Billo Frómeta

Luis María "Billo" Frómeta Pereira (born November 15, 1915 in Santo Domingo , † May 5, 1988 in Caracas ) was a Dominican musician, composer and orchestra director.

Life

Frómeta grew up in San Francisco de Macorís , where he studied composition and solfège with Sixto Brea , harmony and composition with Rafael Pimentel, and clarinet and saxophone with Oguis Negrete . His friendship with the pianist Simón Damirón and the band leader Rafael Minaya dated from this time . At the age of 15 he founded the Banda del Cuerpo de Bomberos de Ciudad Trujillo .

In 1933 he went to Santo Domingo, where he gave guitar lessons and played the saxophone in a theater orchestra. At the suggestion of the violinist Freddy Coronado , he founded the group Conjunto Tropical . With the engineering students Damirón and Coronado and Negrito Chapuseaux , who studied medicine at the same time, Frómeta founded the Santo Domingo Jazz Band , which Damirón led himself after he emigrated to Puerto Rico. For three years he gave up his musical activities because of his medical studies.

In 1937 Frómeta traveled to Venezuela with the Santo Domingo Jazz Band , where they made their debut in Caravas under the name Billo's Happy Boys . Until it broke up in 1939, the band performed here regularly at the Roof Garden . In 1940 he founded the Billo's Caracas Boys , among whose founding members a. a. Kuroky Sánchez , Freddy Coronado and César Espín belonged to. The orchestra worked with musicians such as Luis Alfonzo Larrain , Pedro J. Belisario , Aldemaro Romero , Chucho Sanoja , Rafael Minaya and Dámaso Pérez Prado . From 1945 to 1957 the orchestra appeared on Radio Caracas' program A gozar muchachos . In 1954, La Revista de Billo was shown on Venezuelan television. After the fall of the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1958, Frómeta was banned from performing on charges of having been a supporter of the regime.

He then went to Cuba and led an orchestra with Cuban musicians in Havana. Recordings were made with the singers Víctor Piñeyro , Alberto Beltrán , Carlos Díaz and Pío Leyva . After his performance ban was lifted, Frómete returned to Caracas in 1960. With his newly founded orchestra, he worked with singers such as Felipe Pirela , José Luis Rodríguez (El Puma), Cheo García and Memo Morales .

During the preparations for a concert that the Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela was to give in 1988 on the occasion of its fiftieth stage anniversary at the Teatro Teresa Carreño , Frómeta suffered a stroke, which he died a few days later.

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personal data
SURNAME	Frómeta, Billo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Frómeta Pereira, Luis María (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Dominican musician, composer and orchestra leader
DATE OF BIRTH	November 15, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH	Santo Domingo
DATE OF DEATH	May 5, 1988
Place of death	Caracas