By Jim Santella

Latin Soul, his just-released album and latest in a long list of Concord Picante records, is a live session that includes the atmosphere of the room and the audience along with Poncho Sanchez’ charged-up eight-man band. Singing lead vocals and steering the rhythms from his center-stage conga set, Sanchez offers music that swings with a powerful beat while firing up the creative juices of improvisation. Like a family, his band and audience enjoys these get-togethers that meld the traditional with something fresh every time out. In his living room, surrounded by photos and mementos that represent over thirty years of Latin jazz around the world, Poncho Sanchez agreed to share a part of that atmosphere with us.

All About Jazz: Well, I’ve been catchin’ your band for a long time. My wife enjoys the dancing, so we see you often.

Poncho Sanchez: Yeah, that’s what it’s all about, man. Come out and enjoy yourself. You know what I mean? That’s what I try to do; make good music that makes people happy. I came from an era and a time when dancing was very important, you know. I’m the youngest of eleven kids: six sisters and four brothers. We were all born in Laredo, Texas. My mother and father are from Mexico. And we moved right here to Norwalk [California] when I was about three and half years old. So I went to school here, graduated from Excelsior High School, went to Cerritos College and played in the jazz band for a couple of years. This is where I got all my training, but mainly it came through listening to radio a lot and collecting records. Living in an area close to Los Angeles, you get exposed to many different types of music. But the only music I was concerned with was jazz, musica Latina. In those days they used to call it "musica con sabor Latino," or just musica or mambo or cha-cha-cha. The word salsa wasn’t out yet. My brothers and sisters were into the first wave of mambo or cha-cha-cha that came to New York and Mexico City. We were one of the very few families here in Norwalk that had anything to do with Latin music. My sisters used to listen to Chico Sesma on the radio. He had a program called Con Sabor Latino. I used to hear that almost every night. At the time four of my sisters were living at home in one room, so they were all like in their teens and really got into that. Nobody else in the neighborhood was into that music. Everybody else was into doo-wop and oldies-but-goodies. But my sisters would hear the music every day. They’d dance the pachanga, the mambo. At that time the pachanga was cool; they don’t dance the pachanga much any more. I’d see that and watch it every night as a little boy. My mother and father were good dancers too. I liked that scene. We used to go to bailes in East L.A. on Sundays after church. My mother would cook all week and my father would take he

AAJ: Tony and Ramon Banda went to high school with you.

PS: When I met the Banda brothers, I was already into this music, but none of my friends were into it. This band I was in was called Little Frank And The Halos. They called me Frank, although my name is not Frank, my name is Poncho. Pancho is Frank in English. My name is Poncho. Poncho is a poncho you put on; it’s a nickname. My real name is Ildefonso. It was too hard for my brothers and sisters, so they said, "Oh, you’re Poncho."

Little Frank And The Halos added two horn players in that band and we won first place in a battle of the bands. One day the drummer couldn’t make it, so someone said, "My cousin Ramon plays drums." Ramon was in about the 7th grade then. I must have been in the 9th grade or so. Then Ramon introduced me to his brother Tony. We used to listen to my sisters’ record collection, from Cal Tjader to Machito and Tito Rodriguez. My other friends felt like, "That’s old people’s music." I said, "But listen to the band. It sounds good." They’d say, "No, take that off. It’s not what’s happening, man."

I’m a big James Brown fan too, and I liked the same music my friends preferred. But I also liked this other music. My oldest brother Ray and my other brother Ben would listen to jazz once in a while. I liked the sound of jazz too. I’d see it once in a while on television. We’d see the Johnny Otis show on television and I’d say, "You know, I like that sound; the feel. And the Banda brothers were the first ones to tell me, "That sounds pretty good. Play it again." So I’d play Cal Tjader for them and they’d say, "Hey that’s all right."

I started going to the Lighthouse to see Cal Tjader. All my other friends were into rock music then. Ramon was into Jimi Hendrix and Cream. I was trying to pull the Banda brothers away from that and into jazz. Little by little they came around. A friend of mine came out of the service, Candy Martinez. In the service, someone had turned him on to jazz. At that time, he came back from ‘Nam and told us, "You know, I learned about some jazz while I was overseas." So now I had another friend who liked jazz.

