JO: "You were saying Orestes, that your father was an opera singer?"
OV: "My father came from Cuba to New York at the age of sixteen and started at the opera and of course in Italian and a couple of languages and he sang in Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Opera and all that and then he went back to Cuba, married my mother and I was born in Cuba".
JO: "Where in Cuba?"
OV: "In Camaguey, Cuba. And then in 1956, uh, we moved to New York...because he opened, he worked for Cuban Airllines and opened the uh, the Havana New York room..uh, room yea, with the Super Constellations playing but in 1955 he came by himself and opened Havana Chicago and we stayed in Cuba until he was more settled here so we stayed there for a year".
JO: "Where was Havana Chicago? It came out of which city? In Camaguey?"
OV: "No, no, Havana".
JO: "So you moved, at that point you had moved to Havana with your family?"
OV: "No, no, no. That's another story. They picked the more uh, well-trained or the best in Cuba to do this job and they picked, out of the whole island, they picked my father because he had been in New York already and spoke English ten thousand times better then me".
JO: "And he could sing!".
(Laughter)
OV: "And he could sing. And he spoke without an accent and all that stuff. As a matter of fact he was a clown, he was always kidding around. He made a duo with Richard here, Richard and I went to school together, and we met when I was twelve I came to New York and Richard, my father and me would fool around with the tape recorder and sing and my father and Richard would always started laughing in the middle of the tune and we could never finish the tune".
JO: "Richard, you know him since you were twelve. Tell me when you when you would go to ask him to come play with you".
Richard Fernandez: "Well the guys um, there were four or five of us, that hung out in the corner, we grew up in the West side on 72nd Street, he lived on 71st, at the old Alamac Hotel"..
OV: ..."that's right".
RF: "um, so we would hang out in the corner there and: "Where's Orestes?" "Oh no, he's home". "Well let's go get him!" I would knock on the door: "Orestes". "No, no...I'm...". He would be there, with a little bongo that his father had gotten for him, something made of cardboard, you know, and he had designed a cymbal, from the top of a talcum powder tin and he had it with a wire hanger".
JO: "How was the tin was it a top or...?"
RF: "The top of the tin".
JO: "And did he make it into a cymbal?".
RF: "Yea he'd flatten it out and he would put it in a wire hanger and he would hit it and it made a cymbal out of it. And he would have a recorded tape of a reel-to-reel tape of Aragon, most of the time, and he would be there, he would be taking the sound of the timbales that he heard on...cuz, let me tell you this guy could play any instrument from ear. He's got a great ear...as a musician he could, you know, sit down and just get the notes out of any instrument, including a wind instrument".
JO: "Really?!"
RF: "So, yea...so ah..that is how he started, you know and pretty soon..
JO: "And instead of going to hang out..."
RF: "And then when we'd go to dances, he would be playing. We'd be dancing, the guys would be dancing at Atineo Cubano, um, some of the other places, mostly he started at Atineo Cubano and Abelizario".
OV: " Richard's brother used to work at Atineo Cubano..."
RF: ..."A waiter, yea, as a waiter".
OV: "...and then, we were teenagers so they didn't let us in so and the way to get in was: "Well, can we clean the place so that we could get in?" And we'd clean the place and they'd let us in for free. So in the weekend we were there and then I got my connections with Oriental Cubano, Tata Vasquez, and started playing.."
RF: "By the way, que ahi fue cuando nos conocimo a Pete "El Conde" que estaba con la Oriental Cubana".
OV: "Right. Pete "El Conde", before I came into Oriental Cubana, was the conga player for Oriental, he was a conga player, then he became a singer then I joined Oriental Cubana and Pete went with the first, the original Orchestra Novel, that belonged to Hector Ceno, el timbalero, that I wanna mention here, because most people don't know that name. And before you ask me who one of my idols, people that I look up to was Hector Ceno because Hector, who's uh Nuyorican and he played Cuban music with Oriental Cubana like nobody else at that time and he was playing the Charanga style with the bass drum and stuff and I said, "maaaan, this guy plays..." No offense, Tito's my...I admire Tito and everything BUT my style was different". (Editor's note: He meant Tito Puente).
