Born on Mother's Day, circa 1944, in Cuba's main cattle region (Camagüey Province), timbalero/ bongosero Orestes Vilató arrived in the Big Apple at the age of 12, after his fluently bilingual progenitor was recruited to be in charge of a couple of international flights inaugurated by Cubana de Aviación (Havana-New York and Havana-Chicago). A current resident of Martinez, Northern California, Vilató is regarded by this writer as the most influential Cuban timbalero north of Havana. Although the former leader of Los Kimbos admits that he "never took a single percussion lesson" in his entire existence, it is unquestionable that the transplanted campanero has exercised a profound influence on various generations of Latin percussionists, either north or south of the Sugarcane Curtain, as illustrated or implied throughout the following verbal exchange ...

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LUIS TAMARGO: Is it true that your father was an opera singer?

ORESTES VILATO: Yes. He was raised in New York, where he studied opera and even sang operatic works like "Carmen" and "Rigoletto" in Italian at Carnegie Hall. Up until the age of 5, I was exclusively exposed to classical music, but I didn't really like it. It's hard for a 5-year old child to get into classical music! (LAUGHTER.) Eventually, he gave me a little guitar and stated, "You're going to study guitar." He did it because he knew that I was musically inclined, not because he was trying to force me to learn an instrument.

But then, while listening to Cuban music from the radio, I began to turn the guitar the other way round and hit the back of the instrument as if it were a bongó . We were living in Camagüey, where we didn't have a television set, but had access to the radio. I also took a few trumpet lessons, but "bongó" became a magic word in those childhood years. My heart was captivated by the word, by the anxious desire to know what a bongó was all about.

LT: Who gave you the first bongo?

OV: My uncle, Rafael Misa, former urologist and surgeon at Havana's Calixto Garcia Hospital and currently retired in Florida. I began to study that little bongó on my own, listening to the radio and kicking up a rumpus while trying to manipulate the bongó and playa maraca with my foot at the same time. It got to a point where I was trying to play three or four instruments at once!

LT: Who gave you the first timbal?

OV: After we moved to New York, my father gave me that first timbal. He said that he won it in a poker game.

LT: When did you meet Armando Peraza?

OV: Shortly after my arrival in New York, when my father took me to the Palladium to check out the musicians. My father never tried to dissuade me from becoming a percussionist. Instead, he helped me to pursue my musical goals, although he offered a pertinent warning: "You're going to be a starving musician. This is a difficult occupation. The bongoseros in Cuba have to shine shoes before nightfall!" (LAUGHTER). He wasn't lying at all. It was the plain truth. Even today, it is a very uncertain field of work.

Two weeks after he gave me that timbal, I was playing with a New Jersey group called the Cuban Rhythm Boys, which featured a tumbador called Felo Barrios, who would later become Orquesta Broadway's lead singer. Then I joined Orquesta Oriental Cubana and worked alongside pianist Willie Ellis (future founder of Típica Novel), Felo Barrios (doing lead vocals) and Roberto Rodríguez, a trumpeter with whom I would work extensively, in the years to come, with Ray Barretto, Orquesta Broadway and others.

LT: How did you hook up with Belisario López?

OV: I played with Oriental Cubana at New York's Ateneo Cubano and Club Cubano del Bronx (an Afro-Cuban social club in which Arsenio Rodríguez and Belisario López frequently played). Belisario had just moved from Cuba when he saw me playing timbal and he remarked, "I want you to work with me."

Belisario was very well known in Cuba as a danzón flutist and I was enchanted by the danzón genre. Belisario expanded my musical knowledge while we played together, before I joined José Fajardo's charanga, back in the times when JFK was assassinated and Cachao arrived in New York.

In fact, my father was the one who picked him up at the airport and brought hito to Fajardo's rehearsal at a club called La Barranca. Playing with Fajardo and Cachao was a dream come true. Cachao's Jam Sessions in Miniature (Panart, 1957) was one of the most inspiring albums that I heard during my formative years as a young musician.

LT: What happened after Fajardo?

OV: I worked for a while with Johnny Pacheco's charanga. Back then, Jerry Masucci was Pacheco's lawyer. Masucci and Pacheco came up with $3,000 to found Fania Records. I never imagined that it would eventually become a multi-million dollar company ...

I left Pacheco's charanga to go work with Ray Barretto. I was fortunate to play with Barretto when he led a charanga, and I witnessed how that charanga was transformed into a 3-trumpet conjunto. Before said metamorphosis was completed, Barretto combined two violins with brass (trumpet and trombone).

Notice how Los Van Van adopted the same fiddle-and-brass format years later. In the case of Los Van Van, they added two or three trombones, but it has been confirmed by Juan Formell, Changuito and others that they spent a lot of time listening to Barretto's music.

Working with Barretto stimulated my musical development because he allowed me to be creative. Coincidentally, as far as I know, the first band that was labeled as a "salsa orchestra" was the one led by Barretto. It happened in Venezuela in 1966, when we played a tune called Salsa y Dulzura and were asked afterwards, "Oh, so your band is a salsa orchestra?"

During the transformation from charanga to conjunto, there was a significant level of stylistic development in Barretto's band, even before Roberto Rodríguez wrote Qué Viva la Música. There were many problems in New York with the promoters and their cliques and cronies, but we managed to survive.

LT: Didn't Barretto recommend you for certain jazz gigs?

OV: ¡Si, señor! Being an asthmatic, Barretto couldn't participate in any recordings scheduled before 1 p.m., so he often sent me as a substitute to record with Lionel Hampton, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and other renowned jazz bandleaders.

LT: In 1965, you were one of the participants in one of Johnny Pacheco's most significant session (Pacheco-His Flute and Latin Jam, Fania).

