Remembering Latin Music’s King @ the Anacostia Museum
By hola | Published | No Comments
Puente photo via Smithsonian’s Facebook page
The Anacostia Community Museum last Saturday celebrated the life and work of the late, great Tito Puente, the musician and bandleader know as the “El Rey de los Timbales” (The King of the Timbales), among many other accolades acquired in a career that spanned half a century.
While the discussion involved several people close to Puente, the afternoon’s highlights were the recollections of Joe Conzo, his best friend, archivist and biographer. Conzo also shared rare recordings recovered from damaged and decaying cassette tapes. Everyone was transported to the 1950s listening to Tito Puente’s timeless music.
One particular recording from a 1953 concert got us singing along, clapping riffs, and dancing in our chairs; all of a sudden we could have been anywhere. The recording had a crackle in the background thanks to the tape it came from, but that only made the sound of the trumpets, the saxophones, the piano, and the drums richer.
Joe Conzo didn’t just share Tito’s music. He also talked about Tito, the man. He answered questions from the audience about Puente’s notorious Latino traits, his machismo and his firm belief in the importance of education, especially when it came to culture. The emotion in the room was electric as Conzo told us how we were all historians, even the youngest audience member, a mere 25-month-old baby.
After the discussion, the fun really started when la Orquestra La Leyenda transformed the room into a concert hall. At that point, the Anacostia Community Museum didn’t feel at all like part of the Smithsonian Institution (which is it), but it sure felt like a community. And the crowd’s diversity was reflected on the dance floor, where couples showed off polished Latin dance moves while others migrated to the edges of the room to dance and sing along.
The audience members also included elderly men and women in their Sunday best and accompanied by walkers. Others, like me, were students taking a break from homework. We all shared an interesting in learning more about an amazing musician from those closest to him. The event’s host, Jim Byers of WFPW 89.3 FM’s Latin Flavor radio show, noted several times that some of the greats of DC’s Latin music scene had “snuck in” during the afternoon. And even though I didn’t know them personally, knowing that they were there made me feel like I was a part of something special.
In the end, the Anacostia Community museum, a venue that had at first seemed a strange choice to me, was the perfect place. Across decades, languages and hundreds of miles, we were united with Tito Puente through his music, and we were all part of a community.
—Morgan Doyle
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