 On
October 1, Martin Cohen was invited to participate
in a panel discussion, The Jewish-Latin Mix, at Harvard University. Flanked by
celebrated figures in the history of Latin jazz music, Martin spoke of his role,
first as a fan, then as the chief provider of durable, authentic sounding instruments
for use in the genre. He discussed how his affection for Latinos and their music
drove him to fashion his first pair of bongos in his basement workshop. A seemingly
small and selfless creation, it answered a real need in the Latin community.
It also resulted in the founding of LP, the largest
percussion company in the world.
Organized by Harvard Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, Doris
Sommers; the panel included bandleader, Larry Harlow; arranger, Marty Sheller;
filmmaker, Leon Gast; Yale Professor, Robert Farris Thompson; Harvard Professor,
Ingrid Monson; Smithsonian Curator, Marvette Perez and ethnomusicologist, Sebastian
Zubieta. The theme centered on the close connection between Jews and Cuban
music in the fifties and sixties.
For the Harvard event, Martin Cohen presented an edited version of his popular
slide show/lecture “From My Basement to Bangkok: The Growing of a Percussion
Industry.” He described how the LP catalog evolved from a modest four-page,
two-color brochure to a 130-page
full-color compendium.
Martin's first glimpse of the Jewish/Latin connection occurred when he got
a job as a bus boy in the Catskills. “Hotels would book famous acts like
the Machito Orchestra and Eddie Palmieri,” recalls Martin. “And
Latin dance lessons were very popular. To me, as a youth, it was an energized,
revolutionary time. The bands really let loose. And the great dancers, as Professor
Thompson remarked to the panel, were the Latinos and the Jews.”
Martin recounted how he got his college degree, then secured a job with the
Bendix Corporation, which was ramping up production for the Vietnam War. Martin
got laughs when he described how he would send detailed plans for bongo rims
and hardware under fictitious names to the Bendix prototype department!
It was an against-all-odds situation, but Martin Cohen knew
he had to leave the security of his day job. He formed LP in 1964, working
on a slender thread-a loan of a couple of hundred dollars.
At one point during the Harvard panel, Martin presented his father's four
principles of success: work hard; spend little; finish what you start; and
don't blame anyone for your failures but yourself. “So many times in
the growing of LP,” Martin reflects, “I'd despair, such as when
a supplier went bankrupt and I had to raise $3000 from my insurance policy
to save my business. There were many tough times but my father's principles
saved me.”
Ultimately, the driving force was the relentless pursuit of instruments no
one else was making-instruments of vital importance to Latin music. Martin
amazed the Harvard panel when he singled out LP
instruments that had been in production for over forty years, virtually
unchanged. “When something is right,” Martin explained, “it
can last forever.”
|
