1915-
1948. A
conga/
bongo player from
Havana, who helped
popularize "the
latin tinge" in modern jazz.
Dizzy Gillespie had become enamored with
Cuban music while in
Cab Calloway's orchestra, and, when he formed his own, added the
Afro-Cuban
percussion of Pozo to his
rhythm section (who were themselves later to form the
Modern Jazz Quartet); it gave Gillespie another
unique niche in
bebop besides his trumpet playing and
improvisational concepts - not only did he also translate the small-group
genre of bop to the larger, big-band context, but he also helped introduce the
rhythmic elements of future
US musical Latinmanias (including this current one).
Pozo joined in 1947, and co-wrote (with Gillespie) "Manteca", which soon
passed into the jazz canon, and (with arranger Gil Fuller) "Tin Tin Deo";
"Cubano Be / Cubano Bop" was written by George Russell with the latin-fied
Gillespie big band in mind. The success of Pozo's contributions opened the door for Latin Jazz (or Cu-Bop, or Afro-Cuban Jazz) to be commercially viable. Machito and his brother-in-law Mario Bauza (the man who turned Diz on to Cuban
music, when they were with Calloway) formed a successful band. Later on, the
bands of Tito Puente, his conga player Mongo Santamaria, and Cal Tjader
became popular; various percussionists were in-demand for recording dates; the
mambo and other such dances would go mainstream in a big way. Santana, anyone? The band's lineage includes Cuban and Nuyorican percussionists who were either peers of Pozo, or were inspired by him.
Pozo himself, though he recorded with a who's-who of modern jazz in the 40s (Charlie Parker, Fats Navarro, Tadd Dameron, and others), missed out on the career benefits of the doors he helped open; he died in a Harlem barroom fight in late 1948.