Charlie Rodrigues

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Charlie "El Gato" Rodrigues (* in Massachusetts ) is a Puerto Rican jazz musician ( saxophone , clarinet , bass and vibraphone ) and band leader .

Rodrigues was born in Massachusetts to Portuguese immigrants. He studied music at the Boston Conservatory of Music and the Naval Musical Academy . In 1949 he came to Puerto Rico for the first time as a member of the Special Services Division of the United States Navy . He later returned to marry a Puerto Rican woman and live there permanently, and performed with the island's leading bands. In the mid-1950s, together with the pianist Luisito Benjamin, he was the leading modern jazz musician on Puerto Rico, where jazz was only slowly gaining in importance, also in connection with the American soldiers stationed there. Native Puerto Ricans preferred dance music with clave rhythm and singing. Musicians in Puerto Rico, however, liked jazz as the freer alternative to the then highly commercialized Latin American dance music. The rise of jazz in the early 1960s was partly a result of the failure of Havana by the Cuban Revolution , which is why American entertainers moved to Puerto Rico. In April 1962, Rodrigues founded The Puerto Rico Jazz Workshop with trombonist (also French horn ) Dave Wells (or Dale Wells). According to the Billboard of October 12, 1963 (p. 32), this was the largest regular jazz event in Puerto Rico and met once a month. With this and the resulting television series The Jazz Workshop , he became the initiator of interest in jazz music in Puerto Rico. The program was broadcast on state television. Another protagonist in the 1960s was the pianist Paul Neves with his Caribbean Jazz Workshop .

literature

  • Warren Pinckney: Puerto Rican Jazz and the Incorporation of Folk Music: An Analysis of New Musical Direction. In: Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana, Volume 10, No. 2, Fall / Winter 1989, pp. 236-266.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical information after the entry in Discogs, see web links
  2. ^ Warren Pinckney, Latin American Music Review, Volume 10, 1989, p. 238
  3. ^ Warren Pinckney, 1989, p. 239.
  4. ↑ Dave Wells from Billboard, but also cited from Dale Wells. Humberto Ramirez: La historia de The San Juan Jazz Workshop , 2013
personal data
SURNAME Rodrigues, Charlie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES El Gato (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Puerto Rican jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Massachusetts