A Look at the Music of Chico O'Farrill
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Chico O'Farrill
TRUMPET, ARRANGER
born 28 October 1921; died 27 June 2001
O'Farrill moved to New York in 1948 from his native Havana, and divided his time there between writing charts for jazz orchestras - Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton - and Latin bands of the sort led by Machito. In the 60s he wrote more frequently for television and drifted away from jazz, but in the 90s he came back to more frequent big-band work, led a regular orchestra at New York's Birdland and made a few final recordings, of which the overwhelmingly exuberant Heart Of A Legend (1999 Milestone) was a rousing homage to a life spent in Latin and Afro-Cuban music. His son Arturo has carried on some of his father's work and has also worked as a pianist with Carla Bley and others.
Richard Cook’s Jazz Encyclopedia
“[In the 1940s,] With the conjuntos [ensemble orchestras] needing arrangements, and many jazzbands having thrown over stock arrangements of American tunes in favor of Cuban music, a great Cuban school of arrangers appeared. Their grand figure was Felix Guerrero, who was a student of Nadia Boulanger and whose students included Arturo ("Chico") O'Farrill, Armando Romeu, Pucho Escalante, Roberto Sanchez Ferrer, Bebo Valdes, and Andres ("El Nino Rivera") Echevarria.'l This generation had grown up with radio. By now the American jazz they were listening to was more sophisticated, and its harmonies more elaborate.
The work of these arrangers was distributed by the music publishers in the form of stock arrangements. This was an important medium for the dissemination of music. A hit song wasn't just in the repertoire of one band; the arrangement, with all the instrumental parts, could be purchased inexpensively at a music store and played by a competing group or an amateur band—though, obviously, anyone with a distinctive sound customized the arrangements. The arrangements traveled internationally, as bandleaders around the world got hold of them one way or another, and played them in Barranquilla, Port-au-Prince, New York, or Paris.”
Ned Sublette, Cuba and Its Music [2004]
“We have chosen Pedro Justiz because in a certain sense he summarizes or exemplifies the Cuban style of orchestration, combining mambo phrasing and other Cuban styles and genres with the orchestral legacy of the American jazz arrangers. Something similar could be said with respect to Bebo Valdes, El Nino Rivera, Rene Hernandez, Mario Bauza, and others, although not all. Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill deserves a special mention, since he has been the only Cuban arranger who has had a big role in jazz orchestration in Cuba and in the United States, for up to the 19508 he traveled between the two countries, while Mario Bauza, for example, pursued his whole career in the United States, and Armando Romeu remained in Cuba. Furthermore, Chico O'Farrill became the only Cuban arranger to enter directly into jazz history without having to first go through "Latin jazz," when he wrote "Undercurrent Blues" for Benny Goodman's band in the Fifties, whose recording was a hit. O'Farrill began as a trumpet player, as I have already explained, and became known in the Cuban jazz milieu particularly in the orchestras of Isidro Perez, Armando Romeu, and the Bellamar. Then he studied piano and orchestration (with Felix Guerrero) and organized the first bop groups in Havana (see Chapter 4). In New York he studied with the composer Stephan Wolpe, maestro to several jazz arrangers such as Johnny Carisi and Bob Graettinger.”
Leonardo Acosta, Cubano Be Cubano Bop: One Hundred Years of Jazz in Cuba [2003]
Thanks to an ongoing correspondence with conguero and bandleader Jerry Gonzalez, during one of my many business trips to New York, I had the opportunity to take him up on an invitation to hear Chico O’Farrill’s Latin Jazz Orchestra during one of its appearances at Birdland.
There’s nothing quite like hearing a big band in a setting especially suited to Jazz performances, especially one with an experienced Latin Jazz percussion ensemble which on the evening in question featured Manny Oquendoon bongos and bells and Steve Berrios on drums, quinto, coro, in addition to Jerry on congas. Given the rhythmic function of bass in Latin Jazz, we might want to add Andy Gonzalez to this mix.
The power of the rhythm generated by a Latin Jazz percussion section infused the room with an energy that generated excitement in both the musicians and the listeners and also served to create a bond of enthusiasm and emotional satisfaction for everyone in the room.
When the band finished some of the high-powered and hard charging arrangements, you could hear the musicians along with the audience exhale in a sense of joy, glee and satisfaction due to having been a part of a special moment together.
Jerry was a mass of perspiration as he joined me at my front row table during a set break, having stopped to acknowledge the appreciative greetings of at least a half-dozen fans on his way from the bandstand.
After we visited for a while, he gave me some tips on the finer points of Latin Jazz rhythms and how to play Latin Jazz drums properly. As a parting gift he gave me a copy of Chico O’Farrill: Pure Emotion, a CD on Milestone [MCD-9239-2] which had been released a couple of years before.
I played the CD today in honor of the anniversary of Chico’s birthday [October 28th] and thought I’d share with you the fine insert notes to the recording by the Grammy winning writer Bob Blumenthal as a way of offering you more information about Chico, his career and his music.
As always, I try to populate these pieces with YouTube videos that serve as examples of the music under discussion. You’ll find several of these at its conclusion.
“Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill, a native of Havana (born in 1921; died in 2001), felt the pull of jazz as well as Latin rhythms from the time he began playing the trumpet and writing. For him, a merger between the idioms was a natural product of his musical curiosity.
Chico remembers that "it was never my primary interest to preserve the authenticity of Cuban melody and harmonies just for the sake of preservation. When I started my career in the Forties, a lot of Cuban music was very simplistic. I was always more interested in jazz; and when I got to New York, I naturally gravitated to Dizzy and other bebop artists, that fusion of Cuban music with the jazz techniques of harmonic richness and orchestration.