JO: "And this man was a Nuyorican, you said?"
OV: "Yes. And my style came out of the Charanga music. And I...and this is one of the first if not the first guy that I saw playing live in New York".
JO: "Hector Ceno".
OV: "Hector Ceno. He was the founder of Orchesta Typica Novel del '61. And the singers were Pete "El Conde" and Vitin...Vitin...something." (Editor's note: The 'Vitin' that Orestes was referring to that sang in Pacheco's charanga was VITIN LOPEZ who also sang for "Chihuahua's All-Stars" and "Chihuahua's Descarga Cubana" band - info courtesy of Richie "Rumbero" Bonet)
JO: "Vitin Aviles?"
OV: "No..no. He was a singer...He sang with Pacheco when the Charanga...that same Vitin...Pete and Vitin...and Heny Alvares also".
(Film cut).
OV: "This is very important. I don't want people to think that because I 'm here now, in the museum, that I'm ready to retire or that I'm..."
(Laughter)
JO: "I don't think...no, it's a living museum".
OV: " I'm very active, I record records every year, I work every year, we have various groups, I work with Cachao, I go to Puerto Rico with Jimmy Delgado, we have a band with four timbal players we have done Las Batallas de los Palos and there's another thing I have to give you that it's an update of what I have done in the last two years...and that's one of the things the Batallas de los Palos in Puerto Rico, we did it at SOB's over here and we did it in a couple of other islands in the caribbean, so there's a lot of things that I've been doing".
JO: "Remember, this is not the first interview we're gonna go keep interviewing and of course, we don't mean to retire you because you're part of a museum. Now, you're living in Camaguey, your father's doing all of this important work in transportation."
OV: "So, they transfer him to New York and we decided that we have to move to New York".
JO: "And how old were you then?"
OV: "Twelve".
JO: "Were you at any point involved with music in Camaguey, in your neighborhood back in Cuba?"
OV: "I was, as a kid I played the bongos and my cousin use to play in a band and they use to take me along like a mascot, is that the word?...or something like that, to kind of like look at the kid play and they let me play a tune or something on bongos with the band they were la Orquesta Tridimencional y Los Trovadores del 45 it was some typical bands and..."
JO: "You played with the Orquesta Trio Tridimencional?"
OV: "Yes...You remember that name?!"
JO: "No!"
(Laughter).
JO: "What song would you play for example?...what was your repetoire?"
OV: "In those days...I don't remember...that I don't remember".
JO: "But within your family, there were percussionists."
OV: "My father use to play the guitar but he showed me the basics of the bongos, which is the 'martillo' but backwards so when I moved to New York I had to relearn it again completely different because he showed me the way they showed him and it was very 'campesino' the style that they play the Changui with which is "pre-son"...that's the whole style which the lower bongo was on the left on your right hand so it was a different style: 'Changuisero, viejo!'. (Laughter). But my uncle, which is a doctor and he's still alive, and I have written this in a couple of articles, Rafael Misa, Dr., he's in St. Petersburg, FL, retired already, he's the one that was a bongo player when he was still in medicine, and a tres player. And then he decided to quit because he was failing the business so he said I'm not going to play this in twenty years. So after 20 years of being a doctor then he came out with the tres again for fun you know, he's not a professional. But I have to give him credit because he was the first one that bought me a set of better bongos.
JO: "So you were in Cuba and the very first time that you were attracted to the instrument you would say?"
OV: "I was brought...my father brought me, in Christmas, a guitar when I was five, and said "You should study classical". And I started studying the guitar for about six months and I said: 'Man, I'm getting...my fingers are tired, I don't like this'...so I turned the guitar around and I started hitting the guitar like a bongo and I said: 'You know what, it sounds good like this".
(Lots of Laughter)
OV: "So, that was the beginning of: 'I don't wanna be a guitar player'. So the first thing they said: 'You gonna starve! There's no bongo player that could make a living...how you gonna play bongos?" All the bongo players in Camaguey, they cleaned shoes, they were shoe-shine boys. Which is true, they were completely and absolutely right ...this is a very unstable job, just by being an actor, you know, there are actors that make a million dollars one year and then they die penniless"...
JO: ..."Or there are actors that spend their lives trying to get a role".
