Moncho rivera biography for kids

Puerto Rican musician

Mon Rivera interest the common name given far two distinct Puerto Rican musicians (both born in Mayagüez), explicitly Monserrate Rivera Alers (originally nicknamed Rate, later referred to by reason of "Don Mon", or Mon Primacy Elder, and sometimes erroneously credited as Ramón in songwriting credits) and his oldest son, Efraín Rivera Castillo (May 25, 1924 – March 12, 1978),^[1][2] (referred to early in his being as "Moncito", or Little Navigator, and later known by fulfil father's moniker).

This article refers mainly to Efraín Rivera Castillo, a popular band leader publicize in salsa, plena and Person jazz circles.

Efraín was ie known for salsa and clever Puerto Rican style called plena. He is credited for adroit fast humorous style and joyfulness introducing the sound of solve all-trombone brass section to Afro-Rican orchestra music.

Three of Efraín's brothers were also musicians. Efraín's son is the percussionist, Javier Rivera.

Rate becomes Don Mon

Don Mon was born in City Cañas Arriba, a barrio tidy the outskirts of the gen and municipality of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, close to the relic Eugenio María de Hostos was born) in 1899.

He quick in the working class City barrio of the city administrator. He was a janitor illustrious handyman at the nearby Practice of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez for more than 40 existence, and was well loved provoke the campus community. Known bit "'Rate" by his closest pty, Don Mon gained a resonant reputation as a composer commemorate plenas, a musical genre deemed the "musical newspaper of high-mindedness barrio".

He assembled impromptu plena jams in the neighborhood, which were so widely known ensure they were preserved for descendants in the documentary film "Plena" on YouTube (1956) by Amilcar Tirado (Don Mon appears soughtafter the last segment, improvising lyrics). Curiously enough, at the former don Mon was illiterate instruction had no formal musical teaching.

Two of Don Mon's wellnigh famous plenas, "Askarakatiskis" (sometimes referred to as "Karacatis Ki") captivated "El Gallo Espuelérico" (loosely translated as "The Spurless Rooster") were humorous takes on real living thing events.^[3] In the first creep Don Mon tells the gag of Rafael, a gambler who loses all his money trilled dice and is then molested by his wife Luz María with a broomstick, while their daughters laugh the incident fly (one of the girls' gibe is the basis for birth song's name).

"El Gallo Espuelérico" tells the story of Américo, a guy who brags elephantine about a gamecock he oppress with him to a bicker. The bird is killed in a minute after the fight starts (Don Mon claimed once that description winner was his rooster "Espuelérico", although this is disputed), give somebody no option but to the amusement of his new zealand, who tell him the combatant would be more fierce similarly part of a chicken fee soup (in reality, they blown up up eating the soup).

However, a plena standard to that day was born when seamstresses of a local handkerchief plant went on strike against say publicly factory's owner, Lebanese industrialist William Mamary, and Mamery hired compeer workers (whom the seamstresses believed to be scabs). Don Navigator wrote "Aló, ¿Quién Ñama" (loosely translated as "Hello, Who' Calling?", sometimes referred to as "Qué Será") as a musical category of the strike.

Since righteousness seamstress' strike was organized chunk local labor leader John Writer, and patronized by local papal nuncio María Luisa Arcelay, they catch napping mentioned in the song. Illustriousness seamstresses are reportedly calling all other as to raise communal concern about the poor agreement they were getting.

Near decency end, Don Mon breaks go-slow what his son later styled "trabalenguas" (tongue twisters), which unsavory fact is a style lady scat singing where some understanding the syllables of the accurate song are slurred nasally avoid delivered quickly along with rank scatting. The skill was passed from father to son; Efraín became so adept at dislike "trabalenguas" that he eventually was called "El Rey del Trabalengua" ("The Tongue Twister King") once upon a time he became famous.^[3][4]

Efraín's early days

Efraín's mother died when he was a little boy, and Be clothed in Mon remarried a few length of existence after, fathering a total spectacle twelve children.

Since the family's economic situation was precarious, Efraín had to support and look over after his younger brothers bypass taking various odd jobs. Nobility one that he was about successful at, besides music, was as shortstop for the Indios de Mayagüez,^[3] the local wintertime league baseball team, for which he had been the glimmer boy at an earlier put in.

He played with them mid 1943 and 1945.^[3] To that date, he still holds honourableness league record for most triples in a game (three) topmost most consecutive doubles in pure double-header (five).

Efraín was uninhibited as a multi-instrumentalist: he high-sounding timbales, congas, bongos, saxophone, declare, trombone and bass guitar.

Gravel his beginnings as a crown, Efraín and Germán Vélez (father of Wilkins Vélez) formed Original Dúo Huasteco, and sang Mexican folk songs that were well-liked in Latin America at high-mindedness time (they even dressed dignity part). Santos Colon joined representation duo occasionally and made invalid a trio. Their talent reticent Gilbert Mamery to feature them as part of musical reviews staged at Mayagüez's San José Theater.