So now we had a little thing going on. I had been going to the Lighthouse on my own, hitching rides and trying to plan rides over there. I’d been catching the Jazz Crusaders, Willie Bobo, Cal Tjader. I’d come home and tell these guys about it. That’s when it all started and that’s why the Banda brothers were included right from the beginning.

AAJ: You were playing weddings, right? Whatever jobs a high school musician could get?

PS: Yeah. After-school dances, weddings. Whatever the people wanted to hear. Oldies-but-goodies, James Brown, traditional Mexican music. We also played Ranchera music, Tex-Mex. I’m from Texas. My mother and father would hear that music… Mariachi music. But this was a rhythm and blues, rock ‘n’ roll band I was in.

Then we ended up getting in the band with the Banda brothers. It was a family band. They had started when they were about 5 years old. Ramon played guitar, Tony played bass. Their mother, Luz Banda played piano. There were two cousins; they were brothers who both played saxophone. The band was called The Latin Boys. They hired me to sing the rock ‘n’ roll tunes. I was a singer at the time. They were doing a lot of weddings and wanted some English music for that. I had started playing guitar, but with The Halos I joined to play guitar and there were already four guitar players in The Latin Boys band. So I sang with them. I was the lead vocalist with them for five years. That’s where I got my training.

AAJ: Through the years have you ever thought of adding other singers like the ones Irakere uses?

PS: That’s too commercial for me. You’d have to cater to that crowd. It’s not for me. There are singers with salsa bands doing flips on stage; pretty boys waving at the girls. I’d never go for that. Usually they’re not even good singers; it’s just for show. To me, what it’s all about is, "Can the guy sing?" Oh, I may add another singer some day, but he’d have to sing well, and it wouldn’t be just for show. It would help me out because I do all the lead vocals. I consider myself a fair singer; I’m a conga drummer first. There are a couple of fine singers in this town that I’d really love to have. But I try to stay away from the commercial field.

AAJ: What about the electronic keyboards and other effects?

PS: I leave that kind of thing up to them. There are others covering the new electronic inventions and brand new sounds. I’m very content playing the music authentically, acoustically as much as possible, holding my ground. I’m a purist, a traditionalist. I’m a big fan of real Latin jazz. There were some good bands in the 1950s, ’60s, ‘70s. Ray Barretto, Conjunto Libre, Eddie Palmieri. Great salsa stuff. And of course I love the straight-ahead jazz bag too. John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Jazz Messengers, Lee Morgan. Blue Note. It feels really good, it’s been working great for me. Every year we put out a new CD and we’ve had guests such as Freddie Hubbard, Eddie Harris, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Dianne Reeves. So, we do try different things and we always will, but there are certain boundaries. I’m not going to cross that line. Some crazy guitar player who’s going to play all electronic and blow our ears out. That’s Ricky Martin and all this bubble gum stuff. That’s not Poncho Sanchez. I don’t care to change it.

AAJ: Do you still split your performances with dance music?

PS: Yeah, sometimes we like to do that. Unless we’re playing a jazz festival or a restrictive jazz club, hard core jazz. In that case, we’d save the salsa numbers for last. We kinda fill it up with whatever the situation presents. We’ve done dances in Puerto Rico and Mexico City. Bailes, dancing, salsa, singing the boleros. We’ve done that. On the other side of the fence, we’ve done hard core jazz festivals, jazz clubs back east, whatever the situation, we can do both sides.

AAJ: How did it go in Europe? Were you well received?

PS: Oh yeah. We’ve been to Europe many times. This year, it was just a short trip to Finland and then to London. We’ve been to Finland many times. This year, it was two different festivals. The Pori Jazz Fest is a big one, a big park and a huge stage. It’s nice. There must have been at least 10,000 people. And we had done that before.

