Pacific Mambo Orchestra Interview

Posted by Salsamundi on 1/10/12 • Categorized as ARTICLES,Bands,Interviews,Usa

ISM . INTERVIEW

This is EDUARDO GUILARTE I’m interviewing the leaders of PACIFIC MAMBO ORCHESTRA

Who are the leaders?

Christian Tumalan, Pianist and Steffen Kuehn, Trumpet player, manager Gustavo Cortez and assistant manager Jesus Cortez.

EG: so when did you guys start?

PMO: when did we start…its our one year anniversary so basically a year ago in October of 2010, we are one month past due our anniversary celebration, so one year and one month

EG: Why?

PMO: EEE, because we could! No I think that what triggered it was recording a session we were at this record, this base player was putting together this record, it happened that him and Mike Rinta the trombone player and Pete Cornell the lead alto player and some other cats went to that session and we were just talking about it and we brought up the subject, you kind of said you know potentially I have a gig, so he came up with the actual performance opportunity for an event and we were all looking at each other and said “hey that sounds awesome” lets think about it a little more, and it happened that well you had already some charts, yes I had nine charts of music I had purchased some years back, and he had already written some scratched there and Mike Rinta is an excellent arranger and he had other arrangements and he also had it in his mind to put it in a big band set up, so you are asking us why and the big band is a tradition, since the 1920s, 1930s, the swing era, also Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, so it’s a tradition that existed in the United States back then, and its being telling along the years and the Latin set up started to happen on non of this area, back on the east coast; there was when Tito Puente, Machito and those guys started, in the 1940s maybe…

EG: well all of those guys back then like Javier Cuga and those guys were all big band sounds, all of New York was doing big band, all the Cuban clubs were doing big band…

PMO: yeah, Copa Cabana, so it was happening there and it became the latin prototype of the big band

EG: Sure

PMO: and it became really successful and it existed all the way through the 70s I think we are talking about active, like the American big bands and the Latin big bands went through like the same peaks and values, I mean the American big bands they kind of slopped in the 70s as well in the 80s, you know and resurfaced in the 1990s or 2000s and right now I have a feeling that we are peaking, we are going back up with the big bands, you like Jose Luco and those guys, you know they are putting out some really great albums, this guy from Colombia, what’s his name, German Villarreal, I just heard his record from 2005 and its great! Yeah this is latin only but also the Jazz big band there is some recent productions (…) Maria Schneider, there is this other guy…

EG: But what drew you guys to big band sound?

PMO: if I may, I went to the University of North Texas, in the 1990s and the nucleus of that program is big band, so I studied big bands, you know that was my thing, other schools had small groups as their nucleus and North Texas has big bands, there is 9 big bands for the students, and the One O’clock, I guess, is the most famous, is a Grammy Nominee, and it was incredible, I got hooked to big band sound, (…) horn player playing in a section, its just phenomenal, I love it, I love it; so the idea of playing big band sound Latin style was totally appealing, totally appealing to me…and also because we have been really active in the salsa scene playing in smaller groups, meaning only three horns, a wooden section, a couple singers, but we…the group of musicians that are actually in this band, this big band were looking for that, the opportunity…I think we wanted to do something different, I mean there, there is something like forty salsa bands, fifty salsa bands and they all play three horns, you know they are not playing (…) for them, so ok you have trumpet, trombone, saxophone or trumpet, trumpet trombone, so its really small you know, the sound is really small, so again, me as a horn player love the huge brass sounds, you know I love like four trombones, five saxes, so there is something about it that cannot be explained, like if you are a musician, you are inside of that sound and you are being blown away by it, you know…

EG: and like the sonoras like Billos Caracas Boys, Billos went through the 50s all the way through the 90s, so that’s like very demanding economically in terms of arrangements and charts…so how do you guys handle that?

PMO: well its been quite a…this is…

EG: how many pieces?

PMO: it’s a total of twenty pieces on stage

EG: so you are writing for twenty people?

PMO: yes, well literally no, we are not writing twenty pieces because the singers, the percussionists normally memorize the tunes, we have charts for the percussion players but mainly for rhythms, piano and base, so thirteen horns, piano, base plus two, so maybe fifteen and then the percussion and (…) written percussion but…

EG: who does the arrangements?

PMO: he wrote a couple, I wrote a few, my friends wrote a few, Jamie Dubberly, we have five writers in the band and we are accomplished writers, so we are lucky as a band in that sense

EG: so you were a music major?

PMO: yeah, I have four majors, one in composition, one in classical piano, one jazz studies and one (…) In Mexico you can afford to have many majors because its only fifty cents per year

EG: NO!!! (Laughs)

PMO: yeah! Yeah I just paid off my student loan last year, its sponsored by the government so you can take as many majors as you want.

EG: I went to the Philippines and went to dance at small clubs and eleven pieces, typical, but they don’t make anything and you know and you hear them singing in Spanish and you talk to them in Spanish and they don’t speak Spanish, (laughs), but they memorize the songs…

PMO: they sound good!

EG: yeah they do sound good!

PMO: wasn’t there like a Japanese salsa band a few years back?