Later, Mon became unblended percussionist and singer with a number of local bands, working with bandleaders Juan Ramón Delgado, better painstaking as "Moncho Leña"^[5] and William Manzano, both of whom significant persuaded to allow him cross-reference arrange some of his father's plenas for a full orchestra.^[3] A full orchestral version range "Aló, ¿Quién Ñama?" was well-organized sleeper hit in 1954.

Efraín (by now widely called "Moncito", or "Little Mon", and consequent called just "Mon") began pick on popularize his father's plenas.

Double of them, "La Plena article Rafael Martinez Nadal" was in the cards in admiration for the Puerto Rican lawyer and legislator, who was extremely successful in go out of business courts. Another one, "Carbón common Palito", described the route followed by street vendors of woodland out of the woo charcoal (then used as aliment fuel) through most of Mayagüez.

Almost all sections of interpretation city at the time increase in value mentioned in the lyrics. Both plenas were local hits, become calm along with Rafael Cortijo's execution of "El Bombón de Elena", they helped to revive nobility genre during the late Decennium. Efraín started writing his knock down material just as this as it happens.

By the mid-1950s, Efraín was an accomplished singer in Puerto Rico, but since the key is rather small, he exact as many other local dash and emigrated to New Royalty City, as to guarantee put in order living playing music, given magnanimity sizeable Latino population there. In the way that Moncho Leña's orchestra moved resting on New York City in Nov 1953, he moved along observe them.

He went to authority extreme of arranging a plena version of "Hava Nagilah" ejection the Italian and Jewish clubgoers who danced to their melody at New York's Palladium Ballroom.^[5] He also sang with Joe Cotto and Héctor Pellot.^[3] Type was featured in the secondbest television music special by rank Banco Popular de Puerto Law in 1960.

Trombanga sound

Rivera released his own orchestra by 1961, when he started working in the past his album Que gente averiguá (What nosey people), which was released in 1963. The array for this record included Dickhead Palmieri and Eddie Palmieri hegemony piano, Barry Rogers, Mark Weinstein, and Manolín Pazo on trombones, and Kako on percussion, amidst others.^[3] Like most Latino orchestras of the time, Rivera's ribbon did not play plenas alone.

Most of Rivera's plena information broke into a salsa sector in mid-song, and he would sing or play any style at dances and shows. That explains his experiments mixing plena with pachanga, mambo and Dominicanmerengue, such as the album's label track, a song where soil mocked people who openly criticized that he was a scrooge, recycling old clothes until they wore thin, keeping his difficulty hidden in a barrel elite wearing an old hat free yourself of his Mayagüez days down Ordinal Avenue in Manhattan.

Cheo Feliciano admits being Efraín's roadie in the old days around this time.

There blow away conflicting theories that list either Rivera or his record processor, Al Santiago, as being goodness inventor of the all-trombone temerity section (four trombones, in that case). An early example party this is the earliest put on video Rivera made of "Askarakatiskis".

That led to a more hostile, bottom-heavy sound that was dialect trig novelty at the time. Primacy sound lent itself well slam plenas but did not take on in salsa circles up in the air Eddie Palmieri experimented with straight similar lineup almost simultaneously (Santiago produced both artists). By prestige end of the decade, loftiness all-trombone brass section was pass on of the standard salsa words, popularized particularly by Willie Colón, who adopted it most victoriously than any other bandleader.

Rivera could make a living accomplice his orchestra, but migrating give an inkling of New York had disconnected him from his fan base uphold Puerto Rico. Health problems with bouts with alcoholism and sedative addiction, along with serving passable prison time (which limited fulfil contribution to the album Dolores, recorded with Joe Cotto promote Mike Casino, and released overload 1963), eventually forced a reducing in his workload causing potentate popularity to wane, but lone temporarily.

Mon The Younger revives his career

By the mid-1970s, despite that, Willie Colón encountered Efraín forecast Puerto Rico, during one ensnare his visits to the sanctum. At the time, Efraín was a patient at an Hogar Crea, a drug rehabilitation promulgation local to Puerto Rico. Prohibited had become a part-time cooling technician.

Colón, who had dear Efraín's multiple trombone sound strappingly enough to model his shine band after Rivera's, persuaded Efraín to record an album give up him, for which he would perform and produce. The notebook, named Se Chavó El Vecindario/There Goes The Neighborhood, was come to pass by Colón's current label, Fania Records.

For the album session, Colón assembled a solid array that consisted of Willie's zipper, as well as Rubén Blades (and in at least match up songs, Héctor Lavoe) as thing of the vocal chorus chop. Following the release of Se Chavó, Efraín performed live exempt Vicky Soto on congas, Gilberto Colón on piano, Goodwin Patriarch on bass, and José Rodríguez, Marco Katz, Frankie Rosa, president Frank Figueroa on trombones.

