Carlos "Patato" Valdés - Biography
By Robert Leaver
When one thinks of the conga, one must think of Carlos “Patato” Valdés. His patented invention of the tunable conga produced by Latin Percussion as the “Patato Model” set the popular standard for the instrument. Using three tuned congas to produce melodic phrasing, his groundbreaking work in the ‘50s and ‘60s helped establish the instrument as more than just a rhythm marker. Playing with both the top Latin and jazz musicians in New York City, his style and showmanship helped lift the instrument out of the Latin music ghetto. Demonstrating that the conga could “sing” like a brass or bass instrument, the stage was set for the evolution of the instrument. In the ‘60s it would be incorporated into rock, pop, and soul formats and superstars such as Santana and the Rolling Stones employed the “Patato model,” making the conga an essential element of popular music.
Patato’s musical pedigree can be traced to the “Los Sitios” barrio in Havana, Cuba, where he was born November 4, 1926. His father was a tres guitar player with Los Apaches, a group of longshoremen who played traditional Cuban son. As a child he learned to play the marímbula (an African derived instrument that fulfills a bass function by plucking springy keys attached to a resonator box) as well as the tres guitar and by age twelve he was playing conga in the carnival “comparsa” group Los Sultanes. In 1946, at the age of nineteen, he was invited to replace the ailing conguero in the popular Cuban group La Sonora Matancera. A year later his childhood friend and fellow drummer, Armando Peraza, who would achieve fame playing with Santana, brought him in to play with the up and coming Conjunto Kubavana de Alberto Ruiz. Of diminutive stature and almost hidden behind the drums he played, he became known by his nickname, Patato, popular Cuban slang for a little dude.
The late ‘40s and early ‘50s were an explosive time in Cuban music. The addition of the conga to the conjunto format, initiated by the legendary Cuban composer, tres guitarist, and bandleader Arsenio Rodriguez, added a greater rhythmic dimension and led to wider appeal. Cuban music was enjoying worldwide popularity as, unbeknownst to the musicians, they were creating the blueprint for salsa. By 1950, Patato was playing with one of Cuba’s top groups, Orquesta Casino de la Playa, who took their name from the segregated society locale where they were based. The first black man to be featured in the band, Patato would later be dubbed “the Jackie Robinson of the conga” for leading the way forward in breaking Cuba’s color barrier. Already a popular figure known for his comical antics such as dancing on top of his congas, his fame spread via one of Cuba’s first television programs, El Show del Mediodía. Casino de la Playa appeared often on this daily show and it was on one such broadcast that Patato introduced “el baile del pinguino,” the penguin dance, creating a new dance sensation in a dance-oriented society. Another comical dance for which he is credited is “El Yoyo.” Known as “los campéones del ritmo” or the “rhythm champs” and featuring such legendary singers as Roberto Faz and Orlando Vallejo, Patato’s hand can clearly be heard in hits such as “Rumba en el Patio” and “Sonaremo el Tambo.”
While traveling with the group for a series of showcase concerts in New York City in 1952, Patato enjoyed hanging out with Mongo Santamaria and his old buddy Peraza and was impressed by the burgeoning jazz scene. In 1954 he decided to relocate there. He says, “my father taught me rumba and son but I was different, I had my own ideas, my own steps.” Accordingly, his first studio recording in New York was on jazz trumpeter Kenny Dorham’s Afro-Cuban (1955 Blue Note Records), a seminal Latin jazz fusion featuring Horace Silver on piano and Art Blakey on trap drums that would point the way toward smaller ensemble Afro-Cuban jazz. He was quickly brought into Tito Puente’s orchestra at the peak of the Palladium mambo craze and played on Puente’s classic Cuban Carnival (1955 RCA) along with fellow rhythm legends Santamaria, Candido, and Willie Bobo. Numerous accounts of them performing at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in 1955 testify to Patato’s ability to bring down the house and Puente’s Puente in Percussion (1956 RCA), featuring the same smoking rhythm crew, remains an essential drumming textbook. In 1956 he joined the most venerable of all Latin big bands, Machito & his Afro-Cubans, where he remained for five years.
