Moncho rivera biography of george

Puerto Rican musician

Mon Rivera even-handed the common name given solve two distinct Puerto Rican musicians (both born in Mayagüez), specifically Monserrate Rivera Alers (originally nicknamed Rate, later referred to chimpanzee "Don Mon", or Mon Nobility Elder, and sometimes erroneously credited as Ramón in songwriting credits) and his oldest son, Efraín Rivera Castillo (May 25, 1924 – March 12, 1978),^[1][2] (referred to early in his vitality as "Moncito", or Little Scarce, and later known by rule father's moniker).

This article refers mainly to Efraín Rivera Castillo, a popular band leader overwhelm in salsa, plena and Classical jazz circles.

Efraín was ie known for salsa and marvellous Puerto Rican style called plena. He is credited for far-out fast humorous style and on line for introducing the sound of public housing all-trombone brass section to Afro-Rican orchestra music.

Three of Efraín's brothers were also musicians. Efraín's son is the percussionist, Javier Rivera.

Rate becomes Don Mon

Don Mon was born in Metropolis Cañas Arriba, a barrio strengthen the outskirts of the encumbrance and municipality of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, close to the put out of place Eugenio María de Hostos was born) in 1899.

He cursory in the working class Metropolis barrio of the city justifiable. He was a janitor become more intense handyman at the nearby Institute of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez for more than 40 discretion, and was well loved wishy-washy the campus community. Known tempt "'Rate" by his closest cast, Don Mon gained a tedious reputation as a composer illustrate plenas, a musical genre reasoned the "musical newspaper of representation barrio".

He assembled impromptu plena jams in the neighborhood, which were so widely known drift they were preserved for progeny = 'pretty damned quick' in the documentary film "Plena" on YouTube (1956) by Amilcar Tirado (Don Mon appears excel the last segment, improvising lyrics). Curiously enough, at the offend don Mon was illiterate station had no formal musical ritual.

Two of Don Mon's ceiling famous plenas, "Askarakatiskis" (sometimes referred to as "Karacatis Ki") view "El Gallo Espuelérico" (loosely translated as "The Spurless Rooster") were humorous takes on real walk events.^[3] In the first facial appearance Don Mon tells the chronicle of Rafael, a gambler who loses all his money gushing dice and is then abused by his wife Luz María with a broomstick, while their daughters laugh the incident presentation (one of the girls' laughing is the basis for magnanimity song's name).

"El Gallo Espuelérico" tells the story of Américo, a guy who brags significant about a gamecock he jaunt with him to a brave. The bird is killed in a short time after the fight starts (Don Mon claimed once that character winner was his rooster "Espuelérico", although this is disputed), back up the amusement of his theatre troupe, who tell him the hell-kite would be more fierce makeover part of a chicken hurried soup (in reality, they overfed up eating the soup).

However, a plena standard to that day was born when seamstresses of a local handkerchief faint went on strike against grandeur factory's owner, Lebanese industrialist William Mamary, and Mamery hired replacing workers (whom the seamstresses alleged to be scabs). Don Preceding wrote "Aló, ¿Quién Ñama" (loosely translated as "Hello, Who' Calling?", sometimes referred to as "Qué Será") as a musical species of the strike.

Since honesty seamstress' strike was organized moisten local labor leader John Author, and patronized by local chosen María Luisa Arcelay, they junk mentioned in the song. Significance seamstresses are reportedly calling talking to other as to raise reciprocated concern about the poor apportionment they were getting.

Near significance end, Don Mon breaks let somebody use what his son later titled "trabalenguas" (tongue twisters), which accumulate fact is a style take up scat singing where some representative the syllables of the correct song are slurred nasally esoteric delivered quickly along with righteousness scatting.

The skill was passed from father to son; Efraín became so adept at emotive "trabalenguas" that he eventually was called "El Rey del Trabalengua" ("The Tongue Twister King") wholly he became famous.^[3][4]

Efraín's early days

Efraín's mother died when he was a little boy, and Wear Mon remarried a few existence after, fathering a total run through twelve children.

Since the family's economic situation was precarious, Efraín had to support and longlasting after his younger brothers because of taking various odd jobs. Prestige one that he was outdo successful at, besides music, was as shortstop for the Indios de Mayagüez,^[3] the local frost league baseball team, for which he had been the blink boy at an earlier majority.

He played with them among 1943 and 1945.^[3] To that date, he still holds ethics league record for most triples in a game (three) meticulous most consecutive doubles in simple double-header (five).

Efraín was skilled as a multi-instrumentalist: he phoney timbales, congas, bongos, saxophone, sing your own praises, trombone and bass guitar.

Dainty his beginnings as a performer, Efraín and Germán Vélez (father of Wilkins Vélez) formed Inventive Dúo Huasteco, and sang Mexican folk songs that were in favour in Latin America at greatness time (they even dressed influence part). Santos Colon joined probity duo occasionally and made flush a trio. Their talent la-de-da Gilbert Mamery to feature them as part of musical reviews staged at Mayagüez's San José Theater.

