Chico O'Farrill, Musician and Leader in Afro-Cuban Jazz, Dies at 79
by BEN RATLIFF,NYTimes
Chico O'Farrill, the composer, arranger and onetime trumpeter who was one of the primary creators of Afro-Cuban jazz, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 79 and lived in Manhattan.
In one of the happiest career-restoration stories of popular music, Mr. O'Farrill received more recognition in the last six years of his life than ever before, thanks to a series of albums produced by his record manager and producer, Todd Barkan, for the Fantasy label. They were "Pure Emotion" (1995) and "Heart of a Legend" (1999) ù both nominated for Grammy Awards ù and "Carambola" (2000). As his 18-piece big band, conducted by Mr. O'Farrill with his son at the piano, became a success, with a weekly engagement at Birdland in Manhattan for the last three years, his name jumped from footnote to boldface.
Mr. O'Farrill's obscurity stemmed from his unassuming personality but also from his perfectionism. He was willing to serve as a writer and arranger, in the 1940's and 50's for Dizzy Gillespie, Machito, Count Basie and Stan Getz, among others. Later, after living and recording in Mexico, he was an arranger for American television commercials.
But he said the big band was his instrument; if he could not make big- band records with the appropriate time, care and money, then he would not have a bandleader's career. And he almost did not.
Arturo O'Farrill was born in Havana to an upper-middle-class family; his father was from Ireland and his mother had a German background. His parents sent him to military school in Georgia, where he learned to play trumpet and heard big-band jazz for the first time. His parents, horrified that he was consorting with black musicians instead of pursuing a career in law, did not share his excitement, although his father arranged for Mr. O'Farrill to study arrangement with the Cuban composer Felix Guerrero.
He plunged into Havana's nightlife, which was teeming with American jazz, and played trumpet with several dance bands, including Orquesta Bellemar, Armando OrΘfiche's Lecuona Cuban Boys and Los Newyorkers. At the time he was mainly interested in jazz.
In a recent interview he recalled that he found Cuban music boring. "There was only one phrase that repeated itself ad infinitum," he said. "Same over and over. There was no richness, and no notes to go to." He did not grasp the possibilities of fusing jazz with Afro-Cuban music until he arrived in New York in 1948.
It was the watershed moment for the fusion of bebop and Afro-Cuban music, or Cubop, as it came to be called. The bandleader Machito had been in New York since 1938, playing big-band Cuban music, and was beginning ù with the help of the arrangers RenΘ Hernßndez and Mario Bauzß ù to add more and more modern jazz to it.
Mr. O'Farrill, who had studied arranging in Cuba, used his knowledge in a job with the Benny Goodman band, writing "Undercurrent Blues," a popular number for Goodman's bebop-inspired ensemble. (It was Goodman who bestowed the nickname Chico.) But most of Mr. O'Farrill's work, as he recalled, was ghostwriting for ghostwriters, writing arrangements for arrangers like Walter (Gil) Fuller, Quincy Jones and Billy Byers, who already had too much work on their hands.
Soon he connected with the impresario Norman Granz, who helped put together a Machito recording session including Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips and Buddy Rich. "The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite," the piece they recorded on Dec. 21, 1950, was Mr. O'Farrill's first masterpiece as a composer, an ambitious work that took the graduated crescendo of Latin big-band music and applied to it a classical sense of contrasting themes and sophisticated harmony. That became the beginning of an association with Mr. Granz's record labels Clef and Norgran, and the LP's recorded between 1951 and 1954, including the original "Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite" as well as a quieter sequel, "The Second Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite," were recently reissued on a two-disc set, "Cuban Blues: The Chico O'Farrill Sessions," on Verve/Universal.
He worked with Gillespie as well, writing "The Manteca Suite." In 1955 Mr. O'Farrill left New York, ducking marital and legal trouble, ending up back in Cuba and, two years later, Mexico. He stayed in Mexico City until 1965, recording albums there with Cuarteto D'Aida, the pianist and singer Bola de Nieve and the percussionist Gφrardo Rodriguez. He also composed another of his major works, "The Aztec Suite," for the trumpeter Art Farmer, as well as "Six Jazz Moods," a 12-tone piece.
