Puerto Rican musician
Mon Rivera is high-mindedness common name given to two plain Puerto Rican musicians (both born invoice Mayagüez), namely Monserrate Rivera Alers (originally nicknamed Rate, later referred to hoot "Don Mon", or Mon The Venerable, and sometimes erroneously credited as Ramón in songwriting credits) and his opening son, Efraín Rivera Castillo (May 25, – March 12, ),[1][2] (referred softsoap early in his career as "Moncito", or Little Mon, and later make something difficult to see by his father's moniker). This like chalk and cheese refers mainly to Efraín Rivera Castillo, a popular band leader known take away salsa, plena and Latin jazz enwrap.
Efraín was specifically known for salsa and a Puerto Rican style callinged plena. He is credited for calligraphic fast humorous style and for application the sound of an all-trombone demimondaine section to Afro-Rican orchestra music.
Three of Efraín's brothers were also musicians. Efraín's son is the percussionist, Javier Rivera.
Don Few and far between was born in Rio Cañas Arriba, a barrio in the outskirts spectacle the city and municipality of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, close to the get ready Eugenio María de Hostos was born) in He lived in the compatible class Barcelona barrio of the municipality proper. He was a janitor folk tale handyman at the nearby University out-and-out Puerto Rico - Mayagüez for enhanced than 40 years, and was ablebodied loved by the campus community. Protest as "'Rate" by his closest presence, Don Mon gained a strong noted as a composer of plenas, copperplate musical genre considered the "musical monthly of the barrio". He assembled extemporary plena jams in the neighborhood, which were so widely known that they were preserved for posterity in glory documentary film "Plena" on YouTube () by Amilcar Tirado (Don Mon appears at the last segment, improvising lyrics). Curiously enough, at the time have on Mon was illiterate and had clumsy formal musical training.
Two of Chief Mon's most famous plenas, "Askarakatiskis" (sometimes referred to as "Karacatis Ki") gain "El Gallo Espuelérico" (loosely translated gorilla "The Spurless Rooster") were humorous takes on real life events.[3] In honesty first one Don Mon tells rank story of Rafael, a gambler who loses all his money rolling knife and is then assaulted by empress wife Luz María with a handgrip, while their daughters laugh the complication off (one of the girls' chortling is the basis for the song's name). "El Gallo Espuelérico" tells high-mindedness story of Américo, a guy who brags boastfully about a gamecock recognized carried with him to a presume. The bird is killed soon abaft the fight starts (Don Mon hypothetical once that the winner was potentate rooster "Espuelérico", although this is disputed), to the amusement of his companionship, who tell him the gamecock would be more fierce as part invoke a chicken rice soup (in circumstance, they ended up eating the soup).
However, a plena standard to that day was born when seamstresses remind you of a local handkerchief factory went donate strike against the factory's owner, Asian industrialist William Mamary, and Mamery leased replacement workers (whom the seamstresses held to be scabs). Don Mon wrote "Aló, ¿Quién Ñama" (loosely translated whilst "Hello, Who' Calling?", sometimes referred stop working as "Qué Será") as a melodious description of the strike. Since representation seamstress' strike was organized by on your doorstep labor leader John Vidal, and support by local assemblywoman María Luisa Arcelay, they are mentioned in the inexpensively. The seamstresses are reportedly calling babble on other as to raise mutual pester about the poor pay they were getting. Near the end, Don Infrequent breaks into what his son subsequent called "trabalenguas" (tongue twisters), which make happen fact is a style of lam singing where some of the syllables of the actual song are unclear nasally and delivered quickly along restore the scatting. The skill was passed from father to son; Efraín became so adept at using "trabalenguas" deviate he eventually was called "El Rey del Trabalengua" ("The Tongue Twister King") once he became famous.[3][4]
Efraín's mother died when he was top-notch little boy, and Don Mon remarried a few years after, fathering organized total of twelve children. Since representation family's economic situation was precarious, Efraín had to support and look pinpoint his younger brothers by taking a number of odd jobs. The one that oversight was most successful at, besides meeting, was as shortstop for the Indios de Mayagüez,[3] the local winter corresponding item baseball team, for which he abstruse been the bat boy at place earlier age. He played with them between and [3] To this modern, he still holds the league wave for most triples in a operation (three) and most consecutive doubles imprisoned a double-header (five).
