LARRY
HARLOW 4 VERY DIFFERENT MUSICAL SHOWS
To all Salseros:
LARRY HARLOW 4 VERY DIFFERENT MUSICAL SHOWS
These past 3 weeks I have been involved in
four very different musical adventures. I will
try to explain and review these musical
endeavors. On Nov 15 2001 the Latin Legends band
flew to Amsterdam for a show scheduled on Sunday
the 18th. Ralph Irrazarry replaced Bobby
Sanabria , who was in Miami with his jazz group
and we added , Mitchell Frohman on baritone sax
as well as adding Junior Gonzalez and Andy
Montanez and his 2 sons. We left NYC on Delta
Air, Friday at 8pm and arrived at 9am Sat
morning to be met by our promoter Salsamania's
Jorge Acevedo and his crew and our bus. We drove
into Amsterdam a really beautiful city with a
huge Hispanic population , mostly South American
with a few island people . We checked into our
hotels called the Golden Tulips in Rembrandt
Square but our rooms were not ready, so we
walked across the street to the nearest Coffee
House called "Smokee's.
By noon we were all feeling pretty good and
our rooms were finally ready. We did some
shopping and went to a reception dinner at the
home of DR Salsa (DR Ira Goldwasser and his
family ) who I have known for some years. They
served a great spread of food and Mojitos for
the entire band and our invited musicians and
friends from Holland. Everyone jammed in his
basement including Leslie Lopez, Lewis Kahn,
Neil Axelrod and Louie Bauzo and Gerado Rosales
. At 9pm we all went to the Convention Center
which is a huge, but wonderful venue , Capacity
appx 12,000 to see and hear the local Dutch
groups and Groupo Niche.. It was packed with
Great dancers and fans.. After an hour or so I
retired as the jet lag was catching up with me.
The next day was spent rehearsing and sound
checking. With Andy Montanez, Jimmy Sabater,
Jose Mangual Jr. ,Yomo and the Legends Band.. We
went back had a great Indonesian dinner and
presented a 3 hour show that will remain in the
minds of all that were there. Everyone played
and sounded wonderful. There were 10,000 fans
dancing, singing and having a great time. The
promoters did extremely well and presented an
truly danceable and swinging weekend of
professional Salsa Dance music and show.
Everyone made money and were treated with all
due respect. We all returned Monday to NYC and
PR where we left from.
Now the following weekend was just the
opposite. Billed as a memorial for Tito Puente ,
at the Bill Graham Civic Center in San
Francisco, this show was suppose to feature the
TP orq and many invited guest soloists including
myself and Yomo Toro from the Legends band. We
flew Friday Nov 23rd to California from JFK on
American Air with the NY soloists , Chocolate,
Patato, Yomo, Jimmy Bosch, Papo Vasquez , myself
and agent Richie Bonilla, The Puente band coming
Sat afternoon. . Cachao, TP Jr , Dave Valentin
and the rest coming from Miami. We were split
into 2 different hotels , The Marriot and the St
Francis . I had my friends in town for the SF
International Auto Show and spent Friday eve at
the show and having a great meal with Rudy Morel
and Family and Allan Schein and some friends.
Thank you Allen for that great restaurant...I
returned to the hotel at midnight and slept
well.
Our press party was held in a drug rehab
house in the mission district.. Very few press
attended. I left after a 1/2 hour, Sound check
from 1-4 at the Civic Center turned into Puente
band rehearsal with all the soloists sitting
around for 4 hours doing NOTHING.. The sound
company was the usual teamsters sound men who
had NO idea of how the mike and/or stage a Latin
show. The room (where I have played before) is
notorious for having bad acoustics. We were
joined by the Bay area soloists, Orestes Vilato,
Francisco Aguabella, John Santos, Karl Perazzo
and Rebecca Mauleon (who I was meeting for the
first time, Por Fin) John Calloway etc etc. etc.
and about 20 dancers. I NEVER played one note in
the 4 hours I waited. Again Back to the hotel to
shower and change into stageclothes for the 7pm
VIP reception .. The reception was really a
snack table with water for the musicians ... I
should have stayed in the hotel. ...at 8pm the
people started to trickle in . the show began
with a big band and 20 dancers dancing in front
of them .. Julia Sewell from SFSalsa.com and I
watched and listened as the sound crew destroyed
some young big band 's Latin Music. We all were
waiting our turn to play .. I was scheduled for
9;15 with Cachao, Patato, Yomo, Orestes, John
Santos, Karl and had planned to take a long
solo. We finally played at 11;30 Cachao took out
his big bass , plugged in and nothing came out..
The stage crew changed amp tops, then bottoms
still NOTHING...The crowd, about 1000 out of a
possible 8,000 was growing restless and I went
to the mike to calm them down,, After 20 min of
NO MUSIC it was decided that Cachao would play
acoustic , with a mike pointed to the f- hole on
the bass,, So we played VERY softly. I was in
front of Yomo who was plugged in and very loud
and could only hear him and I .. Then we were
joined by 6 horn players who were miked so I had
NO chance to hear Cachao or any of the
drummers... I was depressed and disappointed
that I could not take a solo or even play
well... But Rebecca Mauleon had already played a
"Harlow solo" as well as I could have,
two songs earlier. There was supposed to be an
intermission and then return to the program ,but
when the break came, it was so late the crowd
went home and the rest of the program
canceled... We left for the airport on 2 hours
sleep.. I flew 4000 miles to play 10 minuets of
UN rewarding music for my mentor Tito Puente,,,
A Very unorganized and financial flop of a
show...
Now Thursday eve, Nov.29th, I went to
Birdland , here in NYC to see the 2nd Django
Reinhardt NY Festival. I went last year and had
a rewarding musical evening. I am a fan of
Grapelli's music and had a chance several years
ago to see him perform at the Monterey Jazz
fest. before he passed away. Thursday was an
acoustic heaven, Under the musical direction of
Frank Vignola an American swing genius Wendy and
my guests were treated to hear Angelo Debarre
one of Django's disciples , Boulou and Elios
Ferre two French brothers, Violinist Ola
Kvernberg along with Jon Burr and Alain Jean
Marie a French Pianist to an evening of pure
gypsy swing.. All of these musicians were
exceptional soloists and I wopuld like to thank
Birdland as well as producers Pat Phillips and
Ettore Stratta for making this wonderful evening
happen again this year and I hope it continues
every year. Kudos to all..........
Last night Friday Nov 30th, Niel Axelrod ,
Andy Kaufman, Ira Herschel and mark Weinstein,
all Jewish Mambonicks for the 50's got together
to see Orquesta Aragon play at Montclair State
College Auditorium. Of course we got lost
getting there but managed to get there just as
the first not of the ARAGON theme was starting.
The best $20 ticket of the year. The theater was
full of hard core Union City and NYC fans of Orq.
Aragon, who shouted songs out that they wanted
to hear. Orq. Aragon played marvelous, even
though they had lost their timbalero two days
before in Miami, as he defected and took
political asylum in the USA. The timbales were
played by the 3rd violinist who did a more than
average job on the drums as well as take an
incredible violin solo that brought down the
house, The show was only 1[15 and everyone
wanted more but when the audience was asked to
dance on stage to pare Cochero, I knew it was
over.. I had a wonderful evening
So 4 quite different musical
evenings..........
Hasta la Proxima........
QUE VIVA LA MUSICA NUESTRA.
LARRY HARLOW
El Judio Maravilloso
