A Grammy 'rescue' for 911 Mambo

February 13, 2005

BY LAURA EMERICK Staff Reporter

Every Grammy Awards has a Cinderella story. This time, though, it turns out to be a Cinderfella tale starring a local guy who made good: Angel Melendez and the 911 Mambo Orchestra.

The group scored a Grammy nomination for its first-ever disc, released on its own label, in the traditional tropical Latin category, competing against such Latin music legends as Cachao (one of the originators of the mambo style) and Omara Portuondo (of Buena Vista Social Club fame).  

So, at last, after 12 years toiling away on the local club circuit, Melendez and his band are going to the ball, in this case, the Grammy Awards ceremony Sunday night in Los Angeles.  

"I'm still on Cloud 9," said Melendez, speaking recently in the La Salle Street headquarters of his manager, Andres Meneses. "We've been celebrating ever since the Grammy nominations came out."

Referring to his formidable competition, Melendez said, "It's like being up against the Beatles and the Rolling Stones all in one category."  

Meneses chimed in: "Oh, yeah, Victor Parra" -- another fixture on the local Latin music scene -- "calls us the dark horse candidate."  

And if anyone embodies that come-from-behind, can-do spirit, it's Angel Melendez.

As broadcaster Bill Kurtis once famously noted while introducing Melendez's band at a local charity event, "When you have a mambo emergency, dial 911!" That off-the-cuff remark captures the essence of the 911 Mambo Orchestra, fronted by composer-arranger-trombonist Melendez, 41, who grew up in Humboldt Park and graduated from Roberto Clemente High School.  

In the compartmentalized world of Latin music, Melendez and company have faced a series of challenges, leading off with their choice of repertoire and location. As its name suggests, 911 Mambo specializes in tropical Latin styles, including Afro-Cuban genres (mambo, rumba, cha cha cha and bolero), as well as salsa and merengue. But these tropical Latin styles don't dominate the market the way regional Mexican music does (it accounts for more than 60 percent of all Latin music sales). And the tropical Latin scene centers on Miami and New York City; Chicago ranks as a distant outpost.

Compounding its mission, 911 Mambo goes the retro route. In the tropical Latin market, reggaeton and bachata are the rage.  

But with his 20-piece big band, Melendez has kept alive a format in danger of extinction. "He's maintained the salsa group orchestra," said Angelo Prieto, president of local promoters 4 Fantasticos. "You've got local bands that have come and gone, but he's kept the salsa scene alive in Chicago. He's stood the test of the time."

911 Mambo belongs to a small tribe. According to Meneses, David Mora (based in Los Angeles), Tito Puente Jr. (New York City) and the Tropicana All-Stars (Miami) are the only established U.S. bands playing this kind of music.  

"Yeah, we get that all the time, that mambo's too old, why are you playing it," Melendez said. "People say it's hard enough to get gigs for a 10-piece band; how are you going to get a 20-piece unit to work? It's like driving a gas-guzzling Caddy, but it's what I wanted, and we did it."

As industry veteran Jon Fausty, a 16-time Grammy winner for his production work on discs by Latin legends Celia Cruz, Eddie Palmieri and Tito Puente, points out: "Angel managed to bring back a very special big band style, with a new modern sound. He updated the classic format perfected by Tito Puente and Machito -- no one's doing that anymore."

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Mambo originated in Cuba during the '30s, starting with Las Maravillas del Siglo, featuring Israel Lopez (a.k.a. Cachao) on bass. Perez Prado, often credited with the term "mambo" (denoting Congolese chants), popularized the form worldwide. Cuban greats Antonio Arcano, leader of Las Maravillas, and Arsenio Rodriguez became known as the Mambo Kings for their innovations in the style.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Years later, the movie "The Mambo Kings" (1992), based on Oscar Hijuelos' novel, inspired Melendez to pursue his dream. After graduating from Clemente in 1981, and then from VanderCook College of Music in 1986, he performed in several bands while holding down various day jobs, including a long stint with the Chicago Park District, in the '80s and early '90s.

