AMY GOODMAN: “Oye Cómo Va,” Juan. This is the music of the great Tito Puente, who died two nights ago, on Wednesday night, at the age of 77. Tell us about him.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Amy, for those listeners who have never seen Tito Puente perform in person or heard his music, they should know that they missed one of the great musical performers of the 20th century. And he performed for more than 50 years, an average 300 days a year for more than 50 years, his music. And in the words of an associate professor of ethnomusicology that I spoke to at UCLA yesterday, he was the Bach and the Beethoven of Latin music, or, better said, that Bach and Beethoven were the Tito Puentes of classical music. And he had an enormous influence on Latin music, on jazz and also on intercultural exchange, because he was famous not just among Latinos, but he was famous worldwide, from the old Palladium days of the 1950s, where many African Americans and whites heard his music, the time of the great band leaders then of Tito Rodríguez and Machito and Tito Puente — those were the three big band leaders of the day in the 1950s and during the mambo craze — but he went on and outlasted everyone. He was, just by his endurance and by his ability to constantly innovate and improvise in his music, made a mark of — I think it was 117 albums that he produced throughout his life. An enormous legacy, musical legacy, and he will be missed by everyone.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you know, it’s interesting. On the earlier show we did on Pacifica station WBAI here in New York, on Wake-Up Call with Mario Murillo, we were joined by Nancy Rodriguez. Nancy is a producer on WBAI, and she is well known as a trailblazer and an activist for Latin music in New York and around the country. She and others formed the Puerto Rican Organization for Latin American Music. They demanded of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, that sponsors the Grammy Awards, that they recognize Latin music. And after 12 years of not, the Grammy Award competition eventually did. And they also fought for —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And Tito won five of those Grammys.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s right. And on the release of his 100th record, Nancy Rodriguez and other producers at WBAI in New York had a 24-hour tribute to Tito Puente. It was February 8th, 1991. They said they were tired of the dead tributes. They wanted to give a tribute to someone who was alive. And Tito Puente came into the studio along with many others, including Bill Cosby. And this is a little excerpt of what happened on that day.

BILL COSBY: Hello?

TITO PUENTE: Hello.

BILL COSBY: Hello?

TITO PUENTE: I want to introduce you to —

BILL COSBY: Testing. Testing.

TITO PUENTE: — to my best —

BILL COSBY: Hello? Testing.

TITO PUENTE: — my number one cowbell player.

BILL COSBY: Please.

TITO PUENTE: Every time I’m at the Village Gate, he calls up and says, “Tell Tito” —

BILL COSBY: Tito.

TITO PUENTE: — “his number one cowbell player will be down tonight.”

BILL COSBY: Is coming. Please.

TITO PUENTE: Mr. Cowbell right here.

BILL COSBY: Yes.

TITO PUENTE: BC.

BILL COSBY: In persón.

TITO PUENTE: In person.

BILL COSBY: I practiced all night my Spanish.

TITO PUENTE: Really?

BILL COSBY: In persón.

TITO PUENTE: In person, very good.

BILL COSBY: Sí.

TITO PUENTE: You sound like Celia Cruz in The Mambo King.

BILL COSBY: And my wife taught me something. She said, ”Cuando estás caliente, estás caliente.”

TITO PUENTE: Caliente.

BILL COSBY: Yeah, that’s what she said about you.

TITO PUENTE: Oh man!

BILL COSBY: And I said, “At what night did you learn this?” Oh boy. Oh B-O-Y.

UNIDENTIFIED: At the Palladium.

TITO PUENTE: Oh wow!

BILL COSBY: I don’t know. This is a studio that’s loaded with everything, man. I came — I’ve never seen so many people. And I’ll tell you something that’s very, very important. There are children here.

TITO PUENTE: Yeah.

BILL COSBY: Children. And it’s family. There are people with their children, husband and wife, wife and husband and children. And it’s all loaded. And it’s because of Tito Puente. But I would imagine, just taking for granted that this is the way the people live anyway who listen to this music —

TITO PUENTE: All my life. All my life, right. All my life.

BILL COSBY: — and what you represent. Celia Cruz — if we have time, I do want to tell the one story of —

TITO PUENTE: By all means.