And we did our own concert in London this year. It was at Queen Elizabeth Hall. A series called Rhythmstick. There were drummers for a whole month. Louie Bellson was there. He came in to say hello to me, and his band was due up following us. We’re good friends. I’m a big fan of Louie Bellson. So we did that this year. It was sold out. In the past, we’ve been to Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland. All over.

AAJ: Do your European audiences understand the traditional side?

PS: It’s growing all the time. I remember the first time when they were somewhat indifferent, "Latin jazz is okay." Now there are a lot of Latin jazz bands in Europe. It’s growing. The place we go almost every year is Japan. Things are really picking up there. There are a lot of Latin jazz bands in Japan too. I usually have some of the local cats sit in with my band. We always have a good time. I remember the first time I went to Japan; it was with Cal Tjader’s band. On that trip we had Art Pepper, Clare Fischer. That must have been around 1977. Jazz, of course, has been popular in Japan for over fifty years. Cal Tjader brought in that band because it was Latin jazz. Art Pepper was quite popular in Japan. Latin jazz was then just sneakin’ in the door little by little. Ten years later I went to Japan with my own band. We’ve been going there almost every year for the last 15 years, and the sales are doing well. So, Japan is a great place to work. It’s really something, Jim. Latin jazz is spreading all over the world now. We do travel all over the world and we’re proud to know that our band plays an important role in that.

I remember the first time I went to Europe. We did the Nice Jazz Festival and others. We were in Nimes, France for a couple of days. Nimes is just a small town, like Norwalk. Not much, but they were doing a jazz fest every year. A rural area; fields and trees and a nice place. We went to the supermarket to get some things and I was looking through their CD selections. It really surprised me that a supermarket in Nimes had my CDs stocked. What a surprise. So I felt that Concord was doing well with that and that Latin jazz was spreading.

AAJ: How much of an influence were Cal Tjader and Clare Fischer?

PS: I was in a local band here in Norwalk called Sabor. The Banda brothers were in that band too. That band came after this other band we were talking about. I was out of high school, I had gotten married by then, and I was working in a foundry in South Gate [California, about 5 to 10 miles from Norwalk]. I was working the foundry during the week, and on weekends with the band. We were a little older by then and could work in clubs. We did material from Blood, Sweat and Tears, Tower of Power, Chicago. And then for me we’d do things from Ray Barretto, Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaria. We used to do weddings and club dates. I was a big fan of Cal Tjader’s. I was playing at a club in Pico Rivera called The International Press Club. We were doing four nights a week there. Some guy came in with a cigar and was watching the band, sitting at the bar. I went over and ordered a beer, and he said, "You sound pretty good. You sound kinda like Mongo Santamaria." I’m thinking, "That’s my hero, and I can’t compare myself to Mongo." He said, "I’m a good friend of Cal Tjader’s." I’m thinking, "Yeah, right. Me too." The guy said, "I’m gonna tell Cal about you." I said, "Yeah, do that." He said, "You want another beer?" Then I left.

Cal Tjader was working at The Lighthouse off and on back then and I used to go see him all the time. Two weeks later, Cal was due in town for Concerts By The Sea in Redondo Beach. Howard Rumsey had switched things around by then. Candy Martinez, my wife and I went to see Cal Tjader there. Candy’s wife Rebecca is my manager. I walked in, Jim, and the first two people I see at the bar were Cal Tjader and that guy. He looks at me and says, "Cal, that’s the guy I told you about!"

I was so nervous, I said [in a quiet voice], "Hello, Mr. Tjader."

He goes, "Hey man, my friend here says you’re a good conga drummer, that you sound like Mongo." He said, "You know, this isn’t the first guy that has told me about you. The last couple of years I’ve been coming to L.A., and everybody’s telling me you sound pretty good."

I said, "Oh, my God. Thank you, sir."

He says, "You want to sit in?"

I almost fell down right there. I said, "Now?"

He says, "I’ll call ya up, I’ll call ya up."

We sit down in our chairs and I’m thinkin’, "Is he really going to call me up there?"