In 1992, he had been playing in a band fronted by fellow Clemente alum Mike Rivera, but it didn't work out. "Then I went into a depression for six months, and when I awakened, it was Sept. 11," Melendez recalled. "I had just seen 'The Mambo Kings' and decided the time was right to put together my own band."

That had been his dream since his high school days at Clemente, where he played in salsa groups. "When I was at Clemente, I used to hang out with gangbangers, and if I would have stayed on that path, I would have ended up probably getting shot," he said. "But then I started going to [a community center] at North and Leavitt, a place designed to get kids off the street. There we used to play in bands a lot. Many musicians came out of this scene, Edwin Sanchez, Mike Rivera, Carlitos Rey. So when I decided to go on to study music, I had a vision."

After enrolling at VanderCook for the 1981-82 school year, Melendez got a gig in Puerto Rico. "I found out very quickly how difficult it is to make a living as a sideman. When I graduated in 1986, I had gotten tired of 'The Love Boat' routine," referring to his cruise-ship gigs. "So then I went to the Park District for eight years."

At this point, Meneses joined in: "People say overnight success takes 10 years."

To which Melendez added with a smile: "It's taken me 20 years."

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A week later, at VooDoo Nightclub in Schaumburg, Melendez and his band got to savor that hard-earned success. Playing for an overflow audience during a late January freeze, 911 Mambo heated up the room like it was a night in Havana.  

"We're going to the Grammys!" Melendez shouted out to the crowd. "It's our very first CD, and we hit a home run. It took 12 years to make this disc. Twelve years ago, people told me, 'You're nuts -- mambo is dead.'" At this point the crowd roared so loudly in disbelief that it probably could have been heard by the fans still circling the club's snow-packed parking lot.

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"What I need from you is a record."  

Those are the fateful words that led to the creation of "Angel Melendez and the 911 Mambo Orchestra." Meneses believed 911 Mambo could break through to the next level, but it needed product -- a debut disc -- to advance.  

Meneses, 35, who runs the popular Latin Street Dancing enterprises (with booking, promotion, studio work and instruction), became Melendez's manager in 2001. Back then, Melendez was working with various ensembles, including a Jewish wedding band, while teaching full-time at Farragut High School. "I gave him an ultimatum," Meneses recalled. "He had to decide among his priorities. And so in early 2003, he made the total commitment to 911 Mambo."  

The next step was to make the record. Meneses estimated the disc's costs at $15,000, but "they ended up being a lot more." How much more, he prefers not to say, but he figures that a similar effort by a major label would run in the $100,000 range to produce, plus another $100,000 to market.

For distribution of their self-released disc (on the Latin Street Music label), they signed on with Book World, which Meneses describes as "one of the largest U.S. distributors; they started with books, then branched out into music. I sent them the CD, and they said, 'Oh, my God, we've got to distribute this.' We immediately asked them, have you ever distributed a Latin music disc? They said, 'No, but it's all right, you'll be our first.'"

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If not for Jon Fausty, however, Melendez and Meneses think they would be watching the Grammys at home rather than sitting in the Staples Center for the telecast.  

"To make the disc, the first thing we did was to get with someone really professional," Meneses said. "That's why we went with Jon Fausty, his name came up first."  

For his part, Fausty loves the record. "It's one of my favorites because of the way it happened in the studio, all live," he said in a phone interview. "Live [studio] records like this are not done anymore. Usually they put down rhythm tracks, then overdub the brass. But it's important to record live to get the feeling. The guys feed off each other. Like a live [concert] performance, it really changes the feeling."

The caliber of musicianship here surprised him. "I didn't know those kids," said Fausty, widely regarded as the leading engineer-mixer in the tropical Latin/Latin jazz world. "I know New York City, Miami, Colombia, but Chicago? I didn't expect the quality of this kind there. Especially playing this kind of music. Everyone played brilliantly, especially the brass section. From the first moment I pressed the record button, I was so impressed."  