By the ‘60s, he was mostly recording and gigging in New York’s active jazz circuit, most notably with jazz flautist Herbie Mann. Patato enjoyed playing with Mann and was given the space to improvise and play counter-melodies and bass lines while still maintaining his rhythmic function. Fixtures at the informal Riverside Park rumbas in New York City, Patato and his boyhood buddy Totico, a singer of considerable talent, continued to evolve the deep Cuban tradition. This odd couple (Patato of diminutive stature and Totico a veritable giant) entered the studio with legends Arsenio Rodriguez on tres guitar and Israel “Cachao” Lopez on bass and created an innovative album that took rumba out of the museum. The landmark recording Patato y Totico (1967 Verve) and its signature cover of the bossa nova standard “Mas Que Nada” became akin to a sacred text in the rarefied world of Afro-Caribbean rhythm. Countless students cut their chops playing along to this record that raised the bar for the next generation of drummers. In the late ‘60s he relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area to join the Willie Bobo Sextet and in ’68 cut a record with jazz arranger Duke Pearson, but, as always, he made his way back to New York City.
Patato possessed the spirit of a true bohemian and cites film, poetry, and literature as influences on his music. Enamored with Paris ever since his brush with stardom in Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman (1956), in which he gives Brigitte Bardot a mambo lesson, Patato stayed there for extended periods in the ‘70s and ‘80s where he was warmly embraced and helped cultivate a growing Afro-Cuban scene. In the early ‘70s he played on recordings by legendary Puerto Rican singer Ismael Rivera and percussionist Kako. He also joined Cachao on his classic Cachao y su Descarga ’77 Vol. 1 (1977 Salsoul). As the endorser and creator of the “Patato Model” conga for Latin Percussion, he recorded several albums in the ‘70s for the company. On Ready for Freddy (1976 Latin Percussion) he is joined by timbalero Orestes Vilató (Fania All Stars), pianist Alfredo Rodríguez and tres guitarist Nelson Gonzalez for an excellent set of music that has a live feel. He participated in gigs and recordings along with Tito Puente and other veterans assembled by Martin Cohen with the Latin Jazz Percussion Ensemble. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, he played with Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez and his band in Paris until recruited by pianist Jorge Dalto to join his Inter-American Band. With Rodríguez on piano and Totico on vocals, Patato made an Afro-Cuban recording under the simple title Sonido Solido (1983 TTH) or “Solid Sound.” Employing dual flutes, the album has a sweet charanga and features the comical “Monsiew José” and “Dícelo, Patato” (“Say it, Patato”). With Dalto and his all-star band Patato began to record Masterpiece (1993 Messidor) in 1984, but Dalto’s death shelved the recording until the next decade.
Patato, though aging, stayed active in the ‘90s, working in the studio on recordings by Hilton Ruiz and Bebo Valdés, among others. He resurfaced with a higher profile when the Ritmo y Candela (1995 Round World Music) record he made with legendary drummers Changuito of Cuba’s Los Van Van and salsa veteran Orestes Vilató enjoyed critical success. The recording was based on a one day live in the studio jam session and its title cut “San Francisco Tiene Su Propio Son” highlighted the Cuban connection to the Bay Area. That recording and its follow-up Ritmo y Candela 2 (1996 Round World Music) both received Grammy nominations for Best Latin Jazz Recording. The latter recording showcased some of Cuba’s rising young talent such as Iván “Melón” González on piano and Yosvany Terry on saxophone, and also made a connection to Africa with Congolese singer Samba Mapangala singing “Sangre de Africa.” Later, both recordings would be compiled as Patato: Legend of Cuban Percussion (2000 Six Degrees Records).
Patato contributed to the soundtrack of The Mambo Kings (1992) and at the end of the ‘90s he teamed with fellow Cuban elder Candido Camero and, perhaps the greatest conguero of the next generation, Puerto Rican Giovanni Hidalgo. They performed several high profile concerts and made two recordings for Chesky Records, The Conga Kings (2000) and Jazz Descargas (2001). He also participated in an ambitious, critically acclaimed recording and film, Calle 54 (2001 EMI), along with dozens of world’s greatest Latin jazz musicians playing in various live configurations. Patato joined bass maestro Cachao in the Bebo Valdés Trio recording El Arte del Sabor (2001 Blue Note), which won the 2002 Grammy for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album. Among numerous accolades he received over the years are “Lifetime Achievement” awards from the International Latin Music Hall of Fame, the Puerto Rican Jazz Festival, and the New York Hispanic Entertainment Journalists. Despite his advancing age he continued to perform regularly, using a stick to play the congas when his arthritis flared up. On his way back to New York from a show in San Francisco in December 2007 he fell ill and the plane had to make an emergency landing in Cleveland, where he died several days later. A respected player of the sacred two-headed batá drum used in Santería ceremonies, Patato died on December 4, the day of Santa Barbara in the Catholic church, which is to “santeros” the day of Changó, the powerful Yoruba deity associated with drums. It has been reported that on that day Patato unhooked himself from life support, raised his arms in the air, uttered one last word (an invocation to Changó), then lowered his arms and passed on.