Sure enough, Cal called me up in the middle of the set, and I jumped up there. After all, I had all his records. I figured we’d see what happens. Cal called a tune that I knew very well. It jumped from start to finish. I had a solo and went crazy and all. After the tune I started to get up and he said, "Stay with us for the rest of the set." We did four or five more tunes and it went very well. After all, I knew all his tunes.

Cal told me, "Hey man, how do you know the breaks of that tune? They’re not on any record."

I said, "Well, I always come to see you when you come to L.A. I know the breaks from listening to you do it here."

He said, "Oh, I couldn’t ask for anything better. Lemme have your name and phone number, maybe I can use you the next time I come to L.A."

I said, "Oh man. Are you kidding?" I gave it to him and he called me about a week later. Cal hired me for a New Years Eve gig at the Coconut Grove opposite Carmen McRae at the Ambassador Hotel. That was New Years Eve of ’74-75. He hired me for that night and for one week down at the old Catamaran in Pacific Beach in San Diego. I was floored. My family was floored. My sisters couldn’t believe it. They had the records before I did. And they just couldn’t believe it. Finally, they saw me play with Cal Tjader and the whole family was ecstatic.

After the first set on the first night I played with Cal Tjader on New Years Eve, he came over to me, gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, "Man, you sound like a young Mongo Santamaria. The gig’s yours if you want it."

I thought, "The GIG?"

I had been overjoyed about a week. And here’s this offer for the gig. It just so happens Jim, I had been laid off from the foundry for about six months and collecting unemployment. It couldn’t have come at a better time. And then we worked together for seven and a half years. I was this close to him the day he died. It was a heart attack. He was like my musical father. During that time I got to meet people like Mongo Santamaria one on one. Mongo, Willie Bobo. Clare Fischer came into the Tjader band after Lonnie Hewitt left. Lonnie Hewitt was in the band when I joined and for about three years after that. Then Clare came back into the band. Clare had been in the band 15 years before that, and then he came back. This was the cat who had written "Morning" and "Pensativa." I’d watch him play. Clare Fischer is a harmonic genius! He’d play ballads. I learned a lot by watching Clare as well as Cal.

Clare and I used to hang out a lot. That’s about the time we started the Salsa Picante band. We were still both in Cal Tjader’s band when we started that. Then he added the 2+2 thing with singers and all. He left Cal’s band. But I was still playing with Clare while I was playing with Cal. We got along real well; you know what I mean? And then Clare helped me get a contract with Discovery Records. My first two albums were on Discovery. Clare helped me with the arrangements and everything. He provided lots of ideas. I also helped arrange things for his band. I was still in Cal’s band when I made those first two albums for Discovery. Clare helped me with that. I remember Clare telling me… We were working on something for his Salsa Picante band and Clare said, "No, I want to do it this way."

We started disagreeing on arrangements and ideas. One day he looked at me and said, "You know Poncho, I think it’s time for you to get your own band." I was hurt. I was insulted. I was still with Cal Tjader at that time. Clare was not. But I was mad.

When I got home I thought, "You know that’s not a bad idea." So I started getting some material together. At that time the Banda brothers, Dick Mitchell and Sal Cracchiolo had a little garage band. Sal was an original member of my band too. I had met him at Cerritos College. I had some arrangements that I had got from a guy in Portland. I took my arrangements over there. Whenever I wasn’t working with Cal I’d hang with these guys, have a few beers. We started doing some Latin jazz tunes and Al Williams, of the Jazz Safari in Long Beach, asked me to work at his club with this band. I told Ramon, he’s going to pay us, but we need a name. So the first name for this band was Montuno. We got a handful of gigs in maybe eight months. I was still playing with Cal and with Clare and with Eddie Cano. But I was hanging out with this neighborhood band. These were my homeboys. So after a while I realized that I was getting the phone calls, getting the gigs, and fronting the band, talking, introducing. So I told the guys, "We’re going to call this The Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band. Anybody got a problem with that?" Boom, from there on in, it was called The Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band. I was still working with Cal, Clare, Eddie Cano, to make my living. I had my band on the side.