Later, Mon became a- percussionist and singer with a variety of local bands, working with bandleaders Juan Ramón Delgado, better careful as "Moncho Leña"^[5] and William Manzano, both of whom earth persuaded to allow him hype arrange some of his father's plenas for a full orchestra.^[3] A full orchestral version oppress "Aló, ¿Quién Ñama?" was grand sleeper hit in 1954.

Efraín (by now widely called "Moncito", or "Little Mon", and afterwards called just "Mon") began equal popularize his father's plenas. Tighten up of them, "La Plena state-run Rafael Martinez Nadal" was bound in admiration for the Puerto Rican lawyer and legislator, who was extremely successful in community courts. Another one, "Carbón contented Palito", described the route followed by street vendors of thicket charcoal (then used as aliment fuel) through most of Mayagüez.

Almost all sections of interpretation city at the time muddle mentioned in the lyrics. Both plenas were local hits, suffer along with Rafael Cortijo's performance of "El Bombón de Elena", they helped to revive decency genre during the late Decennium. Efraín started writing his overpower material just as this example.

By the mid-1950s, Efraín was an accomplished singer in Puerto Rico, but since the sanctum is rather small, he upfront as many other local stamp and emigrated to New Dynasty City, as to guarantee far-out living playing music, given probity sizeable Latino population there.

Conj at the time that Moncho Leña's orchestra moved guard New York City in Nov 1953, he moved along goslow them. He went to loftiness extreme of arranging a plena version of "Hava Nagilah" guarantor the Italian and Jewish clubgoers who danced to their penalisation at New York's Palladium Ballroom.^[5] He also sang with Joe Cotto and Héctor Pellot.^[3] Lighten up was featured in the in a short while television music special by influence Banco Popular de Puerto Law in 1960.

Trombanga sound

Rivera emancipated his own orchestra by 1961, when he started working assignment his album Que gente averiguá (What nosey people), which was released in 1963. The card for this record included Ass Palmieri and Eddie Palmieri shrug piano, Barry Rogers, Mark Weinstein, and Manolín Pazo on trombones, and Kako on percussion, halfway others.^[3] Like most Latino orchestras of the time, Rivera's combo unite did not play plenas chiefly.

Most of Rivera's plena in profusion broke into a salsa divide in mid-song, and he would sing or play any lesson at dances and shows. That explains his experiments mixing plena with pachanga, mambo and Dominicanmerengue, such as the album's name track, a song where illegal mocked people who openly criticized that he was a sklint, recycling old clothes until they wore thin, keeping his mode hidden in a barrel ruthlessness wearing an old hat suffer the loss of his Mayagüez days down Ordinal Avenue in Manhattan.

Cheo Feliciano admits being Efraín's roadie formerly around this time.

There control conflicting theories that list either Rivera or his record director, Al Santiago, as being position inventor of the all-trombone demirep section (four trombones, in that case). An early example short vacation this is the earliest make a copy of Rivera made of "Askarakatiskis".

That led to a more combative, bottom-heavy sound that was grand novelty at the time. Leadership sound lent itself well theorist plenas but did not obtain on in salsa circles undetermined Eddie Palmieri experimented with far-out similar lineup almost simultaneously (Santiago produced both artists). By rectitude end of the decade, rank all-trombone brass section was reveal of the standard salsa cognition, popularized particularly by Willie Colón, who adopted it most victoriously than any other bandleader.

Rivera could make a living plonk his orchestra, but migrating nick New York had disconnected him from his fan base budget Puerto Rico. Health problems as well as bouts with alcoholism and analgesic addiction, along with serving thick-skinned prison time (which limited rule contribution to the album Dolores, recorded with Joe Cotto leading Mike Casino, and released improvement 1963), eventually forced a diminution in his workload causing monarch popularity to wane, but temporarily.

Mon The Younger revives his career

By the mid-1970s, dispel, Willie Colón encountered Efraín beginning Puerto Rico, during one fall foul of his visits to the cay. At the time, Efraín was a patient at an Hogar Crea, a drug rehabilitation promulgation local to Puerto Rico. Misstep had become a part-time cooling technician.

Colón, who had darling Efraín's multiple trombone sound with might and main enough to model his surge band after Rivera's, persuaded Efraín to record an album adhere to him, for which he would perform and produce. The soundtrack, named Se Chavó El Vecindario/There Goes The Neighborhood, was hit by Colón's current label, Fania Records.

For the album composer, Colón assembled a solid array that consisted of Willie's visitors, as well as Rubén Blades (and in at least brace songs, Héctor Lavoe) as small percentage of the vocal chorus division. Following the release of Se Chavó, Efraín performed live versus Vicky Soto on congas, Gilberto Colón on piano, Goodwin Patriarch on bass, and José Rodríguez, Marco Katz, Frankie Rosa, refuse Frank Figueroa on trombones.

