Legendary band chief and percussionist Tito Puente was among the many most revolutionary and influential figures in Latin music and jazz within the US for greater than six a long time. To highlight Puente’s contribution to Hispanic tradition, Google on Tuesday featured an animated Doodle depicting the percussionist’s energetic and charismatic efficiency fashion by the a long time.
The Doodle additionally marks the primary anniversary of the Tito Puente Monument being unveiled in New York’s East Harlem.
Typically referred to by his nickname El Rey (The King), Puente is credited with popularizing mambo — Cuban dance music born out of the fusion of swing and Cuban music that options attractive rhythms.
Operating from Sept. 15 by Oct. 15 annually, Nationwide Hispanic Heritage Month acknowledges and celebrates the cultures and contributions of Hispanic People. In earlier years, Google has additionally honored Puerto Rican civil rights pioneer Felicitas Mendez, Mexican American botanist Ynes Mexía and baseball nice and humanitarian Roberto Clemente.
Tuesday’s animated Doodle opens with a younger Puente drumming on pans in his dwelling neighborhood of Spanish Harlem within the Nineteen Twenties and ’30s. He later joined the US Navy in World Battle II, throughout which he would serve in 9 battles earlier than being discharged. The Doodle goes on to indicate the a long time of Puente’s near-constant touring, which normally included 200 to 300 exhibits a yr.
Puente was additionally a prodigious artist within the studio, recording not less than 119 albums between 1949 and 2000, together with Abaniquito, a crossover mambo hit that made Puente a star. However he is maybe greatest recognized for the 1962 basic Oye Como Va, a Latin jazz composition that reached better recognition when it was recorded by the rock band Santana in 1970. Puente additionally portrayed himself within the film The Mambo Kings, a 1992 drama about two musician brothers who flee Cuba for New York.
The musician collected dozens of honors and awards, together with 5 Grammys throughout his lifetime in addition to a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. He was additionally the recipient of the Smithsonian Nationwide Museum’s Medal of Honor and Lifetime Achievement Award, the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts’ Medal of Arts, the Eubie Blake Award from the Nationwide Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Hispanic Heritage Committee Award for the Arts, amongst many others.
Puente died on the age of 77 in 2000 after issues following open coronary heart surgical procedure.
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