True musical visionaries don't appear out of the blue; they are the result of a life immersed in music from every angle. From a very young age, these artists have access to a wide variety of music and musicians, checking out all the possibilities of a musical life. They spend time in the company of important artistic thinkers and bring those thoughts into their music. Influential mentors guide these artists through proper technique, major musical works, and vast musicality. Most importantly, these artists start playing at a young age, and they simply never stop. Performance and practice consume the bulk of their time, helping them grown into towering musical figures. By the time they reach adulthood, music is not a choice; it's a fact of life.
Alto saxophonist and clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera spent his childhood interacting with music on every possible level, setting the foundation for his future groundbreaking career. Born into a musical family, D'Rivera found his first musical influence and important mentor in his father Tito, a classical saxophonist. Trained in the French school of classical saxophone technique, Tito was a solid player that shared his love of music with his son. Tito bought a curved soprano saxophone for the young D'Rivera, and helped his son build a solid technical skill set on the instrument. While D'Rivera's studies consisted primarily of classical music, he was exposed to everything as a result of his father's vast record collection. A wide variety of music floated through the D'Rivera household, ranging from Mozart concertos to early jazz, showing the young musician a world of artistic possibilities. D'Rivera's father was also a well-respected musician in Havana, leading to Paquito's early contact with future Cuban music legends such as Cachao and Chico O'Farrill. By the time that D'Rivera reached his early teens, he had incorporated the alto saxophone and clarinet into his repertoire, and he began to move towards a professional career. Seen as a child prodigy, D'Rivera performed with the Havana Symphony, was often featured as a soloist, and engaged in a wealth of theater work. He played anywhere and everywhere for experience, but soon started to lean towards improvising and jazz. Several important musicians on Havana's music scene during the late fifties, such as pianist Paquito Echeverría and guitarist Pablo Cano mentored D'Rivera in jazz. As the realities of Fidel Castro's revolution set into Cuban life though, musicians began to leave the island and jazz became scarce. It wasn't until later that jazz would return with D'Rivera becoming a major figure in groups such as the Orquesta Cubana De Musica Moderna and Irakere.
For the young D'Rivera, music was inseparable from life; he was deeply immersed in the act of creating music and the thrill of living. Throwing himself into his love for music as child, D'Rivera set the stage for the ground breaking work that he would do in Latin Jazz both in Cuba and the United States. In Part One of our interview with D'Rivera, we look at the influence of his father, the music scene during his youth, and his gradual shift towards jazz performance.
LATIN JAZZ CORNER: I know that your father Tito was an amazing saxophonist and he was very influential in your life—could you tell us a little bit about him?
PAQUITO D'RIVERA: My father was a classical saxophonist. He was part of the French school of the saxophone, from the Paris Conservatory. He never had the ability to improvise, but he loved Stan Getz, Lester Young, and the Goodman Orchestra. And I don't blame him! He exposed to every type of music, he was very Ellingtonian in the way that he listened to music—he said there were only two kinds, good and the other stuff. That's what it's all about.
He also used to deal with selling instruments, accessories, and books. So when I was five years old, he ordered a curved soprano sax from the Selmer factory in Paris. I still have that beautiful instrument. It is a silver plated curved soprano. Ever since, I have been trying to learn how to play that!
LJC: Was that unusual at the time to have a saxophonist doing classical music? He even had a group at the time playing classical music.
PDR: It was a septet; it was called Conjunto Sinfónico de Saxofones. It was a group that played music from different composers. My father and other people arranged the music for the group. I guess that was a lot of fun. It was in that same year that Marcel Mule founded his famous Parisian saxophone quartet; it was in 1943.
LJC: If your father was teaching you and he was bringing a primarily classical background, did he bring you a different perspective on the instrument?
PDR: Yes, because I based my style upon classical saxophone teachings from the Paris conservatory. And I grew up listening to every type of music. He had one of those small silver turntables. He would play every type of music there. One of my first LPs was Marcel Moyse playing the two Mozart Concertos for flute and orchestra. My father transcribed them; he did a couple of arrangements of them for piano and saxophone and then tenor saxophone and orchestra. They were beautiful flute concertos. He was very open. He also played Benny Goodman playing the Mozart Concertos on clarinet and then playing with a string band. It was a little confusing, but happily confusing.
LJC: Your father also had a music store where guys like Cachao, Bebo Valdes, and Mario Bauza would come in. How was contact with these guys important to you early on?
PDR: It was not really a music store; it was more of a tiny office in the middle of Havana. Yes, we received visits from people like Cachao, Mario, and Bebo Valdes; Chico O'Farrill used to come in there too. At that age though, I didn't know that those guys were meant to be part of the history of Cuban and American music. They were just clients and friends of my father. It was a very happy childhood to be surrounded by those great musicians.
LJC: You started working as a soloist where you very young; what was that like for you as a child and how did that influence you as a musician?