Then Cal signed me with Concord. I was the third person to sign on the Concord Picante label. Cal Tjader was first, Tania Maria was second. We used to back up Tania Maria. After I signed, Tito Puente signed. Now, Tito’s off the label, Tania’s off the label, and Cal’s gone. I’m the original guy with Concord Picante and I’ve been with them for some 18 years now. Cal helped me get that contract eight months before he passed away. He introduced me to Carl Jefferson.

AAJ: Starting with Charlie Parker, jazz has always had that stigma with respect to drugs. People say, "I don’t want my children learning jazz. There are too many drug users around those jazz clubs." Have you been witness to things like that in your business?

PS: Sure. That’s very true. But the same is true of other areas. People are involved in drugs in other arts; it’s pretty much equal across the board. It’s a product of society. Take the number one Christian band in the world or something like that, and I bet there are people in that band who have been reborn, who are ex-drug addicts. It’s everywhere.

I too had a problem. When Cal Tjader passed, it was as if someone had pulled a rug out from underneath me. I had been drinkin’ a little bit too much. Cal loved to drink Scotch, and I got a taste for it while drinking with Cal. But I was doing cocaine at the time, and was thinking that everything was fine with that. I even went to my doctor about a month before Cal passed - before we went to the Philippines - and told him that I’d been unusually nervous and had been depressed. Things in my life were going so great at the time, so I asked him why I was getting these unusual feelings. He asked me what I had been taking and I told him the truth. He said, "Well there you have it. You gotta cut out that cocaine and drinking."

I thought, "This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about." And sure enough, right about when Cal passed I realized that that’s what was happening. I was hooked on cocaine and alcohol. Especially when you decide to stop, you go through a month of asking, "Why am I so nervous and why do I have all these mixed emotions?" Cocaine’s very bad for you. I had hit bottom. I haven’t touched cocaine since then. It’s been 17 or 18 years.

That doctor was right. That’s the worst thing you can do. Now, I have my glass of red wine with dinner and I have a few beers once in a while, but never again. No way! Kids need to know that. I’ve been there. It ain’t cool and it ain’t the thing to do. But we’re not there with them. We need to tell them though. My kids know what I’ve been through because I’ve told them all about it. I’m lucky I’m here. A lot of my friends are not here because of the drugs. I slipped right under the wire. I got lucky. I tell them, "You may not be so lucky."

AAJ: Do you screen your band members for that?

PS: Well, they’re all full-grown men. I know there have been drugs in my band, yeah. We’ll have our 20-year anniversary next year. Sure there’s been drugs in my band. They know that I don’t like it. We’ve all been through that period. These days my guys are pretty straight and clean. I remember way back, when they were hiding it from me. My guys know how I feel about it. Little by little, things have turned out pretty well.

AAJ: You usually have your family around when you perform, don’t you?

PS: Oh yeah. They like to come a lot. Well, there are eleven of them. And now I’ve got nieces and nephews. They’re really into the music. A few of my nephews play guitar. I recorded on one of the demo tapes. They’re doing their own thing and I tell them, "Go for it." Several others play in school bands. But there’s one nephew, Michael, who has a rock band. He calls me for advice all the time. I love to help. You gotta have that fire burning. You gotta want it.

AAJ: Have you ever felt discrimination in the Latin jazz world?

PS: No, not much. A lot of my audience comes from a jazz fan background; they know what’s happening. They show up to dig the jazz. They don’t even stop to consider that the audiences are made up of black folks, oriental folks, white folks, Latinos. So, we play for a lot of different people.

Any discrimination that I’ve ever faced came way back when I was first coming up. Over in Griffith Park I used to go to these Sunday jam sessions with 30, 40, or 50 conga drummers. They had distinct circles. One circle was just the good guys: maybe six really good Cuban and Puerto Rican cats who played well. And then another circle was maybe 30 or 40 guys bangin’ on anything. They were like…just having a good time. I’d been playing there for a few weeks and thinking, "Jeez, these guys play terrible." Up on the hill this smaller circle of cats were doing la rumba, guaguanco, all the good stuff. We’d go watch them play.

One day I asked if I could join and one guy said, "Are you Cuban?"

I said, "No."

"You Puerto Rican?"

"No."

