Interview with Tito Puente in Miami

Interview with Tito Puente in Miami. Ernesto Antonio “Tito“ Puente, Jr. (April 20, 1923 – June 1, 2000) was an American musician, songwriter, record producer and bandleader. The son of Ernest and Felicia Puente, native Puerto Ricans living in New York City’s Spanish Harlem, Puente is often credited as “The Musical Pope“, “El Rey de los Timbales“ (The King of the Timbales) and “The King of Latin Music“. He is best known for dance-oriented mambo and Latin jazz compositions that endured over a 50-year career. During the 1950s, Puente was at the height of his popularity, and helped to bring Afro-Cuban and Caribbean sounds like mambo, son, and cha-cha-chá, to mainstream audiences. Puente was so successful playing popular Afro-Cuban rhythms that many people mistakenly identify him as Cuban. Dance Mania, possibly Puente’s most well known album, was released in 1958. Among his most famous compositions are mambo “Oye como va“ (1963), populari