With 16 Grammys on his shelf and three more nominations this year (for discs by Marc Anthony, Gilberto Santa Rosa and 911 Mambo), Fausty knows what he's talking about. "The girl singer [Lina Marie Perez] came in and sang this fantastic cumbia ['Si Una Vez'], even though she doesn't speak Spanish. Her mom was there coaching her [phonetically through the song]. She's going to be a star, because she's so different, so unique. And Mike [Maldonado, 911 Mambo's other vocalist] is an old-timer who's strict in his methodology, but he's great, too."  

What makes the disc great as a whole is its execution, Fausty insists. It's heavy on covers of Latin favorites, such as Perez Prado's "Cereza Rosa" (known in English as "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White") and "Que Rico El Mambo," along with three Melendez originals. "Maybe the material is not so special, it is what it is, but Angel and the band make it special," Fausty said. "Andres deserves kudos because he believed in Angel, and put out a lot of money to pay the musicians, for the studio time, my fee. It's not inexpensive. But the vibe was so great, he did it. This might be old-style music, but Angel brought forth something new."

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For their part, Melendez and Meneses credit Fausty for his unwavering support. "All through the recording process, he kept saying, 'This is a Grammy winner,'" Meneses said. "As a winner himself, he really wanted us to submit it."  

But going for a Grammy seemed like an impossible dream. "I still can't believe it," Melendez said. "When I saw the list of semi-finalists, I thought we didn't have a chance. On the day of the Grammy announcements, I came out of Farragut, all stressed out. And then the sun came out when we got the news, and I've been on a high ever since."  

These days, his students at Farragut, where Melendez teaches music, think he's a big man on campus. "Now all of a sudden, it's 'my teacher is a Grammy nominee.' It's great because this helps me in my mission there. I want to make our music program super."  

The Grammy recognition also helps to bolster the local tropical Latin scene, for which Melendez and Meneses deserve more credit. "To think that so many Latin artists here who have never gotten the proper recognition," Melendez said. "There are lots of great salseros here, such as Mike Maldonado. He fits our sound perfectly. He knows all the rhythms; he's from Puerto Rico and has been singing for 40 years. He could show up with a cold and still sound great."  

Meneses added: "Mike is one of the legends we have here. He's played with people like [Latin legends] Cheo Feliciano, Andy Montanez, Ismael Miranda. When you think of a top vocalist, it's Mike."

But even in their hometown, Melendez and Meneses must contend with bias in the Latin music industry, which does not regard Chicago as a major broadcast or concert outlet for tropical Latin music. Chicago has no full-time tropical Latin radio station. And tropical acts tend to bypass dates here.  

"The disc has gotten airplay in Miami, New York City, Los Angeles, even in Denver, Texas and Alaska, but really not here," Meneses said. "La Tremenda [a Latin talk format] once played one of our songs in the background while we were doing promotion there. In Chicago, this CD has been more accepted by the jazz market. We also tried [Latin pop station] Viva [WXXY-FM], but it changed formats, and now it's into reggaeton and bachata. Whereas in places like Chile, our record has been called 'a little jewel of music.'"  

They take their struggles in stride. "If we do something, it will be somewhere else," Melendez said. "Like my abuela used to say: 'No one's a prophet in his own land,'" he said, repeating the biblical proverb in Spanish.

Despite the awareness generated by the Grammy nomination, they're moving ahead carefully. A tour of the United Kingdom is pending. As for possible outside interest in the group, Meneses said, "I don't think we'll know until we go to the Grammys. People are still wondering, who are these guys?"

Meanwhile, encouraged by his good fortune, Melendez is writing more music. This Cinderfella is not content with just a home run. "We're gonna keep playing mambos, but with more originals in the classic mambo style. Music is my life. The tropical music scene now is all about hitting singles and doubles. But I'm going to keep at it until I get a grand slam."