PDR: It was like a game. I was playing that I was a musician. Hanging around with those guys was like being Alice In Wonderland. It was great meeting so many different people. We used to live like ten blocks from the Tropicana club. I saw Nat King Cole and people like that playing around there, especially during the rehearsals that happened during the day. Because at night, there were no children allowed to be in the hall, but I used to go to the rehearsals. So I grew up surrounded by dancers, journalists, photographers, choreographers, painters, designers, many writers, and musicians of course. From my very early childhood, my father showed me the wonderful world of literature. So I started reading very young as well.
LJC: You went from that soprano to clarinet and then alto—how did that transition between instruments evolve?
PDR: My father had the vision that I was going to be a lead alto player and in those days, the lead alto player had to play clarinet. So when I was 12 or 13, he gave me an alto and I started playing around with it; my fingers were too small to play the alto earlier when I was five or six. At 11, I picked up the clarinet—it was a covered hole clarinet. That instrument is now in the Smithsonian. It was a covered hold clarinet, like a saxophone. I have very skinny fingers, so my father got that from the Selmer Company; I guess he got a discount with the company. He ordered the covered hole clarinet, and I started playing that instrument. He actually ordered two—the covered hole and the normal clarinet that he had on the side for when I was ready for it. When I was 11 or 12 years old, I picked up the clarinet and the alto. That's how it went.
Then I practiced in concert bands, stage bands, and also in cabarets. My father used to take me to where some orchestras were playing for me to practice in the pit. I was all over the place. We would go to the bar and he would say, “My kid will play the show." It was a great way to do it. It was the same thing with chamber music, jazz groups, and all that.
LJC: You had listened to jazz when you were younger, but you started playing jazz when you were in your early teens.
PDR: Yea, it was around then. Also, there was a group called Los Armonicos. Felipe Dulzaides was the pianist, and he had a group called Los Armonicos. I used to go there and play a couple of tunes in each show. I was learning from the guitarist Pablo Cano; he taught me how to read the chord symbols. That was so much fun playing with them. I am very indebted to Pablo Cano and the pianist Paquito Echeverría, they taught me a lot about how to be a professional improviser.
LJC: That time was very early on in the Cuban Revolution; was still a tolerance towards jazz?
PDR: Yea, in those days. But all those people left in 1961 or 1962—Pablo, Paquito, and Los Armonicos. Felipe was in jail for some reason. Felipe used to be the pianist and leader of that band, and he went to jail for political reasons. He spent two or three years in jail; he only spent two or three years because he was found innocent! Can you believe that? If you were innocent you would serve only two or three years; if he was guilty they probably would have killed him by firing squad or put him in jail for twenty-five or thirty years. That was the difference between guilty and innocent.
LJC: What other groups were around at the time and when did your access to jazz kind of fade away?
PDR: I was never what you call a professional jazz musician in Cuba, never. I just played in the symphony, the orchestra, or the theater. My father used to play in another theater; there was a very active theater life in Havana during those days. That went on until the government created a group called Orquesta Cubana De Musica Moderna. From that orchestra, Irakere was born.
Alto saxophonist and clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera spent his childhood interacting with music on every possible level, setting the foundation for his future groundbreaking career. Born into a musical family, D'Rivera found his first musical influence and important mentor in his father Tito, a classical saxophonist. Trained in the French school of classical saxophone technique, Tito was a solid player that shared his love of music with his son. Tito bought a curved soprano saxophone for the young D'Rivera, and helped his son build a solid technical skill set on the instrument. While D'Rivera's studies consisted primarily of classical music, he was exposed to everything as a result of his father's vast record collection. A wide variety of music floated through the D'Rivera household, ranging from Mozart concertos to early jazz, showing the young musician a world of artistic possibilities. D'Rivera's father was also a well-respected musician in Havana, leading to Paquito's early contact with future Cuban music legends such as Cachao and Chico O'Farrill. By the time that D'Rivera reached his early teens, he had incorporated the alto saxophone and clarinet into his repertoire, and he began to move towards a professional career. Seen as a child prodigy, D'Rivera performed with the Havana Symphony, was often featured as a soloist, and engaged in a wealth of theater work. He played anywhere and everywhere for experience, but soon started to lean towards improvising and jazz. Several important musicians on Havana's music scene during the late fifties, such as pianist Paquito Echeverría and guitarist Pablo Cano mentored D'Rivera in jazz. As the realities of Fidel Castro's revolution set into Cuban life though, musicians began to leave the island and jazz became scarce. It wasn't until later that jazz would return with D'Rivera becoming a major figure in groups such as the Orquesta Cubana De Musica Moderna and Irakere.
For the young D'Rivera, music was inseparable from life; he was deeply immersed in the act of creating music and the thrill of living. Throwing himself into his love for music as child, D'Rivera set the stage for the ground breaking work that he would do in Latin Jazz both in Cuba and the United States. In Part One of our interview with D'Rivera, we look at the influence of his father, the music scene during his youth, and his gradual shift towards jazz performance.
LATIN JAZZ CORNER: I know that your father Tito was an amazing saxophonist and he was very influential in your life—could you tell us a little bit about him?
PAQUITO D'RIVERA: My father was a classical saxophonist. He was part of the French school of the saxophone, from the Paris Conservatory. He never had the ability to improvise, but he loved Stan Getz, Lester Young, and the Goodman Orchestra. And I don't blame him! He exposed to every type of music, he was very Ellingtonian in the way that he listened to music—he said there were only two kinds, good and the other stuff. That's what it's all about.
