Tito Puente's son says what his dad really thought about Santana covering 'Oye Como Va'
By the time he was 10 or 11, Tito Puente Jr. knew his father, an iconic bandleader often referred to as the King of Mambo — or El Rey, for short — was a touring musician.
“Tito Puente was not home a lot,” he recalls. “He did about 300 shows a year.”
Puente Jr. didn’t realize just how big a deal his father was in Latin culture, though, until the day the legendary Latin drummer took the kids to Madison Square Garden for a concert by his sister Audrey’s favorite group, a Puerto Rican boy band called Menudo.
“We were in the front row because of my father’s status and all of the sudden, Menudo stopped right in the middle of the concert and told the entire crowd, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Tito Puente’s here,’” he recalls.
“The entire arena, 18,000-plus screaming girls, started chanting my father’s name. I must’ve been 10 or 11. I was like, ‘Why are they screaming for my dad? He’s just the guy I see in the morning coming out of the bathroom.' But the people of Puerto Rico and, of course, New York, loved him so tremendously."
Phoenix concert will celebrate the King of Latin Music
Puente Jr. is his own bandleader these days with a concert planned for Saturday, Dec. 9, at the Nash in downtown Phoenix as part of a tour celebrating the centennial of his father’s birth.
“This entire year, we’ve been celebrating the King of Latin Music,” he says.
“My father’s music is more important now than it was when he was alive because of the culture and the way it brings people together. I see people dancing to mambo and salsa, Tito Puente music, around the world. It’s incredible. Even 23 years after his passing, I still see his face everywhere.”
When his image appeared on a postage stamp in 2011, the Smithsonian noted that "Tito Puente is the face of Latin music for many people."
Puente Jr. says his fondest memories are of his father’s famous smile.
“He was a comedian,” Puente Jr. says. “A funny street guy. "He was like the Puerto Rican James Cagney. That’s who dad wanted to be compared to. And he loved Frank Sinatra. He wanted to be Italian. He wasn’t. He was Puerto Rican.
"He was just dear old Dad and he is sorely missed.”
Concert review: Pitbull, Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin dazzle Phoenix with Latin music extravaganza
Tito Puente Jr. was more into Metallica than mambo as a kid
It was only a matter of time before Puente Jr. found himself behind a drum kit.
“Let’s just say we had a garage up in New York full of drums,” he recalls. “And what do your parents tell you to do? ‘Don’t touch my drums.’ So what do I do as a kid? You go and touch the drums.”
He didn’t necessarily gravitate toward Latin music, though.
“I’m a rock drummer by trade,” Puente Jr. says. “That’s what I started out with. I was playing heavy metal. Iron Maiden and Metallica. I’m an ‘80s kid.”
That all changed when his mother suggested he start spending summers with his dad.
“I’m really grateful for my mother, Margie Puente, who said to me when I turned 14 or 15, ‘Why don’t you go on the road with your dad when you’re not in school,’” he recalls.
“And I was so grateful for that because I got to experience traveling the planet, going to the Far East, Indonesia, Australia, all the continents. I did not get to Antarctica but I think my father did play on a cruise ship that went there.”
He learned a lot on those tours.
“I didn’t care about mambo music until I started traveling with my father and learning about the Afro-Cuban three-two, two-three clave style of playing timbales and congas and bongos,” he says. “And that’s when I started gravitating towards my culture and learning more about the history of Afro-Cuban music.”
How Tito Puente felt about Santana covering 'Oye Como Va'
His father’s music had the same effect on the culture.
“My father brought Afro-Cuban music to the American public,” Puente Jr. says. “He was instrumental in that by performing big band jazz, swing music and Afro-Cuban music and putting it all together back in the 1930s and ‘40s and ‘50s. He had a five-decade career and was instrumental in opening doors for all Hispanic musicians, including Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, even Carlos Santana.”
One of Santana’s biggest early hits was a cover of Puente’s “Oye Como Va.”
“Pop used to say every time he traveled the world, people would come up to him and say, ‘Hey Tito, play that Santana tune,’” Puente Jr. says “Meanwhile, Tito Puente wrote it back in 1963.”
Puente wasn’t wild about Santana covering "Oye Como Va" at first.
“Then he got a nice big fat check with a lot of zeroes on it,” Puente Jr. recalls with a laugh. “And my dad said, ‘From now on, I’m gonna play Santana music.’ He didn’t complain after that.”
'You know you kind of made it when you’re on The Simpsons'
Puente Jr. says his father didn’t realize the impact he had on the culture until late in life
“Coming from humble beginnings in Spanish Harlem, New York, he was a street musician, really,” he says.
“He never really recognized his fame and how much impact he made on the music community and fans worldwide until later on in his career, when he started getting a lot of accolades.”
He performed at the White House for four different presidents.
In the mid-‘80s, Puente appeared as a bandleader in the John Candy comedy “Armed and Dangerous” and the Woody Allen film “Radio Days.”
In 1992, he played himself in “The Mambo Kings” and contributed three songs to the soundtrack.
He also appeared on "The Simpsons," playing Lisa’s music teacher in the two-part "Who Shot Mr. Burns?," contributing the Emmy-nominated "Señor Burns" to the soundtrack.
As Puente Jr. says, “I think you know you kind of made it in pop culture when you’re on “The Simpsons.” His dad had no idea what “The Simpsons” was when he was asked to do it, though.
“He was like, ‘What is that?’ I was like, ‘Dad, you’ll be on the highest-rated, longest-running animated series of all time.’ And I think that was the highest-rated show. ‘Who Shot Mr. Burns’ was seen by more than 20 million people.”
Tito Puente Jr. on the daunting thrill of keeping his father's legacy alive
Playing music with his father was always an intimidating thrill.
“It was great,” he recalls. “He would throw me a cowbell or a maraca and say, ‘Come up on stage.’ But you can’t compete with the King like that. Being around somebody of my father’s caliber and skill set was a force to be reckoned with.”
The idea of keeping his father’s legacy alive by performing the music himself was quite the daunting proposition.
“It was unusual to see a Puerto Rican play Afro-Cuban music to the maximum level that my father did,” he says.
“So I had some big shoes to fill when I started playing his music after his untimely passing in 2000. But I’ve learned so much over the past 20 years of performing his music and learning more about what he meant to people.”
Puente is, after all, Spanish for bridge.
“That’s what my father did for so many decades,” he says. “And I’ve been doing that to teach these younger kids today, the new generation, about Tito Puente.”
Tito Puente Jr. concert in Phoenix
When: 7 and 9:15 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 9.
Where: The Nash, 110 E. Roosevelt St., Phoenix.
Admission: $74-$79.
Details: 602-795-0464, thenash.org.
Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @EdMasley.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How Tito Puente's son is keeping the Mambo King's legacy fresh