OV: "...and stuff like that, you know. So it's a big chance and we are starving everyday of our lives, and you could ask Nelson Gonzales, which he is here, if that's true. Because, you know, everyday we're learn something and we're like trying something new and kinda like beginning, but that's what keeps our inspiration fresh. The musician that thinks they know it all, I think that, ok wait a minute, let's go into something else because we learn everyday, even from our students we learn stuff".
JO: "So you're twelve years old, you come to New York and you move into West 72nd, correct?"
OV: "I move first to West 69th on Central Park, in a basement and my mother's first words, I'll always remembers this, (gets emotional), was like: 'I never knew we were poor until we moved to New York'. Dig this!...'cuz in Camaguey we had a house, we had a lady that cleaned the house...you know, it was cheap there; so, we're use to that...we moved to New York...'Wow! To New York!'...to a basement?...until we moved to a Hotel Alamac, or something, because you know, it was the beginning Cubana imigracion in New York. So she felt like that, she was very attached to her parents, you know how the old people are. But that was the first thing, and I was really miserable at the beginning in New York because I wanted to be a musician in Cuba until I saw guys like Puente and Machito, and I said: 'Aha! There is atmosphere here', so I took the opportunity of that".
JO: "And you use to go with Richard to dances, ok, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, about fifteen years old you started going to dances?"
OV: "Oh yea!".
JO: "And the guys that you saw there...which were some of the bands that you saw when you were fourteen or fifteen?"
OV: "Arsenio, uh, Beny More, Aragon, Sensacion, you name it. Uh, Mon Rivera which use to be with Moncho Leyna. They did a dance at the Manhattan Center with Tito Puente, and Beny More was singing with Tito's band...I was there because my father use to take me, because like he worked with the airlines and he use to bring these people down. The Tropicana show from Cuba, El Trio Los Guaracheros del Oriente, all these people I met in New York which was actually an advantage because I was meeting these people that I always wanted to meet and it would of been hard for me out of Camaguey to meet these people. So, you know, things, like Richard said, always work for the best, you know. We have gone through a lot and still going through a lot but things always come out".
JO: "And your teachers, now here you come to New York, you're in love with the instrument, you're in love with percussion, who were your teachers?"
OV: "That's the part that I'm not going to encourage the student to follow because, uh, I took lessons, but I took piano lessons in New York for a few months, and my teacher went to Cuba and died and I never found another teacher like him because he was wonderful; I was reading like both hands in like three months...amazing teacher, and, uh, so I taught myself, so I never went to a real teacher".
JO: "So how did you get from, uh, you know, out to didactic, to where somebody took a look at you and said: 'I'd like for him to be very much part of a band', in other words, you were that brilliant that somebody had to say, 'ok, you're in the band'?
OV: "Well, my father won, in a poker game, a set of timbales... (Laughter)....and he gave it to me and said: 'Let's see what you could do with this'. So I met Biterio Cruz who was a trumpet player from Orchesta Jovenes del Cayo, that was playing at the time with Oriental Cubana, and he says: 'I think Tata Vasquez needs somebody', and Hector Ceno, whose playing, the guy I mentioned, in Oriental. So Hector left to do Orchesta Novel or to do something else at the time, I forgot, and he says: 'You think you could be ready in two weeks?" I said: 'Sure!' Two weeks later they went to the, uh, Atineo to dance and I went to start playing with Oriental Cubana".
JO: "1960? 1959?"
OV: "Around '59, '60, yea". Then after that, Velisario Lopez came from Cuba and I started working with him. Velisario was one of the known, the fathers of the danzon in Cuba, very known flute player, who is a lawyer, the guy was very intellectual and he also helped me a lot and the bass player from Velisario, his name was, (gets emotional) he was like my father, Ebarito Baro his nickname was Guajaron, the father of Ronnie Baro. And I, I, well I don't hate to say this, but it's true, I probably know, knew Guajaron, he just passed away, even better than his family because he always took me and I played with different bands with him and actually the basics of the danzon I learned from him. He use to play in Orchesta Ideal in Cuba with Joseito Valdez and he also played flute and this guy was, I mean...I met Cachao also in those days when I start with Fajardo because my father went to get Cachao to the airport because he worked, like I said, in Cuba with the Cuban airlines so I know Cachao since I was, what, sixteen, seventeen, or something like that, and when he came from Cuba, but I never recorded with Cachao until '93 when we did the thing with Andy Gonzalez". (Editor's note: '...(Also) Orestes mistakenly credited Andy Gonzales with the Cachao project ("Master Sessions Vol. I & II, and Cuba Linda") Vilato took part in. He meant to say Andy Garcia, the actor'.) - info courtesy of Richie "Rumbero" Bonet.
