Latin Beat Magazine: Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill 1921-2001 - TT: Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill 1921-2001

On Wednesday evening, June 27, 2001, renowned jazz composer and orchestrator Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill passed away in the intensive care unit of New York Hospital, after a lengthy illness with respiratory problems. His worldwide fame grew in stages after successful collaborations with Benny Goodman, Machito, Mario Bauzá, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Gato Barbieri, Cal Tjader, Miguelito Valdés, Bobby Escoto, Larry Harlow, Clark Terry, Art Farmer, Andy Russell and Count Basie. "Erotic" and "arousing" are the best descriptions of the jazz and Cuban rhythms he composed, which earned him the respect as a music titan, a la Beethoven, of the 21st century.

Since 1973, when I first met Chico, I've known him to be a warm and friendly person, a sincere man who knew the value of publicity, who never jumped in front of cameras and microphones to promote himself. He was a laid-back musician who always had a kind word for the people in his profession. On July 25, 1973, I interviewed Chico O'Farrill at his West End Avenue apartment for the lengthy life story which appeared in the October and November issues of Latin New York Magazine.

"I was born into a middle class family in Vedado, Havana, on October 21, 1921. I was a wild kid. To discipline me, in 1936, my father enrolled me in an American Military School in Gainesville, Georgia. I disliked every moment of the four years I spent there. The only pleasant moment occurred when I heard Tommy Dorsey's recording of Marie (1938). Bunny Berrigan's trumpet solo inspired me to learn the instrument. I began with bugle calls, then I got a tutor. I graduated in 1940 and returned to Cuba. After a year of law school I dropped out so I could be a full time trumpeter for René Touzet's orchestra.

"In 1946, guitarist Manolo Saavedra returned to Havana from New York with 30 jazz recordings. The recordings of Jazz at the Philharmonic, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were previously unheard-of sounds, modern chord changes and rich harmonies. In 1947, I gave up my job at the Tropicana with Armando Romeu to co-lead, compose, and arrange original jazz charts for guitarist Isidro Pérez, whose negotiations got us a gig at the Monmatre Night Club. This orchestra was the first in Cuba to play jazz charts written and arranged by Cubans. We received no support whatsoever. Cubans were not interested in jazz. The club folded in 1948 and our band could not get a job in Cuba.

"In August, Gustavo Mas (Cuba's Lester Young) and I traveled to New York. At this time, bebop was the popular sound of jazz. Jazz trumpeter Fats Navarro and I became friends. He taught me the rudiments of bop. He also introduced me to Dizzy Gillespie, who asked arranger Gil Fuller to give me a job in his music arranging business. I became annoyed with Fuller...he took credit for everything I wrote. One day, Stan Hassellgard, Benny Goodman's clarinetist, came to the office with music that Benny Goodman wanted orchestrated. I gave Hassellgard my composition and arrangement of Undercurrent Blues. Hassellgard said that after Goodman looked at my arrangement he said in a tone of disbelief: 'A Cuban jazz arranger?' It had to be a joke. Cubans could never write a bop score of this quality.

"I was invited to the February 10, 1949 Capitol Records session. I conducted the recording and Mr. Goodman baptized me "Chico" and this name stuck. Shortly thereafter, I met Machito and Mario Bauzá. Being raised in Cuban society of the '30s and '40s (racial and class issues), it never occurred to me to fuse Afro-Cuban music with jazz. I knew nothing of clave and the several Cuban rhythms that were popular in the United States. Bauzá and Machito taught me clave, a few rhythms and tempo. My first arrangement for Machito was Tea for Two. Then I wrote Carambola for Dizzy Gillespie who recorded it for Capitol Records. Machito recorded it for Columbia...both recordings in 1950. But it was my composition and arrangement of Cuban Episode for Stan Kenton (1950) that caught the attention of jazz impresario Norman Grantz. Mr. Grantz approached me with an idea to write an Afro-Cuban jazz score.

"On December 21, 1950, a 20-piece Machito orchestra that included alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, tenor saxophonist Flip Phillips, trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison, and drummer Buddy Rich, recorded the Afro Cuban Jazz Suite for Clef Records. Tremendous record sales enabled me to form my own orchestra. My orchestra worked the top jazz clubs in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. On May 24, 1954, Dizzy Gillespie's big band recorded my arrangements for the Manteca Suite which was released on Norgran Records."

One evening while at Los Angeles' El Sombrero Club, Chico met the lovely Lupe Valerio and they married months later. In 1955, he and Lupe were living in Cuba. He wrote music for night club stage shows, arranged the music for Cuarteto D'Aida's RCA album, and recorded his Descarga Numero Dos for Alvarez Guedes' newly formed Gema recording company in 1956. One year later, O'Farrill accepted Mexico's RCA division's contract to compose, arrange and record his music. He and Lupe moved to Mexico. A Mexican musician's union regulation did not permit a non-Mexican to direct an orchestra in Mexico. Hector Hayal, a musician of Arab descent, became O'Farrill's co-leader and for years they were known in Mexico as "Chico y El Arabe."

In 1965, while working on Mexican television, O'Farrill met Andy Russell, one of Mexico's most popular vocalists. O'Farrill arranged new charts and conducted the orchestra for Russell's six-week engagement at the Las Vegas Sahara Hotel. At the end of the engagement, O'Farrill visited New York City and went to the office of Teddy Reig of Roulette Records, who also managed the Count Basie band. O'Farrill persuaded Reig to introduce him to Count Basie. Basie asked him for his arrangement of Blueberry Hill which was the first of eleven albums Chico would compose and orchestrate for Basie.

Chico's hookup with Count Basie in 1965 was a union that was the beginning of great things to come. There were the Verve recordings with his own band; collaborations with Miguelito Valdés and Bobby Escoto; his compositions of Gold, Myrrh and Incense and Exuberante, which Dizzy Gillespie (backed by the Machito orchestra) performed for the first and only concert at St Patrick's Cathedral on January 5, 1975; the April 17, 1988 Miami Amphitheater concert in which 12,000 aficionados enjoyed his music and watched him receive the key to the city of Miami; his music for the movie soundtrack of the film Guaguasi; the tributes honoring him by the City of New York at Lincoln Center, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Helsinki; the jingles for radio and television commercials for McDonald hamburgers, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Michelob beer, Café Bustelo, Pepsi Cola, National Air Lines and the soap ads for Libby, Colgate and Palmolive. Then there was the masterpiece, the 1989 recording of Mario Bauzá's Tanga in the five movements of lullaby, Afro Cuban ritual, bolero, mambo and rumba abierta. Of the hundreds of tunes he's composed, I will remember him whenever I hear Canción and Exuberante. When Chano Pozo died on December 2, 1948, the torch of Afro-Cuban jazz was passed on to Chico O'Farrill, the only musician at the time capable of composing music for the then new genre. The O'Farrill music legend lives on via Arturo O'Farrill Jr.