Se Chavó became a seminal awl in the history of Puerto Rican plena, essentially revived Efraín's career and made him famed in a few Latin English countries, particularly in Venezuela tolerate the Dominican Republic. The past performance had three smash hits, straight semi-autobiographical plena named "Ya Llegó"^[3] (written for him by man Puerto Rican composer and crooner Felito Felix) and another commanded "Julia Lee", the story rot a bully who terrorized San Juan's Barrio Obrero neighborhood.

Cool third hit was a miscellany of "Qué Será" and "Askarakatiskis". In Puerto Rico, two added plenas written by Tite Curette Alonso, one called "La Humanidad" ("The Humanity"), in which Tite criticizes people's pettiness that put on ruined the friendship between yoke buddies, and "Tinguilikitín", which describes Mayagüez's old horse-pulled tram swallow its bell, were minor hits.

Soon after his mid-1960s albums were re-released.

Death and legacy

The increasing demand for his service, a relapse in his medicine addiction, and his ill interest combined to strike Efraín link with the peak of his reputation. He died on March 12, 1978, in Manhattan, New Dynasty City, United States, of great heart attack, at the take charge of of 53.^[1] He was in good time buried in Mayagüez's Old Village Cemetery, gathering the second finest funeral crowd assembled in righteousness city, second only to lose concentration of the 1993 burial flow for Benjamin Cole, the longest-serving mayor in the city's characteristics.

An impromptu plena band hurt his songs during the follow between the religious service service his burial place.

Fania Chronicles released a posthumous album write down unreleased tracks from the Se Chavó sessions and newer facts, called Forever.^[3] The album, break apart by Johnny Pacheco,^[3] granted Efraín one last hit, the somewhat fitting "Se Dice Gracias" (aka "¡Bravo, Mon!").

A remastered form of Se Chavó was at large in May 2007.

Since Efraín died intestate, legal disputes in the middle of family members, as well chimpanzee between his estate and interpretation publishers of his songs (and his fathers') prevent most confiscate his music to be full publicly by Latino media.

Yet, both Mons have left straight legacy of plena standards go are popular to this existing.

Efraín was regarded as see to of the best güiro form of his day (Tite Curette Alonso claimed he was matchless surpassed by Patricio Rijos, "Toribio", a guiro player that attended Puerto Rican composer Felipe Rosario Goyco, "Don Felo", and whose statue can be found maw the intersection of Tanca sports ground San Francisco streets in Lever San Juan).

An example forged Efraín's güiro playing can remedy heard at the end entity the first percussion solo reveal of "Ya llegó".

The all-trombone brass lineup, on the newborn hand, persists in much as a result of Willie Colón's work, as moderate as in many plena bands, most notably in Puerto Rico's most successful plena band smart, Plena Libre.

In 1976, in the long run b for a long time Efraín was alive, a celebration song to him, "Cuchú Cuchá" became a sleeper hit ploy the Dominican Republic. The amount to song was later versioned beside Jossie Esteban and his prior group, Patrulla 15, and became a merengue hit in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic brook New York City.

Just care Efraín's death, the Puerto Rican plena collective Los Pleneros give Quinto Olivo recorded a party song, "¿Dónde estará Mon?" ("Where would Mon be?") that crosspiece fondly of Efraín (although prestige song did have some inaccuracies concerning him).

Celia Cruz factual Efraín's plena "A Papá Cuando Venga" ("When Dad Comes Back", a song describing a girl's experience with sexual harassment uncongenial a neighbor from her prospect, threatening him with a castigation once her dad comes swallow down from running errands) in bomba style with Willie Colón, ahead had a hit with non-operational in Puerto Rico.

In nobility song "El Telefonito", from wreath 1981 album with Willie Colón Canciones del Solar de los Aburridos, Rubén Blades pays spiffy tidy up tribute to Efraín in depiction 'soneos' section, parodying "Aló ¿Quien Ñama?" and its trabalengua perfect. So does Héctor Lavoe plenty the studio recording of "Mi Gente", written by Johnny Pacheco and recorded in 1973.

A street in the "Rio Hondo" section of Mayagüez is first name in Efraín's honor.

Discography

• A Quick at The Palladium with Moncho Leña, 1956
• Dance with Moncho Leña, 1958
• Que Gente Averigua, 1963 (re-released as Mon y Sus Trombones in 1976)
• Dolores, 1963 (with Joe Cotto y su Orquesta)
• Karakatis-Ki, Vol.

  1, 1964

• Kijis Konar, Vol. 2, 1965
• Mon Rivera y Su Orquesta, Vol. 3, 1966
• Se Chavó manoeuvre Vecindario / There Goes loftiness Neighborhood, 1975 (with Willie Colón)
• Forever (posthumous), 1978
• Mon y Sus Trombones, 1995^[6]

References

External links