Chano Pozo

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Luciano "Chano" Pozo y Gonzales (born January 7, 1915 in Havana , † December 2, 1948 in New York City ) was a singer, dancer and percussionist . He is an important pioneer of Latin jazz .

Live and act

Pozo had studied West African rhythms from an early age and belonged to a secret society, the Abakwa cult, which cultivated Nigerian traditions . Pozo was already a successful musician in Cuba, whose band Conjunto Azul was very well known and accompanied by his friend, singer Rita Montaner . As a dancer he was one of the first members of the first Tropicana shows. In 1940 he and fellow musicians won first prize at the Carnival of Santiago de Cuba with La Comparsa de los Dandys - and his clothes were dandy-like too. In 1946 he came to New York through Mario Bauzá , the arranger in the band of his brother-in-law Machito , with whom Pozo was also closely connected, to initially play with Machito and Miguelito Valdés. Through Bauza's mediation, Chano Pozo came to Dizzy Gillespie in 1947 ; this merged his conga and bongo playing and thus the Afro-Cuban roots of jazz with bebop as cubop , with pieces such as Cubana Be Cubana Bop , Tin Tin Deo , Manteca (Pozo wrote the compositions with other musicians). Other compositions by him were Blen, blen, blen, Nague, El Pin Pin, Llora Serende and Rumba en Swing .

The choleric Pozo was shot on his back in the Rio Cafe in Harlem while he was dancing rumba to his manteca from the jukebox. The perpetrator was the Puerto Rican ex-US Army corporal (and marijuana dealer) Eusebio Munoz, who served for 5 years (since he was a World War II veteran, he received extenuating circumstances). The likely motive was that Munoz was offended that Pozo had previously complained about the quality of the marijuana he bought, refused to pay for it and was brutalized against him. $ 25,000 was found in dead Pozo's shoes. Pozo had previously been wounded in several shootings. Pozo, who should not be confused with his cousin Chino Pozo , was buried in the Colon cemetery in Havana.

Pozo has recorded with Machito , the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band , George Russell , James Moody , Milt Jackson , Arsenio Rodríguez and Tadd Dameron . According to Joachim Ernst Berendt , Pozo's “rhythmic power” becomes clear in the fact that in later years Gillespie “often brought in several Latin American percussionists at the same time and never again achieved the effects that his big band achieved with Pozo alone.”

His grandson Joaquín Pozo , who lives in Havana , also plays congas.

Web links

Lexical entries

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Joachim E. Berendt The Great Jazz Book. From New Orleans to Jazz Rock. Frankfurt, S. Fischer 1983, p. 347, Jürgen Wölfer Lexikon des Jazz . His grandparents were from Nigeria
  2. ^ In Berendt's jazz book (1953 edition) there is still talk of a submachine gun salvo, which was preceded by several unsuccessful attacks. Berendt suspects ( jazz book edition 1983) as a motive his membership in the mentioned cult, whose secret rhythms he carried into the public and thereby desecrated.
  3. ↑ Berendt The Great Jazz Book. 1983, p. 347
personal data
SURNAME Pozo, Chano
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pozo y Gonzales, Luciano
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban singer and percussionist
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Havana
DATE OF DEATH December 2, 1948
Place of death New York City