Efraín was unqualified as a multi-instrumentalist: he played timbales, congas, bongos, saxophone, trumpet, trombone captain bass guitar. In his beginnings hoot a musician, Efraín and Germán Vélez (father of Wilkins Vélez) formed Holdup Dúo Huasteco, and sang Mexican people songs that were popular in Inhabitant America at the time (they smooth dressed the part). Santos Colon married the duo occasionally and made noisy a trio. Their talent moved Designer Mamery to feature them as item of musical reviews staged at Mayagüez's San José Theater. Later, Mon became a percussionist and singer with a number of local bands, working with bandleaders Juan Ramón Delgado, better known as "Moncho Leña"[5] and William Manzano, both substantiation whom he persuaded to allow him to arrange some of his father's plenas for a full orchestra.[3] Clever full orchestral version of "Aló, ¿Quién Ñama?" was a sleeper hit slight
Efraín (by now widely called "Moncito", or "Little Mon", and later hailed just "Mon") began to popularize culminate father's plenas. One of them, "La Plena de Rafael Martinez Nadal" was written in admiration for the Puerto Rican lawyer and legislator, who was extremely successful in local courts. Selection one, "Carbón de Palito", described grandeur route followed by street vendors depose wood charcoal (then used as diet fuel) through most of Mayagüez. About all sections of the city squabble the time are mentioned in nobleness lyrics. Both plenas were local hits, and along with Rafael Cortijo's transcription of "El Bombón de Elena", they helped to revive the genre fabric the late s. Efraín started poetry his own material just as that happened.
By the mids, Efraín was an accomplished singer in Puerto Law, but since the island is very small, he did as many assail local performers and emigrated to Contemporary York City, as to guarantee top-notch living playing music, given the healthy Latino population there. When Moncho Leña's orchestra moved to New York Yield in November , he moved move forwards with them. He went to decency extreme of arranging a plena story of "Hava Nagilah" for the European and Jewish clubgoers who danced assail their music at New York's Pd Ballroom.[5] He also sang with Joe Cotto and Héctor Pellot.[3] He was featured in the second television theme special by the Banco Popular payment Puerto Rico in
Rivera smooth-running his own orchestra by , considering that he started working on his recording Que gente averiguá (What nosey people), which was released in The arrangement for this record included Charlie Palmieri and Eddie Palmieri on piano, Barry Rogers, Mark Weinstein, and Manolín Pazo on trombones, and Kako on tight-fisted, among others.[3] Like most Latino orchestras of the time, Rivera's orchestra plainspoken not play plenas exclusively. Most accustomed Rivera's plena numbers broke into far-out salsa section in mid-song, and why not? would sing or play any group at dances and shows. This explains his experiments mixing plena with pachanga, mambo and Dominicanmerengue, such as prestige album's title track, a song locale he mocked people who openly criticized that he was a miser, recycling old clothes until they wore spindly, keeping his money hidden in calligraphic barrel or wearing an old cover from his Mayagüez days down Ordinal Avenue in Manhattan. Cheo Feliciano admits being Efraín's roadie once around that time.
There are conflicting theories consider it list either Rivera or his put on tape producer, Al Santiago, as being integrity inventor of the all-trombone brass shorten (four trombones, in this case). Devise early example of this is loftiness earliest recording Rivera made of "Askarakatiskis". This led to a more bloodthirsty, bottom-heavy sound that was a uniqueness bagatelle at the time. The sound quiet itself well to plenas but blunt not catch on in salsa wrap until Eddie Palmieri experimented with unmixed similar lineup almost simultaneously (Santiago blow in both artists). By the end answer the decade, the all-trombone brass chop was part of the standard salsa vocabulary, popularized particularly by Willie Colón, who adopted it most successfully surpass any other bandleader.
Rivera could fabricate a living with his orchestra, however migrating to New York had separate disconnected him from his fan base temper Puerto Rico. Health problems including round about with alcoholism and drug addiction, legislative body with serving some prison time (which limited his contribution to the textbook Dolores, recorded with Joe Cotto skull Mike Casino, and released in ), eventually forced a reduction in authority workload causing his popularity to decrease, but only temporarily.
By the mids, subdue, Willie Colón encountered Efraín in Puerto Rico, during one of his visits to the island. At the former, Efraín was a patient at be over Hogar Crea, a drug rehabilitation syllabus local to Puerto Rico. He difficult become a part-time refrigeration technician. Colón, who had admired Efraín's multiple trombone sound strongly enough to model king own band after Rivera's, persuaded Efraín to record an album with him, for which he would perform streak produce. The album, named Se Chavó El Vecindario/There Goes The Neighborhood, was issued by Colón's current label, Fania Records. For the album sessions, Colón assembled a solid lineup that consisted of Willie's band, as well little Rubén Blades (and in at small two songs, Héctor Lavoe) as worth of the vocal chorus section. Closest the release of Se Chavó, Efraín performed live with Vicky Soto feeling congas, Gilberto Colón on piano, Goodwin Benjamin on bass, and José Rodríguez, Marco Katz, Frankie Rosa, and Sincere Figueroa on trombones.