BILL COSBY: — the two. They were in France at a place called Cimiez. Nothing but French, German — loaded with the European people. The place must hold around 1,200 or whatever. It’s packed and a jazz concert. Coming all the way is this man — this is about 1989.

TITO PUENTE: Yes.

BILL COSBY: — is Tito Puente and Celia Cruz. Now, this is a jazz concert. And these people are into jazz. And so, Camille and I went to the concert, and we said, “Well, this should be wonderful, but do they really know anything about this music?” Well, Tito and Celia proceeded to take what they do, play and sing. And these French and German and English and whatever else was there, the place — I mean, they just tore it up. You’ve never seen people just get up and — I mean, even if Lionel Hampton was playing “Flying Home” for 800 hours, you never got a reaction. Course, Celia milked the crowd. You know, Celia pretends that she cannot speak anything. You know, so she says, “Excuse me, I don’t know how to a speaky thing.” And then she went on and sang something, and the people threw chairs and wanted to sell their children, you know, if they could just have Celia for dinner.

TITO PUENTE: They got a little excited.

BILL COSBY: And it was phat. It was really — yeah, a little excited. But he — this man is all over this world. And I think that where he comes from and what he represents, especially when it comes to this community, this New York area, these people, they need to really look at him, and they need to look at some of the other people, as well, the people like Mario, Celia. They need to — whenever they walk into a place, man, they need to get up, and they need to acknowledge who they are, because to go all the way to France and play what is in their heart, what is in their mind and what they’re born with, I mean, it’s darn near breastfed, you know? And it’s also in the pablum, that these people happen to — forget ambassadors. They represent who we are and what we listen to every day and what we feel from inside, the way we talk, the way we look at each other, the way we wear our clothes. And they stand like granite. It’s absolutely fantastic.

UNIDENTIFED: The voice of Bill Cosby.

AMY GOODMAN: And that was February 8th, 1991, Tito Puente and Bill Cosby in the studio, a celebration of the work and life of Tito Puente, who now, nine years later, at the age of 77, has died. And praise is coming in for him, honors, celebrations of his life, all over, really, the world. As he made Latino music, Afro-Cuban music, Latin music, he brought it to the level that it is today. Juan?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, he was a world emissary for it, really, and is really known throughout the world. Just some of the comments that were made yesterday, Edward Olmos, of course, the actor and activist, said, “He did more for the cultural dynamic of this country than the president of the United States has done. We lost a giant.” And Rita Moreno, the wonderful actress and dancer, said, “Like Fred Astaire, he’ll live forever because of his music.”

And even some of the younger stars, the Ricky Martins and the Marc Anthonys, who have all the popularity, no, they all understand the importance of him. And Ricky Martin in Puerto Rico said, “With the passing of the legendary Tito Puente, Puerto Rico has lost one of her greatest treasures, and Latin music has lost one of its most talented and influential artists.” And Marc Anthony said, “It will forever be painful knowing I’ll never see him walk through a door and fill up a room again. But at the same time, I thank God for giving us the opportunity to know and care for one of the most amazing men ever to walk the Earth.”

AMY GOODMAN: Juan, last year, you wrote about walking with Tito Puente at the Puerto Rican Day Parade. It was not something you often did, join the parade.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, actually, I didn’t write about it, but I did walk in the parade. I’ve been — I have boycotted participation in the parade for more than 30 years, because — just because of the people who run the parade, I feel, use it for exploitation and commercialism. But Joe Conzo, Tito Puente’s longtime sidekick and right-hand man, called me up last year and said, “Look, you know, Tito’s 76. We don’t know how much longer he’s going to be on this Earth. And he’s going to be the grand marshal of the parade, and he wants a lot of his friends and longtime friends to walk with him.” And I said, “Joe, I don’t participate in the parade.” He said, “Juan, do it for Tito, please.” I said, “All right. For him, I’ll do it.” And I came out last year on a Sunday, bright Sunday morning. And who was there but Eddie Olmos was there, Jimmy Smits was there, Geraldo Rivera, Felipe Luciano. All these other people who have always treasured and felt the impact and the importance of Tito Puente all were there. And he led this contingent of people, of a few hundred people, that were marching behind him to honor him. And in retrospect, I’m glad I did it, because Joe was right. We didn’t know how much longer he had on this Earth.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Juan, we’re going to go out with not one of the most finely recorded pieces, but, on February 8th, on the WBAI hundredth record 24-hour tribute to Tito Puente, he and many of the greats packed into — and I mean packed into — the WBAI studio. You’re going to hear some of them laid out. You can make some comments as they’re introduced. And they just — they just jammed, we’ll put it that way. And let’s take a listen.

