Stickball Mambo
by Elena Martínez
What could stickball and Latin music possibly have in common? A lot, if
you happened to grow up in the 1950s in the Longwood area of the South
Bronx around Kelly, Dawson and Simpson Streets. Many of the musicians
who would have an impact on the development of Latin music in New York
City grew up and met each other on the streets of this neighborhood while
playing stickball. This includes pianist/arranger Hector Rivera,
congüero Benny Bonilla, vocalist Joe Quijano, timbalero/bandleader
Orlando Marín and pianist/bandleader Eddie Palmieri.
At the age of 15 Orlando Marín and Joe Quijano started getting some of
the local kids together in a band. There was Manny Quintana on conga,
Cliff Adams on bongo and Eddie Palmieri on piano. Later they added David
Pérez on bass and trumpet players, Larry "Chino" Acevedo, Louis Robles
and Claude Espresín. So many up-and-coming musicians lived in the area,
though they sometimes didn't realize this until much later. Orlando
recalls, "while we were having our stickball games in P.S. 60, Ray
Barretto was always in the way playing with his brother. We always had
to fight him and say, ‘get out of the way!' You know, he and his brother
they're real tall guys, so we didn't argue too much with them, just said,
‘get out of the way.' Later on I found out that he played conga."
Many of them went to P.S.52 on Kelly St., and it was in front of this
school that many stickball games, between teams like the Sparks, Jackson
Knights, and the Hurricanes (later the Archers) were held. Orlando,
always the organizer, remembers, "eventually what happened is, I made a
team called Los Músicos and I had Eddie Palmieri. I had Larry Chino
there. David Pérez was there. And then we had another guy who played
conga. And then we had a couple of guys who weren't exactly musicians
but they were our friends from the neighborhood. They called us the team
de los músicos. We played well and we played the best teams."
The school was also the place where many of them started their careers as
musicians. The band which included Orlando and Eddie began rehearsing in
the school's auditorium because there was a piano there they could use.
In return they would play the school back by performing at dances there
every Friday night. Benny Bonilla, who would later play with Eddie
Forestier and Pete Rodríguez remembers, "P.S. 52 was where Eddie and all
those guys started. They had school dances, they cost 50 cents or
something to get in. Then all the other local guys like myself who were
learning, we would go and we would end up sitting in with them." The
band built up a following of the local kids and soon played at the Hunts
Point Palace.
It wasn't only musicians, but other participants in the Latin music
scene, that were also playing on stickball teams. Louis Mercado played
stickball and later became one of the original organizers for the Bronx
Memorial Day Stickball Weekend, but is remembered by many as Louie
Penguin, from the times he used to perform as a dancer in floor shows
with Tato García at the Royal Mansion. Frank Rivera, who as a teenager
moved to Longwood Avenue and became a member of the Sparks, later was to
become one of the owners of the Latin music club, the Tritons. Though
Frank left the Sparks to work and join the service, when he returned in
1958, he and four other members from the Sparks put their money together
to open the club on the second floor of the former Spooner Theatre on
Southern Blvd., next door to the Hunts Point Palace. Not only was this
club known for the great bands that played there, but it was also here in
the early 1960s that Johnny Pacheco and his charanga orchestra began
performing the dance moves that were picked up by the dancers and thus
started the pachanga dance craze.
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