"What are you?"

I said, "I’m a Chicano."

They said, "Chicano’s can’t play congas. Go on, get out of here."

Then one day a guy from the circle was missing and another guy said, "Get in there, I’ve seen you with those other guys. Get in there, show them what you can do."

I sat in and they gave me a solo. Afterwards, one guy says, "E Cubano?" Another says, "Puerto Rican?" One guy says, "Come on, your mother must be Puerto Rican or your father must be Cuban, the way you play."

I said, "No man, my mother and father are from Mexico and I’m from Texas. I’m Laredo." [laughter]

So that’s the only taste of discrimination that I’ve encountered. Even after I already had a Grammy nomination and went to New York City, we played at the Village Gate and this taxi cab driver pulled up to this long line. The sign said "One night only. Poncho. Sanchez." We sold out the place. I walked in and there in the front row were Tito Puente, Manny Oquendo, Patato [Valdez], you know. These were the cats from whom I learned by listening to their records. They were like this, Jim. [arms folded and quite serious in judgment]. It was like, "I hear these L.A. boys can play. And they’re Mexicans too. Let’s see what they can do." They were there to check us out. We threw down, man. It worked. We’ve been back to New York thirty or forty times since then. Those are some of our best friends. I hang out with Patato all the time. The others too.

The only discrimination I’ve ever faced was amongst ourselves. Latinos and Latinos. But not any more. Things are great now. We go to Puerto Rico all the time. We broke the record at the world-famous Blue Note. I played there for a whole week at the Blue Note with Eddie Palmieri’s band and the management told me, "Poncho, do you know that you guys have broken the attendance record here at the world-famous Blue Note for a week?" Everybody and his mother has played at the Blue Note.

AAJ: I’ve noticed that your horn players have changed a lot and yet people come back to the band. Sal Cracchiolo, for instance, has gone away and come back. Have you ever had to fire anybody?

PS: Oh sure. Being the leader of an organization like this… This is also a business. There are at least ten or eleven people immediately who depend on me: each guy in my band, my manager, my other manager. They depend on my hands, our performances, us playing and things coming out right. We all live off of it. The two Banda brothers and Sal Cracchiolo are original members of the band. Everybody else in the band – Papo [Rodriguez], David Torres, Larry [Sanchez] – has been with us for at least 10 years. Larry Sanchez, who’s not related, has been with me for like eleven years. Larry’s my sound man and roadie. I don’t go anywhere without Larry. He’s a professional sound man and a pianist too. He knows music. He’s not just some guy stickin’ wires together up there.

So, everybody’s been in the band at least 10 years except for the new guy, Francisco Torres, the young cat on trombone who has been in the band about a year and a half and does an excellent job. So usually when they join this band they don’t leave too soon. The record speaks for itself.

I only fire guys because of the music. If they’re not playin’ up to what they should be playin’, or if I’ve seen them play better and they’re falling back. That happened to a few cats in the band. For instance, Sal Cracchiolo who I love like a brother. Sal’s got a heart this big; beautiful guy, I love his sound and style. Sal left the band because he was kinda slackin’ off and crackin’ notes and whatnot, and I finally let him go. He told me he was devastated by it. And then he got the gig with Tom Jones. He was making pretty good money. But look what kind of gig that is. Same tunes every night. Wearing the same tuxedo. "It’s not un-u, da-da-da-da-da-dah." That’s whatcha got all night, you know what I mean? Sal traveled all over the world with them. They went to Russia. He made good money. But he told me, "Poncho, I’m so unhappy." He came back in the band and he came back like gangbusters, man. I mean, he had been practicing and he nailed everything.

Stan Martin was the band’s trumpeter at the time. Sal came in to sub for Stan one time and just nailed everything. He said, "I’m ready to come back, man. I’ve learned my lesson." And Stan had been thinking about leaving. It’s funny how that worked out. They switched gigs. Stan Martin works with Tom Jones now. So Sal’s back now and it sounds like he ain’t never leavin’ again. Sal’s playin’ wonderful, sounds beautiful. It’s all about musicianship. Letting someone go is the hardest thing to do.