UNIDENTIFIED: And, ladies and gentlemen, we have a great cast here this afternoon. And we must thank each and every one of you; on piano, Sonny Bravo; Bobby Porcelli on saxophone; Ray Vega; Mitch Frohman; Lewis Kahn; El Otro Judío Maravilloso; Mr. Johnny “Dandy” Rodríguez doing the timbales work for now; Alexis [inaudible], on congas; Frankie Figueroa; Patato is here; Azuquita; Graciela; José Alberto; Bobby Rodriguez, another legend, on bass; Celia Cruz; Mario Bauzá. Y está aquí el señor, el maestro Tito Puente. Tito, come this way. Rudy Calzado just walked in. Tito, this mic should be on also, so by all means, it’s in your hands.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: This is a virtual hall of fame of Latino musicians, all of whom are legends, people like Graciela, Mario Bauzá.

TITO PUENTE: Well, thank you, Riggio. We have in the studio 2,000 years. Yeah.

CARLOS ”PATATO” VALDÉS: Not me, man!

TITO PUENTE: That was Mr. Patato. He just said the line — Mr. Patato just said the line that he said on the Bill Cosby Show: “Not me, man!” Is he OK. Same line he used there, that’s the only line he knows.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: This is Tito Puente himself talking.

TITO PUENTE: This is Tito speaking here. I’d like to thank everybody.

BILL COSBY: [inaudible]

TITO PUENTE: That’s right. All right. Now, the leader — the leader of this group — the leader of this group is Mr. Bill Cosby, a nice Puerto Rican boy. Bill Cosby, he’s the leader here. And he’s going to coach Celia Cruz and Graciela on what to sing, the coro, because we have Azuquita here from Paris, our boy, Panama, a great singer, also sonido. Thank you, fellas. But let’s see how we can ruin the music today.

UNIDENTIFIED: OK, everybody. While Tito heads over to the timbales, we’re giving this tribute to a man that, for many years, has given us a lot to be proud of, and not only the time that he has put in, but the quality of his music throughout the years, it’s what makes him a recipient of this tribute. And there used to be three big personalities in the music here in New York: Tito Rodríguez, Machito and Tito Puente. In Cuba, it was Señor Rodríguez, Maravillas — Señor Rodríguez, Arcaño y Maravillas y Melodías del 40. Today in Puerto Rico, you have El Gran Combo, Sonora Ponceña and Willie Rosario. Here in New York and around the world, ladies and gentlemen, there’s only one Tito Puente. So we’re giving this tribute to a man that deserves it. And we’re happy for his 100th recording. We hope that he records 100 more. So, these guys and these ladies are going to give us a show that is going to be remembered for a long time, because it comes from the heart. OK? Viene del corazon … [speaking Spanish]. Mario Bauzá está aquí. So, Tito, if you’re ready to kick it off, by all means. [speaking Spanish]. When God said, “Then let there be light,” some of these people were three months behind already.

TITO PUENTE AND HIS ORCHESTRA: [performing “El Rey del Timbal”]

AMY GOODMAN: The great mambo king, Tito Puente, dead at the age of 77. Of course, his music will live on and influence many for generations. And we’ll go to a music break with his music. A special thanks to the people who were involved with this 24-hour Tito Puente tribute in 1991: Nando Albericci and Mickey Melendez, Dred Scott Keyes. And it was all produced by WBAI’s Nancy Rodriguez. You’re listening to Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.

TITO PUENTE AND HIS ORCHESTRA: [performing “El Rey del Timbal”]

AMY GOODMAN: And you are listening to Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! Sorry I was stepping on your toes there on that number, Juan. I’m not the best of dancers. I’m Amy Goodman, here with Juan González.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We’ll work on it, Amy. We’ll work on it.