Tito Puente Jr. brings his father's legacy to Long Island

During the spring of 1989, the Latin bandleader Tito Puente was the star attraction every Tuesday night at Tradewinds, a nightclub in Jericho on North Broadway just a few blocks south of the Long Island Expressway. Long Island’s Hispanic population was relatively small at the time — just 100,000 or so — but Puente proved popular. On at least one occasion he added an additional Friday show at 11 p.m. at Jasper’s, a nightclub at the Hauppauge Holiday Inn, where he played his hit “Oye Come Va” and other tunes for a multiracial, multi-generation crowd.

Nearly 35 years later, Tito Puente Jr. will play at The Suffolk theater  in Riverhead, bringing his father's legacy back to a changing Long Island.

The younger Puente’s show, on July 13, will feature an array of Long Island musicians. Joining him on the timbales will be Joey Cruz of Melville, along with several members of his local salsa band, La Sonora 495. What’s more, the evening’s vocalist will be Samuel Gonzalez Jr. known to Brentwood residents as their Suffolk County legislator since 2019.

It's one sign that Latino music and culture is flourishing in what was once a largely white suburb. Latinos today make up just over 20% of Long Island’s population, a 33.5% growth over the previous decade according to 2020 census figures. In a handful of towns Latinos dominate, making up 75.5% of Brentwood, for instance, and 59.5% of Central Islip. And with the overall influx has come what some locals say is an increasingly vibrant Latin music scene.

“It’s growing and growing,” said Gonzalez. He points to his town’s ninth annual Tropical Salsa festival (scheduled for Aug. 26) and the restaurants and nightclubs on Long Island that feature live Latin music. “When you see that there are more places where salsa music is being played, it’s because there’s a hunger,” Gonzalez said.

“Latinos are always looking for jobs, they work very hard. And that makes them very conducive to celebrating their cultures,” Puente said. “One could say it’s all about sports and music with Hispanics. Go to any sports game, the players and the people in the audience are Hispanic. The buying power is so immense.”

CROSS-SECTION OF LATINO AUDIENCES

Latin music is a catchall name encompassing distinct genres from different Latin American countries. “I couldn’t tell you that one genre dominates,” said Ana María Caballo, programming director and morning host at WBON/98.5, the Ronkonkoma-based Spanish-language FM station known as La Fiesta. “There’s little pockets of people everywhere that listen to different stuff. But we all come together and enjoy each other’s differences as well.”

Carlos Navarro, owner of the event facility Stereo Garden in Patchogue, said he tries to book concerts that appeal to a broad cross-section of Latino audiences. “They need a place to go out,” Navarro said. “The Puerto Ricans love salsa, the Dominicans come out for bachata.”

On the pop charts, Latin music has been on the rise for years, most recently in the form of songs like 2017's “Despacito,” the reggaeton ditty by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, and the current hit "Ella Baila Solo," a trumpet-inflected love song by Mexico's Eslabon Armado & Peso Pluma. Such songs have helped Spanish-language music — once a rarity in the Top 40 — integrate itself into the broader culture. At the same time, traditional Latin bands now find themselves competing with next-gen artists for time on local stages.

“Salsa bands are very expensive,” Navarro said, citing the cost of paying multiple horn players and percussionists. Conversely, reggaeton artists sometimes come with just a USB drive of backing tracks, he said. “The salsa is for the older crowd,” Navarro added. “They don’t want to go out that late, they don’t want to spend that much money on bottles.”

Cruz, of La Sonora 495, counters that the pendulum is swinging back. “I bring that old style back from the '70s. I bring 10, 11, 12 guys, the full horn section,” he said. “The other bands that play now locally, I see them growing. They’re adding another trumpet, another trombone.”

TITO PUENTE'S LEGACY

Tito Puente helped define that percussive, big-band sound during the mambo craze of the 1950s. The bandleaders Pérez Prado and Machito, both of Cuban descent, were among the genre’s biggest stars but Puente, a Manhattan-born Puerto Rican, distinguished himself by bringing his timbales — two shallow drums typically mounted on a waist-high stand — to the front of the stage. During the 1970s, the term mambo gave way to salsa, though Puente preferred to call his music “Afro-Cuban.”

It was 1970 when Carlos Santana released “Oye Como Va,” a slinky cha-cha-chá that Puente had written and recorded several years earlier. The song appeared on Santana’s album “Abraxas” and was released as a single in 1971; it reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. The story goes that Puente was outraged by Santana’s electrified, hard-rocking version — until he saw his first royalty check. Puente gladly incorporated “Oye Como Va” into his live repertoire for the next 30 years.

Puente’s son turned out to be a rocker, at least initially. A native Manhattanite and a child of the 1980s, Puente, 52, gravitated toward heavy metal — Metallica, Iron Maiden, Slayer — and briefly played drums in a rock band. “My father always questioned that,” Puente said, laughing. “He was always, like, ‘What are you listening to?’ ‘Not your music!’ ”

That changed as Puente began watching and listening to his father more closely. During world tours, “He brought all kinds of religions, creeds and colors together,” the younger Puente said. “Indonesia, Japan, Europe — he was an ambassador for Latin music around the world.”

The elder Puente died in June 2000 following a heart attack just after a show in Puerto Rico. His musician son had already dabbled in the Latin house subgenre, releasing a dance mix of “Oye Come Va” in the mid-1990s, but it wasn’t until 2003 that he committed to taking up the timbales and following in his father’s footsteps.

“With the blessing of my brother, my sister and my mom, they said, ‘Why don’t you keep your father’s orchestra and his name alive?’ ” Puente said. “It’s very big shoes to fill.”

TIES TO GOLDEN AGE OF LATIN MUSIC

At the Suffolk show, Puente won’t be the only one with ties to the golden age of Latin music. Cruz’s father, Louie Cruz, was a pianist and arranger who played with Ray Barretto, a founding member of the Fania All-Stars, the salsa supergroup of Fania Records. They collaborated on several albums, including 1974’s “Ray Barretto Introduces Louie Cruz: Coming Out.”

“Tito and I, our dads knew each other and we all grew up in the same environment,” Cruz said. Last year, after the two sons played at a fundraiser in Manhattan. “We reconnected, we spoke, and we’ve been chatting away,” Cruz said. “Whenever he comes out to the Island, he gives me a call.”

The Puentes are “one of the reasons I play what I play,” he added. “Tito’s like a complete silhouette of his dad today.”

Gonzalez, a 62-year-old Brooklyn native, said his musical history goes back even further. Gonzalez was singing in a wedding band during the early 1980s when he caught the ear of Louie Ramirez, another original member of the Fania All-Stars. Gonzalez wound up performing with Ramirez’s band at the original Copacabana nightclub in Manhattan for several years; decades later, he began singing with the Big 3 Palladium Orchestra, a regular touring act featuring three second-generation salsa stars: Tito Rodriguez Jr., Machito Jr. and Tito Puente Jr.

“Me and TP go back a long way,” Gonzalez said. “To be able to sing tunes that his father, Tito Puente, created — it’s a dream come true.”

Puente promises a lively show that will celebrate his late father’s 100th birthday with songs from the golden era of mambo. In turn, the Suffolk promises an open dance floor, something Puente says he tries to insist on whenever possible.

“I told the people at the Suffolk, ‘Please expect everybody to be dancing in the aisles,’ ” Puente said. “I always put that in the clause,” he added. “I don’t encourage it! It’s the music that encourages it.”

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com@raferguzman