manny oquendo

Timbalero Manny Oquendo has been playing percussion more than 50 impressive years, 25 of which have found him at the helm of the innovative nine-piece ensemble Manny Oquendo & Libre. His many other recording and performing credits are also stellar, including six years with Eddie Palmieri's La Perfecta, in which Oquendo injected the rhythms of Cuba into the sizzling salsa scene of 1960's New York.

Oquendo's fascination with Cuban rhythms started when he was a kid and his family lived over a Latin-music record store in New York. "The store had speakers outside, and they played Cuban music constantly," he recalls. Young Manny was captivated by the big-band sounds of Machito, especially by Ubaldo Nieto's playing on timbales, and soon began his self-guided journey on bongos and timbales.

Already by the late 1940's Oquendo was playing with New York's top bands, including Juan "El Boy" Torres and Chano Pozo, and in 1950 he joined Tito Puente's orchestra, on bongos. In the mid-'50s he worked with Tito Rodriquez's orchestra, then freelanced for a few years -- with Pupi Campo, Noro Morales, Miguelito Valdes, Johnny Pacheco, and Larry Harlow.

Oquendo settled in with Palmieri's influential La Perfecta in 1962, about the same time that a rhythm known as the Mozambique was being popularized in Cuba by Pello El Afrokan. In Cuba, the Mozambique was a complex carnival rhythm (a "camparsa") played by a large ensemble of percussionists. Oquendo heard recordings of the Mozambique, and adapted it for timbales by "playing the comparsa with one hand and the basic drum beat with the other." He persuaded Palmieri to incorporate his new Mozambique and other Cuban rhythms into La Perfecta's dance numbers, thereby introducing the hypnotic beats to North America. The Oquendo-style Mozambique is now part of the repertoire of timbal players everywhere.

La Perfecta eventually disbanded, and in 1974 Oquendo co-founded Libre (originally Conjunto Libre) with Perfecta's bassist Andy Gonzalez. Their musical concept was to maintain Latin roots, but to be free ("libre") to incorporate jazz, Afro-Cuban, and alternative influences. Libre's rugged sound still draws devoted fans across Europe, South America, Africa, and the US. Their notable albums include "On the Move" and "Mejor Que Nunca," in which Oquendo puts a soulful mambo-guaguanco beat to Marvin Gaye's "I Want You." Libre is currently playing concerts across the US, and will tour Europe later this year when their new CD "El Rey del Ritmo" is released.

Oquendo still has his first LP timbales and uses LP exclusively. "I'm crazy about sound!" he says. "There's a right way that cowbells and bongos should sound, and there's a right way that timbales gotta be tuned. Other brands just don't have the sound or the 'put-together' that LP has."

Equipment list: LP Thunder Timbs, LP Tito Puente Timbales, LP Timbalitos, LP Bongos, assorted LP Cowbells