Latin music star Eddie Palmieri has died on the age of 88 : NPR

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Frans Schellekens/Redferns/Getty Pictures Bandleader and pianist Eddie Palmieri, whose pounding rhythms solid a brand new fashion for Latin music, died Wednesday on the age of 88.

Fania Data, the famend Latin jazz label that launched a number of of Palmieri's traditional recordings, introduced his loss of life in a press release.

"At present, Fania Data mourns the lack of the legendary Eddie Palmieri, one of the vital modern and distinctive artists in music historical past."

Within the Sixties and early '70s, Palmieri launched a string of albums along with his orchestra La Perfecta. They fused syncopated Afro-Caribbean beats and jazz stylings.

Songs like "Bilongo," "Café" and "La Malanga" featured Palmieri's signature, extremely percussive piano enjoying. His was a full-bodied approach, using forearms, elbows and even an occasional growl from the maestro himself.

Palmieri was born to Puerto Rican dad and mom in New York Metropolis's Spanish Harlem. It was a musical house. Palmieri acquired his begin in his uncle's ensemble, enjoying drums and timbales, his first devices. His brother Charlie Palmieri would additionally go on to turn into a celebrated salsa and Latin Jazz musician.

Because the Puerto Rican diaspora grew within the metropolis within the Fifties, so did the circuit for Latin dance music. In an period marked by mambo, huge bands and ballrooms, Palmieri quickly discovered a house as a pianist in Tito Rodriguez's Orchestra.

Identified for his heat and spirit, Palmieri was emphatic when requested on NPR's Piano Jazz in 1997 to explain his explosive musical combine. "It is positively going to excite you," he instructed host Marian McPartland. "I do not guess I'll excite you with my music. I do know it."

By the mid Sixties, Palmieri was branching off in new instructions, most notably in collaboration with vibraphonist Cal Tjader.

His knack for recognizing legendary singers started with La Perfecta's longtime lead voice, Ismael Quintana. Then, in 1974, Palmieri teamed up with an adolescent from Puerto Rico named Lalo Rodriguez. The results of that collaboration was his first Grammy-winning album, The Solar of Latin Music. Palmieri would win greater than half a dozen Grammys over the course of his profession.

Palmieri grew to become an elder statesman of Latin jazz, holding forth on its historical past, normally with an extended cigar clasped in his hand. His track "Azúcar Pa' Ti" was added to the Library of Congress' Nationwide Recording Registry in 2009. In 2013, the Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities awarded him a Jazz Grasp Fellowship, one of many highest honors in jazz.

Palmieri would typically dig into the historical past of the Caribbean to interrupt down the rhythmic patterns that fashioned the premise of his music. "In a 300-year span, there was roughly 12 million Africans that have been dropped at the New World," he instructed Piano Jazz. "They have been by no means allowed their drums out of concern of communication. Concern of revolt. And these complicated rhythmical patterns united in a compositional kind referred to as jazz."

The Puerto Rican expertise in New York Metropolis was for him a central theme. He protested in opposition to systemic inequalities in his seminal 1971 album, Harlem River Drive. His track "Puerto Rico" from his 1973 album, Sentido, is an everlasting anthem for salsa aficionados all around the world. It is also a testomony to the inspiration Eddie Palmieri drew from his island roots all through his storied profession.