He also used to deal with selling instruments, accessories, and books. So when I was five years old, he ordered a curved soprano sax from the Selmer factory in Paris. I still have that beautiful instrument. It is a silver plated curved soprano. Ever since, I have been trying to learn how to play that!
LJC: Was that unusual at the time to have a saxophonist doing classical music? He even had a group at the time playing classical music.
PDR: It was a septet; it was called Conjunto Sinfónico de Saxofones. It was a group that played music from different composers. My father and other people arranged the music for the group. I guess that was a lot of fun. It was in that same year that Marcel Mule founded his famous Parisian saxophone quartet; it was in 1943.
LJC: If your father was teaching you and he was bringing a primarily classical background, did he bring you a different perspective on the instrument?
PDR: Yes, because I based my style upon classical saxophone teachings from the Paris conservatory. And I grew up listening to every type of music. He had one of those small silver turntables. He would play every type of music there. One of my first LPs was Marcel Moyse playing the two Mozart Concertos for flute and orchestra. My father transcribed them; he did a couple of arrangements of them for piano and saxophone and then tenor saxophone and orchestra. They were beautiful flute concertos. He was very open. He also played Benny Goodman playing the Mozart Concertos on clarinet and then playing with a string band. It was a little confusing, but happily confusing.
LJC: Your father also had a music store where guys like Cachao, Bebo Valdes, and Mario Bauza would come in. How was contact with these guys important to you early on?
PDR: It was not really a music store; it was more of a tiny office in the middle of Havana. Yes, we received visits from people like Cachao, Mario, and Bebo Valdes; Chico O'Farrill used to come in there too. At that age though, I didn't know that those guys were meant to be part of the history of Cuban and American music. They were just clients and friends of my father. It was a very happy childhood to be surrounded by those great musicians.
LJC: You started working as a soloist where you very young; what was that like for you as a child and how did that influence you as a musician?
PDR: It was like a game. I was playing that I was a musician. Hanging around with those guys was like being Alice In Wonderland. It was great meeting so many different people. We used to live like ten blocks from the Tropicana club. I saw Nat King Cole and people like that playing around there, especially during the rehearsals that happened during the day. Because at night, there were no children allowed to be in the hall, but I used to go to the rehearsals. So I grew up surrounded by dancers, journalists, photographers, choreographers, painters, designers, many writers, and musicians of course. From my very early childhood, my father showed me the wonderful world of literature. So I started reading very young as well.
LJC: You went from that soprano to clarinet and then alto—how did that transition between instruments evolve?
PDR: My father had the vision that I was going to be a lead alto player and in those days, the lead alto player had to play clarinet. So when I was 12 or 13, he gave me an alto and I started playing around with it; my fingers were too small to play the alto earlier when I was five or six. At 11, I picked up the clarinet—it was a covered hole clarinet. That instrument is now in the Smithsonian. It was a covered hold clarinet, like a saxophone. I have very skinny fingers, so my father got that from the Selmer Company; I guess he got a discount with the company. He ordered the covered hole clarinet, and I started playing that instrument. He actually ordered two—the covered hole and the normal clarinet that he had on the side for when I was ready for it. When I was 11 or 12 years old, I picked up the clarinet and the alto. That's how it went.
Then I practiced in concert bands, stage bands, and also in cabarets. My father used to take me to where some orchestras were playing for me to practice in the pit. I was all over the place. We would go to the bar and he would say, “My kid will play the show." It was a great way to do it. It was the same thing with chamber music, jazz groups, and all that.
LJC: You had listened to jazz when you were younger, but you started playing jazz when you were in your early teens.
PDR: Yea, it was around then. Also, there was a group called Los Armonicos. Felipe Dulzaides was the pianist, and he had a group called Los Armonicos. I used to go there and play a couple of tunes in each show. I was learning from the guitarist Pablo Cano; he taught me how to read the chord symbols. That was so much fun playing with them. I am very indebted to Pablo Cano and the pianist Paquito Echeverría, they taught me a lot about how to be a professional improviser.
LJC: That time was very early on in the Cuban Revolution; was still a tolerance towards jazz?
PDR: Yea, in those days. But all those people left in 1961 or 1962—Pablo, Paquito, and Los Armonicos. Felipe was in jail for some reason. Felipe used to be the pianist and leader of that band, and he went to jail for political reasons. He spent two or three years in jail; he only spent two or three years because he was found innocent! Can you believe that? If you were innocent you would serve only two or three years; if he was guilty they probably would have killed him by firing squad or put him in jail for twenty-five or thirty years. That was the difference between guilty and innocent.
LJC: What other groups were around at the time and when did your access to jazz kind of fade away?
PDR: I was never what you call a professional jazz musician in Cuba, never. I just played in the symphony, the orchestra, or the theater. My father used to play in another theater; there was a very active theater life in Havana during those days. That went on until the government created a group called Orquesta Cubana De Musica Moderna. From that orchestra, Irakere was born.