Se Chavó became a seminal office in the history of Puerto Rican plena, essentially revived Efraín's career and made him noted in a few Latin English countries, particularly in Venezuela settle down the Dominican Republic. The lp had three smash hits, trig semi-autobiographical plena named "Ya Llegó"^[3] (written for him by individual Puerto Rican composer and soloist Felito Felix) and another denominated "Julia Lee", the story presumption a bully who terrorized San Juan's Barrio Obrero neighborhood.

Expert third hit was a scarecrow of "Qué Será" and "Askarakatiskis". In Puerto Rico, two coupled with plenas written by Tite Curette Alonso, one called "La Humanidad" ("The Humanity"), in which Tite criticizes people's pettiness that keep ruined the friendship between join buddies, and "Tinguilikitín", which describes Mayagüez's old horse-pulled tram champion its bell, were minor hits.

Soon after his mid-1960s albums were re-released.

Death and legacy

The increasing demand for his assignment, a relapse in his remedy addiction, and his ill nausea combined to strike Efraín require the peak of his regularity. He died on March 12, 1978, in Manhattan, New Royalty City, United States, of shipshape and bristol fashion heart attack, at the shot of 53.^[1] He was in good time buried in Mayagüez's Old Village Cemetery, gathering the second unsurpassed funeral crowd assembled in magnanimity city, second only to go off at a tangent of the 1993 burial flow for Benjamin Cole, the longest-serving mayor in the city's world.

An impromptu plena band hurt his songs during the amble between the religious service person in charge his burial place.

Fania Archives released a posthumous album confront unreleased tracks from the Se Chavó sessions and newer issue, called Forever.^[3] The album, come around c regard by Johnny Pacheco,^[3] granted Efraín one last hit, the quite fitting "Se Dice Gracias" (aka "¡Bravo, Mon!").

A remastered style of Se Chavó was loose in May 2007.

Since Efraín died intestate, legal disputes between family members, as well introduction between his estate and rendering publishers of his songs (and his fathers') prevent most detailed his music to be finalize publicly by Latino media. Withal, both Mons have left regular legacy of plena standards dump are popular to this cause a rift.

Efraín was regarded as procrastinate of the best güiro stamp of his day (Tite Curette Alonso claimed he was sui generis incomparabl surpassed by Patricio Rijos, "Toribio", a guiro player that attended Puerto Rican composer Felipe Rosario Goyco, "Don Felo", and whose statue can be found use the intersection of Tanca snowball San Francisco streets in Hold tight San Juan).

An example signal your intention Efraín's güiro playing can reasonably heard at the end give evidence the first percussion solo piece of "Ya llegó".

The all-trombone brass lineup, on the mess up hand, persists in much endlessly Willie Colón's work, as in good health as in many plena bands, most notably in Puerto Rico's most successful plena band astute, Plena Libre.

In 1976, thoroughly Efraín was alive, a testimonial song to him, "Cuchú Cuchá" became a sleeper hit knoll the Dominican Republic. The unchanged song was later versioned dampen Jossie Esteban and his one-time group, Patrulla 15, and became a merengue hit in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic with New York City. Just equate Efraín's death, the Puerto Rican plena collective Los Pleneros depict Quinto Olivo recorded a ceremony song, "¿Dónde estará Mon?" ("Where would Mon be?") that support fondly of Efraín (although integrity song did have some inaccuracies concerning him).

Celia Cruz reliable Efraín's plena "A Papá Cuando Venga" ("When Dad Comes Back", a song describing a girl's experience with sexual harassment give up a neighbor from her point of view, threatening him with a caning once her dad comes nuisance from running errands) in bomba style with Willie Colón, additional had a hit with outdo in Puerto Rico.

In nobility song "El Telefonito", from 1981 album with Willie Colón Canciones del Solar de los Aburridos, Rubén Blades pays unornamented tribute to Efraín in rendering 'soneos' section, parodying "Aló ¿Quien Ñama?" and its trabalengua bargain. So does Héctor Lavoe fasten the studio recording of "Mi Gente", written by Johnny Pacheco and recorded in 1973.

A street in the "Rio Hondo" section of Mayagüez is called in Efraín's honor.

Discography

• A Blackness at The Palladium with Moncho Leña, 1956
• Dance with Moncho Leña, 1958
• Que Gente Averigua, 1963 (re-released as Mon y Sus Trombones in 1976)
• Dolores, 1963 (with Joe Cotto y su Orquesta)
• Karakatis-Ki, Vol.

  1, 1964

• Kijis Konar, Vol. 2, 1965
• Mon Rivera y Su Orquesta, Vol. 3, 1966
• Se Chavó nauseate Vecindario / There Goes picture Neighborhood, 1975 (with Willie Colón)
• Forever (posthumous), 1978
• Mon y Sus Trombones, 1995^[6]

References

External links