this time, Francisco Torres, my musical director and trombone player in the band, stepped up to the plate and I told him, “You know, it’d be great if we could do some kind of medley,” and he put those three tunes together and I didn’t realize until Francisco did this arrangement — these three tunes lend themselves perfectly to each other as a medley, and that’s what it’s all about. You gotta keep things fresh and new.

I had never recorded “Con Alma” before, that’s a Dizzy Gillespie classic. Most of the time you hear it as a ballad or a calypso rhythm, but we did it in an Afro-Cuban 6/8 rhythm, and then it ends up being a cha cha cha. So that was a nice twist on “Con Alma.”

So that’s what we try to do. Bring new, fresh ideas to old standards.

CM: Someone who is not familiar with Chano Pozo and those early recordings might, after hearing your recording, go back to them and then say "Oh, wait — I know that bass line. Oh, that’s a different melody.” There’s that joy of discovery, of rediscovering the old music through this project.

PS: Absolutely. That’s the great thing about it. You can go back and research it and say, “Wow. So that’s where this came from!” That’s what I do. I love to go back and research the history of music, of Latin jazz, and I love to pull stuff even from American standards or jazz bebop numbers or Soul music from the sixties and come up with a new idea and do it the Poncho Sanchez Latin-jazz style.

CM: Going back to the groundbreaking collaboration between Chano Pozo and Dizzy Gillespie, what were some of the challenges those two faced in combining their music? I’m talking about musical challenges between an Afro-Cuban musician and guys playing bebop?

PS: There were absolutely some bridges they had to cross. Chano Pozo came from Havana, Cuba as a great conga player, dancer and arranger. He was more of a street person, a “rumbero,” which is what you call a guy who plays the drums in the street. So he would play a lot of guaguancó and rumba patterns that came from the streets of Cuba. And he did not speak English.

We know the great Dizzy Gillespie as a great jazz trumpet player. He came from the bebop world and playing American standards, and he didn’t speak any Spanish. So first of all they had a language problem! But the music cut through that. The love they had for the music and what they knew about music is what helped them through it all.

Right away the problems I heard on the early, early first recording [of their collaboration] is the groove. Because most of the American musicians at that time never really played the mambo patterns or the rumba patterns or the cha cha cha patterns. They didn’t know what that was! Everything was swing jazz to them, you know?

[Sings a swinging rhythm] ONE and-a, TWO and-a, THREE and-a, DEE da-da. That was their kind of groove. And the Cuban musicians were playing the mambo. [Sings a tumbao rhythm] ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR. ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR. So to put those two grooves together — you gotta bend them both a little bit.

And on some of these earlier recordings, you can hear that some of the cats were playing like a jazz number in back of Chano. And Chano is trying to play swing congas but yet trying to play mambo at the same time. So things were bending in those early years. And of course, thank God, they experimented with it. Because here we are today and we know it all definitely fits.

CM: Some people may not realize how experimental and innovative this collaboration was back in the '40s. This had not been done before.

PS: Absolutely. And another point I’d like to bring up is that Latin jazz is mine and yours. If you were born in the United States of America like I was, this is our music. These pioneers put it together in the early '40s when they met each other in New York City. So that makes Latin jazz American music. It’s ours and I’m very proud of that.

CM: Going back to when you were kid, say elementary school or junior high school, how did you learn to play percussion? Was there some kind of music program or music teacher you had access to?

PS: Absolutely not. I’m self-taught. I was born in Laredo, Texas and I moved to Los Angeles, Calif., when I was just a young boy. I’m the youngest of eleven. My older brothers and sisters, they caught the first wave of the mambo and cha cha cha music that came from Cuba, Puerto Rico, New York City to Los Angeles in the early '50s. And they were buying the records of Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo, Joe Cuba, Cal Tjader, Machito, Tito Rodriguez, Tito Puente… I grew up learning by listening to those records. And watching my sisters dance every day in my house. I have six sisters and four brothers.

I knew about the music and the sound of the conga drum, the timbales, the maracas, the guiro, but nobody in my neighborhood knew what this music was. They were into doo-wop music, rhythm and blues — which I also love very much. Actually, I did go to the local music store where they gave guitar lessons, piano lessons, accordion lessons, and I asked the guy if he gave timbale lessons or conga lessons. And the guy had no idea what I was talking about!

So [Latin music] was not really popular in my neighborhood at that time in Los Angeles. But we loved it! So me and my father went to the pawn shop after I’d saved my money for about six months. I had saved enough money to buy one conga drum. And my father bought me the other one. They were both $67 dollars a piece! I got them home and I didn’t really know how to play them. But I could feel it. So I tuned one up high and tuned one down low to get two different tones and I listened to records. And I would look at the back of these album covers and they would show a conga player cupping his hand getting ready to hit the drum.

So I learned by listening to records and looking at pictures of the conga players on the back of the records.

CM: Wow.

PS: Of course, now I’ve advanced where I have my own instructional DVD and books out. But I learned by ear from those old, great records.

CM: Going back to the new project with Terence Blanchard. Are you bringing this project to any venues where people can dance? Because this is music that, well, makes you want to get up and dance!

PS: You know, we just got home from Hong Kong, China and Seoul, Korea. We were just there last week doing two big outdoor music festivals. And the people were dancing everywhere! It was great.

But you know, we’ve played concert halls where people who work in the concert hall have come up to us and said, “You know, Poncho, I’ve been working in this concert hall for 15 years. And I’ve never seen anyone get up out of their seats and dance like that!” So even if they don’t allow dancing, somehow the people end up dancing. IN the aisles or right where they’re standing. This music is absolutely danceable.

CM: You probably will have some people getting up and getting in the aisles and dancing here in Houston.

PS: No problem!

CM: It’s going to be wonderful to hear Terence in the mix as well.

PS: Absolutely. Terence has been doing these tours with us and it’s been working out really well. We’re gonna bring you a taste of New Orleans, a taste of Los Angeles, a taste of New York City, a taste of Havana, Cuba and a taste of Detroit and Chicago, too. We mix up the Latin Soul music, salsa, Latin jazz with the Afro-Cuban Dizzy Gillespie, Chano Pozo stuff.

Cubano Be, Cubano Bop: Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Band, featuring Terence Blanchard on the trumpet, is a celebration of the birth of Afro-Cuban jazz. They perform Oct. 15 at 8:00 p.m. at the Cullen Theater at Wortham Theater Center. Tickets are available at the Da Camera website.