Returning to New York, he made records with Miguelito Valdes, Cal Tjader, Count Basie, Gato Barbieri, Dizzy Gillespie and others. He became frustrated that he was generally called on only to write or arrange Afro-Cuban jazz when he had a background in most major styles of the music. In 1975 he rejoined Machito and Gillespie for an album, "Afro- Cuban Jazz Moods."
After 1975, for 20 years, the only recorded music he made was for television commercials. He arranged a few pieces for David Bowie's 1993 album "Black Tie White Noise," but did not return to recording until 1995, with "Pure Emotion."
He was featured in a Jazz at Lincoln Center program in 1995, which included a piece commissioned for him, featuring Wynton Marsalis. And he was a part of the recent Latin- Jazz film "Calle 54," directed by Fernando Trueba.
In March he stopped leading his band at Birdland, leaving the conducting chores to his son, Arturo, who survives him along with his wife, Lupe, and a daughter, Georgina, of Los Angeles.
The mixture of jazz and Afro-Cuban music, Mr. O'Farrill once said, is "a very delicate marriage. You can't go too much one way or the other. It has to be a blend. But you have to be careful with how different styles come together. Otherwise music labeled Latin jazz could end up being like Glenn Miller with maracas, or Benny Goodman with congas. Latin jazz is much deeper than that."
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I have both Gentle People albums. The first is definitely more to my taste. One song has a sample which I'm pretty sure is from the Peter Thomas Sound Orchester version of Marcos Valled 'Gente', featured on the same 'easy listening' polydor double LP which was mentioned a few weeks ago (the same one which features the Gunter Kalleman choir's 'Daydream'). There are also lots of nicely layered string samples; the whole thing is very atmospheric.
The second, 'simply faboo' isn't bad, but the production isn't quite as nice and dreamy, and I think there's more of an 80s influence, with more vocals.
I just got a bargain collection of 3 italian LPs from ebay. Umiliani's 'today's sound', Cabilido's three - 'Yuxtaposition' and the Paolo Achenza trio - 'do it'.
The Cabildo's Three looks particularly interesting- 'imprisoned for more than 25 years and used for movie soundtracks, background music, commercials, station breas etc... the compositions of this album were suddently 'set free' thanks to the interest of an admirer named Gerardo Frisina...' Has anyone heard this?
cheers
jonny
www.psychedelicado.com
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------------------------------
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 09:14:28 -0700
From: "Mr Fodder" <mofo@thebranflakes.com>
Subject: (exotica) Little Marcy
Actually... The Little Marcy website is not created to poke fun in the
least. It is a documentation of her on the web done in a genuine way. The
site is not just me, but is a site with others (anyone who wants to)
contributing their collections so others can enjoy seeing pictures of covers
and sounds.
Watch out... Maybe next there will be a Little Markie website. Uh.. on
second thought, no way. ;-)
- - Otis "elitist" fodder
> Maybe you mean that the people who created the website are cultural
> elitists. After all, Little Marcy was created to sell Christian messages
> to a Christian audience. Is that what the website will be about? The
> Marcy Tigner who spread the message of our Lord Jesus throughout
> the world?
> Or will it be Marcy the freak who had a doll and pretended that her
> childlike voice was coming out of the doll even though she made no effort
> to hide the fact that her lips were moving?
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Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 20:43:40 +0200
From: Moritz R <tiki@netsurf.de>
Subject: (exotica) jazz and weed
hey, Stephen, this's one for you:
Chant of the Weed
Sat, 30 Jun, BBC Radio 3, 1800-1830 (BST)
Brian Morton explores the strange relationship between jazz, the creative
process and mind-altering substances. 1: `The Weed Smoker's Dream'.
Marijuana was one of the drugs which fuelled Chicago's jazz scene and indeed
the whole of the jazz scene during the 1920s and 1930s - and it wasn't even