JO: "That's amazing, isn't it?!"
OV: "It's amazing, and the other day -- somebody that I'm not gonna mention -- tell me: 'You know, we gotta help the young people', I said: 'We always help the young people'. But let me tell you something, it took me all those years to record with Cachao. I mean, we didn't have no help, and I met him when I was a teenager! So, you know, that's another, uh, story".
JO: "Those two weeks that they gave you to prepare for your first professional gig, how did you...?"
OV: "I'm glad you remembered the (question)....well, I kept on doing what Richard said, but I...this time I didn't have a platillo, so my father bought me a small, little platillo and I didn't have a stand so I took one of those music stands that was very weak and the first dance with Oriental Cubana I played it with the timbales, one little bell, like Charanga, a big bass drum like it was like a 24 inch, (lots of laughter), that my cousin had painted in the front with two dancers, by hand, (lots of laughter), you know, one like circus style (laughter), and the little cymbal here". (More laughter).
JO: "What were the timbales made of?" "Madera?"
OV: "No, no, the timbales were a very small set of timbales which I gave to Felo Barrio, and Felo still has the timbales".
JO: "OK, the set up of the band. More or less, where do they tell you to stand? Where did you set up? Where were the trumpets? Where was the piano?"
OV: "No! Since the beginning I set up in the front. I was the kid, so I was setting up in the front with my big bass drum and there was four or five saxes, this was a big band like Machito's...big band. And, uh, Felo started there too. Willie Ellis was the piano player, the guy that later on was the uh, one of the leaders of Orchesta Novel and a lot of people came out of that band: Willie Garcia, also, that later on married Lupe".
JO: "The singer?"
OV: "He started in that band".
JO: "THAT'S a voice...that's a voice and a half".
OV: "It's ashame that his mind didn't go the right way, but uh, Willie did great jobs with Chocolate and with Son Primero".
JO: ..."With Joe Cuba".
OV: "That's right, that's right".
JO: "That WAS the singer. Cheo Feliciano was only with Joe Cuba I think , four years. Um, now, how many pieces in the band?"
OV: "In Oriental? There was at least twelve, thirteen, piece".
JO: "In Oriental, Pete "El Conde" was the..."
OV: "Pete was the conga player at the beginning and then he became one of the singers and then he left...Polo Sanchez was the main singer".
JO: "And who would help you carry the big bass drum and the timbales?..."
OV: "My father! (Lots of laughter)...use to carry the..."
RF: ..."He use to love, his father use to love to carry it because he could get in to all the dances"...(laughter).
OV: "It was an excuse for him to go to all the dances, and then I'm playing and my father's dancing...and I would say: 'come on let's go I'm finished' and he would say: 'No wait!'...(mimics father dancing)...(Lots of laughter).
JO: "And what was the pay?"
OV: "Oh my God...I shouldn't say this but I mean people will remember that the first pay was fifteen dollars.,,and I'm not very far. The scale of the Palladium for a Sunday at the Palladium was twenty dollars".
JO: "What was that word that you said that Mr. Vilato invented?"
RF: "Thrifty".
JO: "Yes".
OV: "No, I didn't!...awwww...awww" (Laughter).
RF: "Orestes, um, his father was a great guy. Um, his father would use the opportunity, any time he could, to be at the dances with us. We were a bunch of kids and would follow Orestes around, everywhere that Orestes played, we were there, you know, cheering him on...and um...(gets emotional)...those were good years".
JO: "He actually asked me not to include him in the interview because he was gonna get a little sentimental but you see him sitting there and he's bracing himself. Um, so the second band...oh! the repertoire of La Oriental...what number would you invariably open with? ".