AAJ: The Grammy awards. Is being nominated important for a working musician?

PS: There are three nominations up there [on the living room wall]. I’ve never won a Grammy with my band. I won a Grammy with Cal Tjader. I won a Grammy with Clare Fischer. The tune we wrote together is the tune that won it for Clare: "Guajira Pa La Jeva." That’s the tune that Clare and I wrote together. [1981, Best Latin Recording]

I won the Grammy also in 1980 with Cal. I have a plaque for that. It was in 1980, for La Onda Va Bien. [1980, Best Latin Recording]

AAJ: Has it helped?

PS: Well, sure. It definitely doesn’t hurt, Jim. But it’s not like you think it is. It’s not like, "Wow, you won the Grammy, man, and now you’re set for life." I haven’t been nominated for a Grammy since 1991. I’ve got more gigs since ’91, you know, and I haven’t been nominated again. Now, if it meant that much, the band would have gotten real hot right then. But I haven’t even been nominated since then. I think the most important thing is to put out some great records. There are a lot of key factors to being successful, not just one thing. You’ve got to have a great band, great arrangements, great music. If you can’t do it yourself, you’ve got to have someone doing that for you or to help you write it out. My piano player, David Torres, is my number one guy. We write everything together. David Torres is my musical director. We set up every CD. We choose the music. We go over it. And then we rehearse the band with what we’ve chosen. David Torres is my right arm.

You’ve also got to have a great agency. I work out of the Berkeley Agency with Jim Cassell. They have connections all over the world. Jim Cassell is not only my agent, but he’s my personal manager as well. I’ve been with the Berkeley Agency now for about 13 years.

You’ve got to have a current recording contract with a major label. These cats who are doing the independent thing, turning out one album every six years… That’s up and down. You gotta keep a steady thing going.

AAJ: Do things look okay now with Concord since the change of ownership?

PS: Oh yeah. Things are looking real good. They’ve left the same people in the office, the same people in charge. John Burk. Glen Barros is the president. They’ve found the backing, the money. I’ve met those people now, and they love jazz. They’ve told me they love my new CD. Yeah, things look great with Concord. I’ve been with them from day one. Thank God it’s all going well.

AAJ: How do things look for your next release?

PS: Well, of course Latin Soul has only been out a few weeks, and it has gone quite well. The next one after that will be our 20th anniversary CD. So I’m thinking of some different things. Joey DeFrancesco will be working with us for a whole week at Yoshi’s next year, and maybe we’ll hook up after that too. We’ll develop some ideas. Also, I have some local friends, the Ortiz brothers, who have a salsa band called Son Mayor. There are eight brothers, but only five of them play in the band. One of the brothers, Eddie, plays the tres. They play a style of Cuban music called changuí. It’s real down-home and they sing in Spanish. We’ve been rehearsing here at my home. I’m gonna have them do a few changuí tunes on my next recording. But it’ll be Poncho Sanchez style. Changuí music doesn’t use congas; they use tres, bongos, an instrument that looks like a box, and a few others. I’m going to add the congas to that and it’ll be our own rendition of changuí. It sounds great. It’s traditional, but with my own thing. Maybe we’ll do a double CD.

I have about five tunes that we did not use on this last recording that have never been recorded before. "In Walked Bud." David did a beautiful arrangement of "The Days of Wine And Roses" mambo style. "Stella By Starlight" as a bolero. All those are ready now and haven’t been recorded yet. We have a lot of new ideas.

AAJ: On your web site, there’s a photo of you with tape on your fingers, comparable to an athlete wearing tape for protection.

PS: Exactly. It protects my fingers. I come from the heavy-hitter school and have callouses from beating that drum for 30 years. I tape them up to protect my fingers. You get a little bit of a better sound if you don’t tape them, but I’ve got no problem with that. My experience works in my favor. By taping my fingers I protect them and everything works out.

My son, Monguito, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and put the web page together. He’s in charge of that.

AAJ: Thanks for sharing with us today. Viva La Familia.

PS: All right, Jim. That’s what it’s all about, man.