OV: Yes! This was the first time that I recorded with Patato. It was a very beautiful project!

LT: After 8-1/2 years, you left Barretto's band to join Típica 73. It appears that Típica 73 took New York by storm.

OV: That's right! I really don't know why. Típica 73 was a very simple, very organic group. We played sones and other Cuban tunes but at the same time, Típica 73's singer/trumpeter, René López, was doing English-language ballads. In addition to such an unusual level of versatility, we were very well connected throughout the Latin music scene because Johnny Rodríguez Jr. was always very good at getting work for the band. Not only did we work at nightclubs, but we also played at theatres, graduations, etc. We were booked by all kinds of people. We even played at some Mafia gigs (LAUGHTER).

I stayed with Típica 73 until mid-1975, when I formed my own band, Los Kimbos. As employed in Afro-Cuban religion, "kimbos" means "little devils." It doesn't signify anything negative...it doesn't imply that we were brujos or witch doctors (LAUGHTER).

LT: Right around that time, you were featured in a landmark session led by Patato (Ready for Freddy, Latín Percussion, 1976).

OV: Of course! That was the first album in which Papaíto (Sonora Matancera's timbalero) demonstrated his vocal talents. The tune titled La Ambulancia (featuring Papaíto on lead vocals) was a hit in South America.

LT: In 1979, you disbanded Los Kimbos. A year later, you moved to the West Coast and joined Santana's group.

OV: I had worked with Santana four years earlier, but I wasn't ready at that time to become part of an entirely different musical world. The rock world was only about business and nothing but business (LAUGHTER). I missed the talkative and amicable nature of the backstage Cuban or Latín scene. Somehow, I managed to overcome the solitude and desolation derived from such long tours, and ended up staying with Santana for nine years.

LT: What happened after the nine-year long Santana chapter?

OV: There was a saying promulgated by my former bandmates: "There is no life after Santana." I've been able to prove that the saying is invalid. I've done a thousand different things since I left Santana's group.

LT: In recent years, you have worked extensively with John Santos Machete Ensemble and Rebeca Mauleón's Round Trip. Is it difficult to get established and gain respect in the San Francisco Bay Area?

OV: It is difficult when one is regarded as "local," a term that I dislike because it undermines one's prestige. I'm supposed to be a "local musician," although I travel throughout the entire world every year. Despite the fact that I reside in the Bay Area, I do not think of myself as a "local musician."

I have worked with Machete Ensemble since it was organized 17 years ago by my workaholic godson, John Santos, who is also a very good musician and lecturer. I'm very proud of him and continue to work with his ensemble, as well as Rebeca Mauleón's Round Trip, with whom I traveled in 2001 to Finland and Alaska.

LT: You also played a very significant role in Cuba L.A.'s Narada releases.

OV: Those recordings were very, very special. Danilo Lozano (Cuba L.A.'s leader) is also very special. We recorded three albums together with much love and affection, and even conducted several successful tours with the outstanding cast of talented musicians involved in this project, which must be regarded as one of my favorite missions (or my favorite mission, period) in recent years. Unfortunately, I realized that Cuba L.A. was killed at birth when I found out that the group's name legally belonged to the record label.

LT: It appears that you have developed a distinctive charanga-rooted style as a timbalero.

OV: Upon my arrival in New York, I realized that I was not going to get anywhere by functioning as a mere imitator. Along with Manny Oquendo and a forgotten Puerto Rican musician named Héctor Seno, I was one of the very few U.S.-based timbaleros who didn't try to sound like Tito Puente. So I created my own timbal style in New York, and I'm proud to say that it found its way back, all by itself, to my native island. Notice how the timbaleros featured with NG La Banda, Issac Delgado, et cetera have utilized certain cierres and licks that I had previously recorded with Barretto, Fania All Stars, and other New York bands. I have never claimed to be a rumbero, but I have adapted many rumba concepts to the timbal, and the rumberos in Cuba are aware of that ...

In terms of formative influences during my younger years, I acquired various traits and derived significant inspiration from the most authentic exponents of the original timbal school. I'm referring to the timbaleros who played mostly danzones in the traditional Cuban charangas, because the original conjunto format did not include a timbal.

I still remember the names of various charanga timbaleros such as Jesús "Chuchú" Esquizarrosa (Orquesta Sensación), Ulpiano Díaz (Fajardo), Pascualito (Orquesta América), El Fiñe (Fajardo, Belisario López) and Chiquitico (Belisario López). Despite his diminutive nickname, it must be clarified that Chiquitico was an extra-large man. Never mind that he used very thin drumsticks (LAUGHTER) ...

It is not well known that I was the first percussionist who introduced the cajita china (woodblock traditionally used in Cuban charangas) as a regular component of the timbal set-up in the New York Latin music scene. In summary, as a timbal player, my roots are based on "la cubanidad," the genuine essence of Cuban music.

LT: This also applies to your bongó playing.

OV: Although the bongó was my first instrument, I'm not a great bongosero. Particularly in terms of speed, as compared to those young bongó players of today who sound like machine gunners (LAUGHTER). Nevertheless, I'm fairly well acquainted with Cuba's traditional bongó school, and I have developed my own style while playing this instrument in more than a hundred recordings, including many Fania albums.

LT: It's rather evident that the aforesaid adherente to the roots has not prevented you from assimilating other influences and working in various other settings.

OV: That's right. Back in the Santana days, there was a time when I felt compelled to ask Changuito for advice: "Chico, sometimes I feel bad because I'm not properly functioning as a representative of Cuban music while accompanying Santana within a different musical context." And Changuito wisely replied, "Wherever or whenever you play you represent what you're all about. Even if you play with Santana or play Chinese music, you're going to reflect what you feel inside, and what you feel inside is the real thing, and the real thing is what matters."

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