Prudencio Mario Bauzá Cárdenas

Saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, arranger, and Cuban composer. Known above all for having been the musical director of Machito's orchestra—of whom he was also a brother-in-law—he was a pioneer of what is today known as Afro-Cuban jazz.

He began his music studies with Arturo Andrades at the age of five. In 1918 he entered the Municipal Conservatory of Havana "Amadeo Roldán", where he studied with Modesto Fraga in solfege; María Luisa Chartrand in piano, and Fernando Carnicer Fernández in clarinet and other musical subjects. He graduated in 1927.

Bauzá played clarinet in the Philharmonic Orchestra of Havana. However, after traveling in 1927 to New York with Antonio María Romeu's orchestra, he was so impressed by the big bands of Paul Whiteman, Fletcher Henderson, and Tommy Dorsey, and by the musical revues of Harlem, that in 1930 he decided to permanently emigrate to the United States.

During the trip, he became friends with Antonio Machín. Mario Bauzá would return on the same ship on which Don Azpiazu's orchestra was traveling, who immediately began the arrangements to record "El manisero".

Upon arriving in New York, Bauzá went to live in Harlem with his cousin, trumpeter René Endreira. Bauzá began playing the saxophone at house parties with pianist Luckey Roberts and began to absorb African American culture.

Between 1930 and 1931, he was trumpeter for Antonio Machín's quartet and made important recordings with this group in New York City. As an anecdote, it is said that he had learned to play the trumpet in just two weeks.

His first jobs were with the orchestras of Cass Carr, Noble Sissle, and Sam Wooding. In 1933 he entered as first trumpet in Chick Webb's orchestra, in which he ended up as musical director. Next, he worked with Don Redman and Fletcher Henderson, and finally settled with Cab Calloway. While in that band, Mario brought the young trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie to the orchestra.

Bauzá married Estela Gutiérrez, sister of Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo, known as Machito.

On December 3, 1940, he debuted with Machito at the Park Plaza—a dance hall—with the Afro-Cubans, and then worked for almost four years at the La Conga club. Bauzá worked for Machito as artistic director, handling arrangements and hiring musicians.

The style of the Afro-Cubans mixed Cuban son montuno with features of swing bands. Thanks to this, musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and James Moody introduced Afro-Cuban rhythms into jazz, starting in 1947.

He became interested in jazz upon hearing Frankie Trumbauer play the saxophone performing Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman's orchestra. In the forties, Mario developed the sound of Afro-Cuban jazz. His work as clarinetist, trumpeter, saxophonist, and arranger in Machito's orchestra constitutes one of the main pillars in the emergence and development of that Cuban genre. While Mario Bauzá and Machito worked together in the Afro-Cubans, they fused Afro-Cuban music and jazz, popularized Afro-Cuban jazz, and profoundly influenced jazz and American popular music in turn. "In the 40s I launched 'Afrocuban Jazz'. It was a building that I built with the foundations of Afro-Cuban rhythms and the structure of jazz. It was a mixed marriage in which none of the elements lost its authenticity.

During the thirty-five years he worked with Machito's orchestra, he wrote about five hundred arrangements for this ensemble, with which legendary jazz musicians such as Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips, and Cannonball Adderly worked or recorded in the 40s and 50s. In 1941 they made their first record for Decca Records. Their recordings of Sopa de pichón and Tingo-talango were hits in the New York musical community. Mario Bauzá was the principal architect in the fusion of Cuban rhythms with jazz melodies; his Tanga is recognized as the first Afro-Cuban jazz composition.

On May 20, 1943, Graciela Pérez, Machito's sister and Bauzá's sister-in-law, arrived in New York to sing with the orchestra. By this date bebop became the dominant form of jazz, and the Afro-Cubans were key in the emergence of the Cubop movement. The orchestra, under Bauzá's direction, incorporated ideas from bebop authors, added Cuban rhythms to them, and mixed them in arrangements that would lead to the development of the Cuban jazz movement. In 1950 Bauzá composed Mambo Inn with René Hernández and Bobby Woodlen, and Count Basie recorded it. For the second half of the decade, Cuban rhythms, previously considered outside the realm of jazz, became common in the repertoire of almost all groups of this period. Bebop combos like those of Art Blakey and Horace Silver played Afro-Cuban rhythms.

By the mid-60s, with the rising prevalence of bugalú groups (or Latin bugalú) in New York, Machito's orchestra declined in popularity, and also suffered a significant loss when pianist René Hernández left to join Tito Rodríguez's orchestra. Hernández's arrangements were crucial in achieving the unique sound of the Afro-Cubans.

The first half of the 70s saw the triumphant return of Machito's Afro-Cubans, with contemporary arrangements of old pieces and the talent of performers such as Israel López (Cachao) on bass and Alfredo Armenteros (Chocolate) on trumpet. The 1975 recording at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York of an album titled Afro-Cubans Jazz Moods, with new music by Arturo O'Farrill (Chico) and the inclusion of Dizzy Gillespie and other instrumentalists, marked the success of the orchestra.

Subsequently, Bauzá and Graciela left the group due to disagreements with Machito, and in 1976 formed the Mario Bauzá Orchestra. On November 27, 1981, Bauzá received the Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture from the City of New York (The City of New York Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture). In 1986 he recorded Afro-Cuban Jazz with Graciela, an album in which musicians based in New York participated such as Paquito D'Rivera, Daniel Ponce, and José Antonio Fajardo. That year Bauzá composed El mareíto with Jorge Dalto and Imitations with Ray Santos, and formed the Mario Bauzá Afro-Cuban Jazz Concert Orchestra.

On April 27, 1991, the Mario Bauzá Afro-Cuban Jazz Concert Orchestra performed with Dizzy Gillespie at the Symphony Space theater in New York, for the celebration of Bauzá's 80th birthday; the president of the German record company Messidor Musik, present at this concert, signed his first contract as a soloist and director of his own band. In December of that same year, Bauzá recorded on his debut as a soloist, the album Tanga, with an arrangement of the piece that gave the album its title made by Chico O'Farrill; in December 1992 he recorded his second album as a soloist, My Time Is Now, and in May 1993 what would be his third and final album.

Mario Bauzá worked in the Antonio María Romeu Orchestra in recordings of danzonera works made in New York and subsequently worked and was part of the most important jazz orchestras of the era in the United States. He stood out for his work in mixing jazz harmonies with Cuban rhythms.

On April 27, 1991, the Mario Bauzá Afro-Cuban Jazz Concert Orchestra performed with Dizzy Gillespie at the Symphony Space theater in New York, for the celebration of Bauzá's 80th birthday; the president of the German record company Messidor Musik, present at this concert, signed his first contract as a soloist and director of his own band. In December of that same year, Bauzá recorded on his debut as a soloist, the album Tanga, with an arrangement of the piece that gave the album its title made by Chico O'Farrill; in December 1992 he recorded his second album as a soloist, My Time Is Now, and in May 1993 what would be his third and final album.

Works

Lona, 1934
Tanga, 1941
Cubop City, 1948
Mambo Inn, with René Hernández and Bobby Woodlen, 1950
Chachachá clarinet, 1954
Frenzy, Holiday, and Wild Jungle, 1958
Jammin' with Machito, 1969
Cubanola, Imitation, and El mareíto, 1986
Lourdes Lullaby, 1993.