Song:Puerto Rico
Album:El Prodigioso 50 Anos del Maestro
Eddie Palmieri is a legend of Latin Jazz. He's been around since the 50s and he's still going strong today. He was born Dec. 15, 1936 in New York City. His parents emigrated from Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1926. Eddie and his older brother Charlie were playing music at a very young age and Eddie played piano at Carnegie Hall at age 11. Palmieri's music has always been a mix of his Puerto Rican heritage and his biggest jazz influence Thelonious Monk. He started out in 1955 with Johnny Sequi and after a three year stint with Tito Rodriguez, he started his own band La Perfecta in 1961. His 1966 album with Cal Tjader El Sonido Nuevo got a lot of attention. Palmieri disbanded La Perfecta in 1968 and started recording as a solo artist and with The Fania All Stars and The Tico All Stars. Puerto Rico is from the 1973 album Sentido. The song was co-written and features vocals by Ismael Quintana. It was recorded for the Miami based Latin music label Musical Productions. You can get it on this comp but Puerto Rico also appeared on volume 2 of the soundtrack CD from Spike Lee's film Crooklyn. Major labels like Columbia and RCA have occasionally attempted to package Palmieri for a more mainstream market. But that's never worked out and in recent years, Palmieri has recorded for Concord Jazz, most recently in 2005 with the CD Listen Here!. This legend of Latin Jazz is still making great music today. Here's Eddie Palmieri with The Fania All Stars featuring Ismael Quintana performing Puerto Rico.
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