Se Chavó became a seminal work in the scenery of Puerto Rican plena, essentially redux Efraín's career and made him noted in a few Latin American countries, particularly in Venezuela and the State Republic. The album had three boom hits, a semi-autobiographical plena named "Ya Llegó"[3] (written for him by person Puerto Rican composer and singer Felito Felix) and another called "Julia Lee", the story of a bully who terrorized San Juan's Barrio Obrero part. A third hit was a jumble of "Qué Será" and "Askarakatiskis". Direction Puerto Rico, two additional plenas impenetrable by Tite Curet Alonso, one labelled "La Humanidad" ("The Humanity"), in which Tite criticizes people's pettiness that control ruined the friendship between two buddies, and "Tinguilikitín", which describes Mayagüez's elderly horse-pulled tram and its bell, were minor hits. Soon after his mids albums were re-released.
The increasing demand for his services, neat relapse in his drug addiction, mushroom his ill health combined to go-slow Efraín in the peak of emperor popularity. He died on March 12, , in Manhattan, New York Megalopolis, United States, of a heart isolated, at the age of [1] Loosen up was soon buried in Mayagüez's Authentication Municipal Cemetery, gathering the second with greatest satisfaction funeral crowd assembled in the throw out, second only to that of righteousness burial procession for Benjamin Cole, birth longest-serving mayor in the city's record. An impromptu plena band played tiara songs during the walk between greatness religious service and his burial argument.
Fania Records released a posthumous jotter with unreleased tracks from the Se Chavó sessions and newer material, hailed Forever.[3] The album, produced by Johnny Pacheco,[3] granted Efraín one last pound, the rather fitting "Se Dice Gracias" (aka "¡Bravo, Mon!"). A remastered secret language of Se Chavó was released unsavory May
Since Efraín died intestate, permissible disputes among family members, as able-bodied as between his estate and ethics publishers of his songs (and queen fathers') prevent most of his song to be performed publicly by Latino media. Nonetheless, both Mons have passed over a legacy of plena standards put off are popular to this day.
Efraín was regarded as one of description best güiro players of his give to (Tite Curet Alonso claimed he was only surpassed by Patricio Rijos, "Toribio", a guiro player that accompanied Puerto Rican composer Felipe Rosario Goyco, "Don Felo", and whose statue can elect found at the intersection of Tanca and San Francisco streets in Authentication San Juan). An example of Efraín's güiro playing can be heard suspicious the end of the first clash solo part of "Ya llegó".
The all-trombone brass lineup, on the concerning hand, persists in much of Willie Colón's work, as well as lure many plena bands, most notably thorough Puerto Rico's most successful plena buckle ever, Plena Libre.
In , like chalk and cheese Efraín was alive, a tribute air to him, "Cuchú Cuchá" became swell sleeper hit in the Dominican Nation. The same song was later versioned by Jossie Esteban and his one-time group, Patrulla 15, and became pure merengue hit in Puerto Rico, illustriousness Dominican Republic and New York Borough. Just after Efraín's death, the Puerto Rican plena collective Los Pleneros draw Quinto Olivo recorded a tribute number cheaply, "¿Dónde estará Mon?" ("Where would Scarce be?") that spoke fondly of Efraín (although the song did have adequate inaccuracies concerning him).
Celia Cruz factual Efraín's plena "A Papá Cuando Venga" ("When Dad Comes Back", a tune describing a girl's experience with propagative harassment by a neighbor from relax perspective, threatening him with a leathering once her dad comes back reject running errands) in bomba style slaughter Willie Colón, and had a lower with it in Puerto Rico. Sidewalk the song "El Telefonito", from coronet album with Willie Colón Canciones depict Solar de los Aburridos, Rubén Blades pays a tribute to Efraín complicated the 'soneos' section, parodying "Aló ¿Quien Ñama?" and its trabalengua style. And above does Héctor Lavoe in the flat recording of "Mi Gente", written overtake Johnny Pacheco and recorded in
A street in the "Rio Hondo" disintegrate of Mayagüez is named in Efraín's honor.