"Of course," he is quick to add, "I have been determined to preserve Cuban rhythms, and I always have the rhythm section in mind when I write. You have to write horn parts that don't collide with the rhythmic concept."
O'Farrill made his mark quickly, writing "Undercurrent Blues" for Benny Goodman, "Cuban Episode" for Stan Kenton, the "Afro-Cuban Suite" that brought Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips, and Buddy Rich together with Machito's orchestra, and the "Manteca Suite" for Dizzy Gillespie, as well as recording dozens of big band sides under his own name. Then he briefly
returned to Cuba, lived in Mexico City between 1957 and 1965, and, upon returning to New York, he began doing arrangements for Count Basie, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, and many others. "Things got so busy," O'Farrill admits, "that to a certain extent I stopped looking for other things. This album represents the kind of thing I would have liked to be doing all this time. This is the music I really love."
Pure Emotion also can serve as an overview of O'Farrill's career, with music that has been germinating for decades and brand-new pieces. The fantastic band assembled for the occasion has the same multigenerational feeling. "My intention was to get the best, whether old or young," O'Farrill emphasizes. "This music wasn't going to be the easiest to play, so there had to be real proficiency. Some of the newer guys were brought in by my son Arturo, who plays piano, and I'm grateful for his input."
"El Loco Blues" is one of the new pieces. O'Farrill calls it "a mambo blues," and indeed the contrasting brass and sax riffs recall classic big band mambo arrangements from the Forties and Fifties. Arturo O'Farrill, Jr., who has earned a reputation as a fluent and inspired pianist, shows why with his opening solo; Michael Philip Mossman handles the trumpet choruses and the high-end climax; Rolando Briceno is the alto sax soloist; trombonists Papo Vasquez and Robin Eubanks chase each other; and the rhythm section burns. "Steve Berrios is an incredible drummer," O'Farrill enthuses. "When you play with a big orchestra, you cannot fool around like you can in small groups."
"Pura Emocion" was first heard on an Impulse album in the late Sixties, when it was titled "Panache." Its mood recalls a romantic bolero, although O'Farrill describes it as a quasi-bolero, a "freer kind of fantasy." The orchestral detail behind Lenny Hambro's Johnny Hodges-inspired alto sax is stunning, illustrating why Count Basie relied heavily on O'Farrill among his pool of great arrangers. Except for four bars by trombonist Gerald Chamberlain, the lead is held by Hambro, a mainstay of Latin jazz, who blows an eloquent single chorus plus coda.
"The tune 'Pianitis' was written for Arturo, Jr. in 1984, when he played the San Francisco Jazz Festival with Machito," O'Farrill notes. "Then it was called 'Jr.'s Thing.'" The composition is in pyramid form, with a languid melody surrounding a powder keg of a second theme. Both Arturo and the band are called upon to employ a broad expressive range and meet the challenge with exceptional performances. "We rehearsed the tune," O'Farrill recalls; "then, as a joke, I said 'Let's do one to see what happens—but just one take!' That's the take you hear. When they finished, I said, 'Jesus, you guys are a bunch of monsters.”
Sensitive playing from one of the iron men of Latin jazz, trumpeter Victor Paz, highlights "Campina." The piece is a guajira, a rural Cuban form with heavy Spanish elements, and was composed for Cuban director Jorge Ulla's 1982 film Guaguasi.
"Variations on a Well-Known Theme" was originally written for a concert held at the end of O'Farrill's residence in Mexico City in 1964, and has been evolving over the subsequent 30 years. "I decided, what the hell, I'm going to go all out," the composer confesses in explaining how his take on "La Cucaracha" ended up sounding like a sweeping summation of his career. It joins what he calls "typical Sixties phrasing" with allusions to many things O'Farrill loves— Duke Ellington's band with Jimmy Blanton, the scores of Henry Mancini, snatches of 12-tone "serial writing" that was popular at the time, even themes from U.S. television. The band is reinforced by an added trumpet and two French horns; and while Rivera (flute), tenor saxophonist Bob Franceschini, Arturo, and the percussion section all shine, Andy Gonzalez gets a star for his bass work.
Another well-known theme, "Get Me to the Church on Time," is reimagined as a guaracha, complete with the second section (heard at the fade) that musicologists cite as the source of instrumental mambo. Flute and clarinet is one of several pungent combinations used in the arrangement, which features solos by Franceschini and Vasquez.
The bolero "En La Obscuridad" ("In the Darkness") is a Latin American standard, first made famous by Tito Rodriguez and later revived to great success by Luis Miguel. It is sung here by the great Mario Rivera, this time on Ben Websterish tenor saxophone.
"Perdido" contains several effective breaks by the percussionists and a chance for each of the three horn sections to carry the melodic lead. Solos are by baritone saxophonist Pablo Calogero and Papo Vasquez.
In the early Seventies, Gillespie asked O'Farrill to write a song on the order of "Manteca." The result was "Algo de Fumar" ("Something to Smoke"), which is now titled "Chico and the Men." This traditional-sounding piece is perhaps closest to the Chano Pozo classic on the bridge, where Mossman's trumpet breaks through the ensemble like sunshine. There are also exchanges between the "Chiconaires" and Rivera's flute.
"Igor's Dream," written for the composer's white Persian cat, sports the hard percussion groove and 2-3 reverse clave typical of the guaguanco. Rivera's soaring soprano sax is heard as well as Pablo Calogero and Papo Vasquez.
"I'm very grateful for the opportunity to do something with the big band," O'Farrill concludes. "I've had offers to record in recent years; but there was always a limit of seven or eight pieces, and I'd say 'No—I'm a big band writer."
You are indeed, Maestro O'Farrill, and we're grateful that you waited.”
—Bob Blumenthal, 1995