Postwar LA Bebop/Latin Hybrids?

[Teasing the Korean]

Over the years, I've picked up a number of albums from the postwar Central Avenue bop scene, Dexter, Wardell Gray, etc., and various comps like "Black California" on Savoy.

While I realize Latin music was popular at the time on the West Coast, I'm wondering if there were any West Coast equivalents of, say, Dizzy with Chano Pozo, Machito, Chico O'Farrill, etc.

I realize that Stan Kenton was incorporating Latin elements in the late 1940s. Beyond that, most of the WC Latin jazz artists I know are from the 50s - Jack Costanzo, Eddie Cano, Cal Tjader, etc.

Several of the Central Ave. records I have may feature a congas on a couple of tracks, but they're played by guys with Anglo names.

Were there any early important hybrids, either small combo or big band, that were doing stuff in LA at the time along the lines of the New Yorkers?

[ghost of miles]

Cal Tjader comes to mind--I'm sure there are more.

EDIT: oops, sorry, forgot--Cal was San Francisco-based in the 1950s, wasn't he? So he doesn't really count in terms of artists for whom you're looking. Or I guess he does in the broader sense of "West Coast," but not L.A...and his Latin/bop hybrid bag comes along a little later than the years you're pinpointing.

EDIT 2: and you already mentioned him! Never mind...looks like I picked a bad week to cut back on coffee...

Edited August 24, 2010 by ghost of miles

[Teasing the Korean]

Cal Tjader comes to mind--I'm sure there are more.

EDIT: oops, sorry, forgot--Cal was San Francisco-based in the 1950s, wasn't he? So he doesn't really count in terms of artists for whom you're looking. Or I guess he does in the broader sense of "West Coast," but not L.A...and his Latin/bop hybrid bag comes along a little later than the years you're pinpointing.

Well, yes, Cal is worth mentioning, but I brought him up largely because he was more 1950s and SF. In terms of this thread, I'm really interested interested in the late-40s LA, Central Ave, bop scene, or any Latin jazz big band action in that region during that period.

[ghost of miles]

Not much here, but a Google search turned up this passage, which mentions Cano's stint with the Pachuco Boogie Boys before going to NYC in the late 1940s, and also Paul Lopez (who apparently left Central Avenue for NYC as well).

Edited August 24, 2010 by ghost of miles

[Big Wheel]

It's important to keep in mind that the fusion of bebop with Afro-Caribbean music was very much a product of the specific historical conditions in New York in the 1940s, namely, the immigration of large numbers of Puerto Ricans and smaller numbers of Cubans to New York. Not to California. New York. Imagining a scene like the Palladium Ballroom happening in the Southern California of the 1940s is a lot like imagining a Minton's just springing up in the middle of Portland, Maine. Why would major talents try to make a living playing charanga and conjunto gigs in a place where there was little to no demand for them to play charanga and conjunto?

Mingus's explorations with Mexican-ish styles in LA have been amply documented, but obviously that's a very different thing than what Chano Pozo and Machito were playing at the time.

Edited August 24, 2010 by Big Wheel

[Big Beat Steve]

Not much here, but a Google search turned up this passage, which mentions Cano's stint with the Pachuco Boogie Boys before going to NYC in the late 1940s, and also Paul Lopez (who apparently left Central Avenue for NYC as well).

A great book, that "Latin Jazz" by Raúl A. Fernandez. Thanks for the reminder to look at it closer again.

As for TTK's question, try LALO GUERRERO for a starter. I know his more "jazz"-oriented works would be more like Latin R&B and a lot less like Latin bebop but anyway ...

Anyway, I'd be interested in finding out more about any Central Avenue equivalents of the N.Y. bop-cum-mambo artists you named too.

[Big Wheel]

From this discography it looks like at least 80-90% of Guerrero's pre-1952 Imperial output was straight-up Mexican in style. Rancheras and corridas mostly rather than mambo or rumba. This radio program by his son suggests that his more jazzy/mamboish groups didn't really come together until around 1949. My guess is that he was tuning in to the stuff Perez Prado was doing and dabbling in that style a bit for variety's sake (Cuban music was popular and influential in Mexico too) while keeping the Mexican stuff his bread and butter.

No doubt the man was a giant of Chicano music, but to compare him in any way to Machito or Chano Pozo seems like a real stretch unless your attitude is "it's all in Spanish, therefore all "Latin" music is basically the same."

Edited August 24, 2010 by Big Wheel

[Big Beat Steve]

I wouldn't dispute what you say; which is why I referred to his "more 'jazz'-oriented works", nothing more.

What I was actually trying to get at is that he DID do something that apparently was intended as a Latin offspin of Westcoast R&B at that time (as evidenced by the handful of tunes that was reissued on various R&B compilations). Which only goes to show he was TOUCHED by what happened in that field (touched, nothing more). And like I said, this name was thrown in the ring as a "starter", not more. I'd be very interested to see more tangible (and more predominantly Cuban) examples of "Latin jazz" on the West Coast myself.

BTW, I am sure not all the East Coast Latin/Cuban (mambo) music had THAT much of a jazz tinge either.

And if it should turn out to be so that out West the crossbreed of Latin and jazz music concerned more the crossbreeding of Mexian (and not Cuban/Puertorican) with (U.S.) jazz music and musicians (due to a lack of Cuban/Puertorican musicians out West) then that might be a finding to take into account as well.

Cross-fertilization basically could occur in many forms.

Edited August 24, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[Big Wheel]

BTW, I am sure not all the East Coast Latin/Cuban (mambo) music had THAT much of a jazz tinge either.

Machito didn't really adopt the elements we use to typically define "jazz" like improvised solos until around 1947-1948, but then he did in a BIG way. And probably he was mixing things more subtly before then.