CHARLIE PALMIERI — El Gigante del Teclado (review)

CHARLIE PALMIERI — El Gigante del Teclado album cover

Album · 1972 · Afro-Cuban Jazz

5/5 · 2011-03-27
Matt

Comeback album is often used to describe Charlie Palmieri's "El Gigante Del Teclado" (the giant of the keyboards) and Charlie was in more ways than one a giant as he sure had the experience with studying at the Julliard School of Music, then working in the bands of Rafael Munoz, Xavier Cugat, Tito Puente, Pupi Campo and Tito Rodriguez just to name a few. Charlie was a jovial man who also enjoyed life and nothing better than great food being one of Charlie's loves but as we know today it can be your un-doing as he suffered a stroke and two heart attacks with the last being fatal in 1988 while he was working as the musical director for Joe Cuba. Charlie started with charanga which he played throughout the 1950's till the early sixties with his band La Duboney but boogaloo arrived and Charlie dropped flute and violins and went brass. Meanwhile during this time he was working as the musical director for the classic band The Alegre All-Stars creating Latin Jazz history. Things dropped off though in his career and it was Joe Cain the producer at Tico Records who manged to get Charlie back into the studio which resulted in three albums with the first "El Gigante Del Teclado" giving him the hit "La Hija De Lola" which has become a classic in this genre of music. One of the absolute high points is the addition of the Cuban trumpeter Alfredo "Chocolate" Armenteros who even played with Beny More in his Banda Gigante in the early fifties. Cuban is Chocolate's tone and style with an absolute purity applied to it, as he always maintained his roots sound not matter what he played in whatever band which are too many to name but I will say he worked at Sar Records and was involved in many productions at the label being the house trumpet man. Bobby Nelson is playing sax and flute with Vitin Aviles singing lead vocals who was under-rated throughout his career providing a traditional cuban sound with his phrasing. The coros have to be mentioned but all of them are stars in their own right and the first one has super nova status being Tito Puente, Vayo El Indio and Aldalberto Santiago as well. Charlie is just not on piano although it is used in plentiful proportions, he also is on organ giving the album a wonderful variety to its sound but maintaining still a great Latin roots base.

The hit is the first track being "La Hija De Lola" with Charlie on organ, Chocolate blowing one hell of a solo being the usual with his high Cuban pitch and Vitin Aviles does a wonderful job on vocals bringing that right flavour to the whole tune with Charlie Palmieri right in the groove with his solo on organ. Percussion is perfect, the coros are right on with the montuno and Chocolate is darting between the lot for end of this stunning, driving , dancing classic. At number four we have "Que Se Vaya" being an instrumental with Charlie on organ applying groove to this great little tune but the end of his solo he uses that Jerry Lee Lewis flourish across the keys with also a great timbale and conga solo included for the percussionists. If you want those big solos you need to head to the last two tracks on this album with the just under 7 minutes in length "Coco" and here is Tumbao with its rythmn from the bass of Booby Rodriguez which just underpins the lot with great vocal presentation by Vitin and what could not be any better drive from those three master coros with great hard hitting backing vocals.This is also where you will hear Charlie lay down one absolute ripper of a piano solo and who near the end is putting in the rythmn with the percussion to come back right in on that spot.The album finisher "El Pan Sobao" is a Son monster with that groove just continuing, Charlie plays another stunning lenghty piano solo and Chocolate Armenteros shows the world how a Cuban Master plays trumpet just dripping Sabor in this eight and a half minute son extravaganza. There are seven compositions all of them good contained within the album providing ample truth that Charlie Palmieri was the Giant of the Keyboards.

Charlie was Eddie Palmieri's older brother and their parents house must have constantly been used for piano practice and all of us should be grateful that they put in the hard yards to give us two superb latin pianists. Charlie Palmieri went far to soon,he always had that roots sound to his music but improvision was everywhere creating some of the most memorable moments in Latin Jazz history and not just with his own solo work but also with The Alegre All Stars.