NEW YORK (AP) -- Bandleader and percussionist Tito Puente, who rode to fame on the heels of the 1950s mambo craze and for the next five decades helped define Latin jazz, died Thursday. He was 77.
Puente, who was recently treated for a heart problem, died at NYU Medical Center in New York, said his agent, Eddie Rodriguez.Puente recorded more than 100 albums in his more than 60 years in the business. He won his fifth Grammy in February for best traditional tropical Latin performance for "Mambo Birdland" and has been nominated for the award 10 times.
Puente brought the timbales, a pair of single-headed drums mounted on stands and played with sticks, from behind the band to the front of the bandstand and played standing up. He also loved playing vibraphone.
Puente joked that he profited off the talent of Santana, whose early hits include Puente's "Oye Como Va."
"Every time he plays 'Oye Como Va,' I get a nice royalty check," Puente said.
"The excitement of the rhythms and the beat make people happy," he said in a 1997 Associated Press interview. "We try to get our feelings to the people, so they enjoy it.
"It is not music for a funeral parlor."
That year, RMM Records released a three-CD, 50-song compilation from Puente's recorded output through 50 years. It's titled "50 Years of Swing." The first cut, "Que No, Que No," is from his "El Rey del Mambo" ("The King of the Mambo") recording of 1946.
One of his most successful albums of the '50s was "Puente Goes Jazz."
"Some jazz bands, like Kenton's, had added Latin rhythms," Puente told an interviewer in 1957. "It sounded good to me. So I figured I might as well do the same thing, in reverse. I start off writing a straight jazz arrangement, then I just add a Latin rhythm section."
"It's the same reason kids like rock 'n' roll. It has the beat. I think bop, which neglected rhythm and neglected dancers, did a lot to kill big bands."
The eldest son of Puerto Rican parents, Puente was born Ernest Anthony Puente Jr. in New York City on April 20, 1923. (Some references give other years.)
His father, Ernest Sr., was a foreman in a razor-blade factory. His mother called her son Ernestito, Little Ernest, then shortened the name to Tito.
It was his mother who first discerned his musical talent and enrolled him in a piano class when he was 7. Puente studied drums for years before switching to timbales. He studied conducting, orchestration and theory at the Juilliard School from 1945 to '47 on the GI Bill.
Puente had been released from a San Juan, Puerto Rico, hospital May 2 after two days of treatment for an irregular heartbeat. Puente canceled all his events in May, including three concerts planned with the Symphonic Orchestra of Puerto Rico.
"I play in jazz festivals all over the world," he said in 1997. "Next year I'm going to China and Russia. Our Latin sounds are really spreading out.
"As long as I have my health, I'll continue to work as long as I can," he said. "I may have to slow down next year a little, get to the semiretirement stage. But there are a couple of things I want to do first."