Percussion Perfection

Thank you for participating in our Jazz Appreciation Month Listener Poll…today we celebrate percussion players. Be sure to tune in to hear all of your favorites, including one of the 20^th century’s most innovative performers, Candido Camero.

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Candido Camero is a drummer who has changed the jazz percussion landscape, literally making music history with his drums. And he did it all with the odds stacked against him.

Born in a barrio outside Havana, Cuba in 1921, Candido de Guerra Camero learned to play the string bass as a child. He also heard and enjoyed American recordings of drummers Max Roach and Kenny Clarke, but he says Spanish and Portugese folk influences seeped into his soul. At 14 he started playing the bongos and also learned to play the tres, a Cuban mandolin, and acoustic bass. Before long he landed a job as a drummer in the house band at Havanna radio station CMQ. He was also the conga drummer for Havana’s Tropicana Nightclub in Havana.

Candido, as he known around the world, got his first American gig at the Clover Club in Miami and then moved to New York City at the suggestion of his friend, Dizzy Gillepsie, who he aslo recorded with. He made his first New York appearance in 1946 in a musical revue at the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway and he eventually became a very popular television performer. He also formed his own band and toured extensively in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Miami and New York.

Candido is widely regarded as the most famous and innovative bongo/conga drummer in the history of jazz, credited with being the first percussionist to play multiple conga drums simultaneously. He also popularized the bongo drum in America during the 1960s and 70s, when he was considered the most active Latin percussionist in the world. During this time, he played with Lena Horne, Patti Page, Tony Bennett, Doc Severinsen, Tito Puento and all the famous big bands. He also managed to release 16 albums. His range of style was enormous: pop, rock, R&B, Afro-Cuban dance music, Latin jazz,  bop, boogaloo, world fusion, even disco.

The drum master performed well into his 80s and received many honors during his long career, including the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award in 2008. As a little boy from a Cuban barrio, Candido could scarcely have imagined the life that lay ahead for him. Today, at age 94, Candido is on the receiving end of worldwide admiration, and the acknowledgement that his musical innovations permanently changed percussion.