OV: "I'll tell you one thing. I hear now talking about...the newcomers, all my respect, and the new style of music and you will hear: 'El ritmo pilon', and all this stuff, you know, this type of mozambique and this and that, ok, there was a tune by Orchesta Riverside, that we did, that was called 'Que Bueno Esta El Ambiente', and "Que Bueno Esta El Ambiente' sings Oriental Cubana, had a style that came out from Chepin y su orchesta Oriental. I wasn't from Oriente, I was from Camaguey but I said: 'I should try to learn how to play this Oriente rhythm, you know, de Oriente Cuba, no?"
JO: "I understand, sure".
OV: "So, at the time we didn't call it pilon, but it was an extension of the Changui, that later on Ellio Reve became the king of the Changui and put the Changui and the Charanga, but the first band in New York that played the Changui, which later on became the pilon, I was doing it with the bass drum, in other words: (demonstrates the sound vocally: "Tan, tiki-Tan, Ki-Tan, Pa-goon-goon, Tan, tiki-Tan, Ki-Tan, Pa-goon-goon-goon-goon...which is pilon. I'm talking about 1960. So...now the original tune was 'que bueno esta el ambiente' was a son montuno. But we use to do it Oriental style"
(At this point, Jimmy Delgado walks in).
JO: "Oh-oh...oh, oh...the boss is here!"
OV: "Oh, oh...see now, that's why I mentioned the
cuatro timbaleros otherwise there'd be"...(laughter).
JO: "And so invariably you'd open, your repertoire
would start with what number? The changui, or...?"
OV: " 'Que Bueno Esta El Ambiente', we use to do
'Olas de Oro' from Orchesta Chepin...and (demonstrates an Aragon number vocally), and a lot of tunes, man, 'Calmetillo Maran~on' and Pete "Conde" use to sing, 'Cobarde' and things like that".
JO: "How many years were you with Orquesta Oriental?"
OV: "I was there...it's hard to say, for maybe about a year or so. Then when Velisario came from Cuba I joined them...but see I forgot one thing...before Oriental Cubana there was a little group in Jersey that belonged to the sax player that I always forget his name, he use to be sax player with the Perez Prado band, I think his name was Daniel, or something, I forgot, and Felo Barrio was the conga player. He played on my drum, 'cuz he didn't have a drum, and I played timabales and this group was called the Cuban Rhythm Boys, but that was like a thing about a couple of months that I did. That was actually my first gig but it wasn't a professional gig, so".
JO: "When in Oriental basically you kept rhythm or were you allowed to shine, to take solos?"
OV: "Nah, I use to take solos at the time but at the times were a little different than now. Now solos are in fashion; in those days the player had, the first choice was to keep timing, which I know the teachers here, like Jimmy and that, knows that today there's a lot of people that do incredible solos...I call them the "Billy The Kids". Remember this, because 'Billy The Kid' was the fastest gun in the west so all these 'Billy The Kids' want to fly away and put three hundred and fifty thousand beats in one measure and that's fine, but, sometimes...an old musician told me one time, I'll always remember this: 'Play less and say more'. So, that goes back to basics, which is time. Time has to be impeccable. A lot of these musicians that play incredible solos, when they keep time, they don't drive the band, and this is very important, and in those days that's what we worked at -- at keeping time for the dancers, the dancers were the most important, uh..."
JO: "...The intrinsic part. Another thing, in all the years from the band stand, the dancers, the actual steps, because, uh, Ana Flores was mentioning to me how she sees sometimes Hip-Hop moves in the dancers now. What have you seen, from the stands, how has the evolution of the actual public change their step?"
OV: "I'll tell you one thing, to make a long story short, I saw rumba dancers do steps like the walking back, like Michael Jackson..."
RF: "Moon Walk".
OV: "...See? That's modern, but I saw those things done when I was a kid! I thought the grabbing of the front here that the Hip-Hop...that's part of rumba...that is part of rumba".
JO: "Durante 'la vacuna' ".
OV: "I think they have dressed it up to date, but the basics have always been here...from everything".
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This interview only describes Orestes Vilato's career until ca. 1964.
To be continued...
