Mario Bauzá was born in Havana, Cuba, on April 28, 1911. As a child in Havana, he listened to jazz on the radio and dreamed of moving to America. Nearly three decades later the adult Bauzá, now settled in New York City, helped awaken American jazz greats such as Dizzy GILLESPIE and Max ROACH to the vibrant music and feel of Afro-Cuban jazz.
As a teenager, Bauzá began his musical career playing the oboe and bass clarinet in the Havana Philharmonic, which performed mostly Broadway show tunes for Cuba’s high society. He also joined the all-teenage orchestra, Jovenes de Redencion. There he met and formed a long-term partnership with Rául Grillo (known as “MACHITO”), who was singing and playing the maracas in the orchestra. Longing for something more lively, the young Bauzá left the group and started playing the clarinet in Havana nightclubs—but he found that jazz scene too conservative and resistant to his own musical suggestions. Both Bauzá and Machito were wanting to experiment with a more energetic Cuban-based sound, something rooted in the Afro-Cuban sound that had fallen from favour in Havana. Bauzá later noted: “You had to go to the neighbourhood dances” to find those rootsy rhythms. “No Cuban music was playing in any of the high-class clubs.”
In 1930, Bauzá visited New York and went to see the Duke ELLINGTON Orchestra at the Lafayette Theater. Bauzá was so enraptured by what he heard, as well as by the buzz of the city, that he decided to stay. Two years later, he found work with the Noble Sissle ensemble, during which time he switched from clarinet to trumpet.
Throughout the 1930s, he was employed by some of the best New York big bands, including those led by Chick Webb, Don Redman, and Cab Calloway. Bauzá was made musical director of Chick Webb’s band, a position that gave him the opportunity to work with the young Ella FITZGERALD, who had joined Webb’s group as the vocalist.
Although Bauzá was comfortably immersed in performing traditional jazz, he wanted to expand his repertoire and attempt to bring new, Afro-Cuban sounds to New York. When he was with Calloway’s group, Bauzá met the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and helped him get a job with the band. Bauzá found a kindred spirit in Gillespie, and by 1941 both trumpeters had outgrown Calloway’s band.
After leaving Calloway, Bauzá became the musical director of a group led by Machito, known as the Afro-Cubans. (Bauzá had also become Machito’s brother-in-law having married Machito’s sister, Graciela, the group’s singer, in 1938.) For the Afro-Cubans, Bauzá wrote the song “Tanga”—arguably one of the first Afro-Cuban jazz tunes. At this time, Gillespie was in search of new material for one of his first major concerts. Bauzá introduced Gillespie to Chano Pozo, a conguero (conga player) newly arrived from Cuba. Pozo hummed a tune that changed Gillespie’s music and the sound of jazz forever. It was dark, hot, and wild; evocative of the folk music of central Africa. After Gillespie added a bridge (a distinct musical passage tying together the statements of the main theme), it became the hit song “Manteca.” Bauzá’s prediction of the popularity of Afro-Cuban jazz began to come true.
The influence of the new cross-breed of music, often referred to as “Cubop,” also inspired new dances and clothing styles in America. Bauzá worked with Machito until the mid-1970s, continually blending the heady rhythms of Afro-Cuban with the complex harmonies of jazz. After Machito died, Bauzá led his own bands until his death in New York on July 11, 1993.
Jeff Kaliss
SEE ALSO:
CARIBBEAN; CUBA; LATIN JAZZ; SALSA.
FURTHER READING
Suarez, V. Latin Jazz (New York: William Morrow, 1989);
Werner, Otto. The Latin Influence on Jazz (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 1992).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Afro-Cuban Jazz; Machito and His Afro-Cuban Orchestra; The Tanga Suite.