EG: Actually it was a Mexican band composed of Japanese musicians, that was Orquesta La Luz

PMO: De La Luz

EG: yeah…but every body thinks they are from Japan, no, they are from Mexico

PMO: they were Mexican?

EG: México-Japoneses

PMO: That’s funny

EG: yeah, one time i met one of the best one players “El Chinito Harry Kim” and he is cubano…

PMO: well that’s for marketing purposes…like wow a Japanese band!

EG: so How is the project working out for you guys?

PMO: you know what, I think we are more than happy with it…I mean it exceeded my expectations for sure, I mean, I didn’t have any expectations to start with, this year, 2011 we played the most prestigious gigs without having sent out a single promo package

EG: WOW! So how often are you guys playing?

PMO: we are playing every Monday night here (Café Cocomo) so that’s steady, and its more like a paid rehearsal, and that was part of the strategy, when you asked the question how we keep this going on, the financial situation, to pay that many musicians, when I approached the club owner, I said to him, this is the idea of a big band and the only day I see this happening is Monday, he said why Monday? Well Monday they got 99% of musicians don’t have a gig, so we’d always be available…yeah Monday is like our Sunday basically, it is a good day to start because of a musician’s availability secondly because we are playing on a early (…) so it allows musicians to stay motivated, to come and rehears, this is practically our rehearsal, there are night here we play brand new tunes, I announce in the microphone, this is a brand new song written by Jamie Dubberly, and at the end people ask, was that the first time you guys played that song? Yes it is! And that is another aspect of this band, we have very educated musicians and we can just arrange the language, which is the charts, and say play it… and it happens (laughs), that is also the level of musicianship we were able to attract, I mean we were both calling like the top people and said listen this is what we are trying to accomplish and they were all like “when are we starting”

EG: who was your big band sound inspiration?

PMO: mine? Well I got to tell you I love the One O’clock Lab Band from North Texas, that’s the number one big band at the school and they were nominated for big band last year for Grammy and again nominated this year and they are competing with the professionals they are that good.

EG: what about the old…

PMO: Oh sure, I mean Count Basie, when it comes to swing, I mean I don’t go past the 40s, I don’t like to…I mean I love the progressive stuff from the 50s onwards, Willie Herman, all that contemporary Maria Schneider is my favorite.

EG: what about yours?

PMO: mine, I would have to start with Charles Mingus, I approached him, back in Mexico we were studying his music, I didn’t meet him, we were assigned a group of arrangers to do one assignment per student and choose any of his songs, so we actually had to go through all of his music and select, and me doing that selection I’m like “who’s this guy”?, –which one did you choose?—PMO: (singing)

EG: so you study music in LA?

PMO: no, Mexico, I started there when I was seven really, but it wasn’t really as formal until I was fourteen when I enter the conservatory down there

EG: Donde?

PMO: In Mexico City

EG: in DF?

PMO: yeah, en DF I actually study what they call a pre-university course and they do that in Cuernavaca Morelos, and they had a brand new school and they would teach you Harmony, Theory, History all of that, so that was three years and then I moved to Mexico City to continue, side reading and all of that, I actually had to go through Harmony three times, yeah its hard, its not an easy subject! I kept failing, I hated it…

EG: and now you come to an interview to find out that Mambo means Coro…In “Africano” (laughs)

PMO: Yeah..yeah! (laughs), so mainly Mexico is where I did all of my studies and here, my main idea, when I moved to the United States, was to continue on the Hayward States with Dave Esterman, great arranger, trombone player and I got lost in College (laughs) Junior College I mean, I was doing the units and I said you know what I’m just going to go ahead and start writing and doing my thing, rather then going to school, I a learnt from experience.

EG: what are your goals?

PMO: with this band?

EG: yeah, Do you have any?

PMO: Well, the immediate goal would be recording, I think that’s what’s next, CD recording of original material and we’ve been working on that and I think that by next year we’ll have a CD, well that is the immediate goal, and for the long term its just to keep the band going, and travel, that would be awesome, yeah I want to take this band to Europe, Asia; and I think it is a possibility, I think we got all the elements, the level of musicianship

EG: What are you guys doing to accomplish that? (to Gustavo Cortez)

PMO, Gustavo Cortez: well first I think we need to have our own sound, our own CD, I think this is of importance, its just hard making the money just for the interest you need to sell, and business marketing and the music business is the selling of (…) music,

PMO: so he is coming from a business background and we are coming from the music background

EG: yes, that is why I asked him

PMO: so that is why it’s a perfect match, we need to be strong in that area

EG: you know there is an old saying that says that no man is a prophet in its own land, “Ningún hombre es profeta en su propia tierra” and there for you are never really appreciated in your own house because if he tells his brother is this great genius scientist, people would go “no…that is so and so’s brother” oh yeah…so if he goes to Rusia or somewhere else over there, people will appreciate him for what he really is.

PMO: yeah, it’s a strange world like that, and I find its true

EG: I see a lot of bands locked into a particular area and I see a little vicious cycle and so you are teachers by the day musicians by night and that keeps you from traveling.

PMO: yes

EG: I interviewed one guy one time and he was telling me a story of when his mother in law said to him “Rogelio, its either my daughter or your little drum”

PMO: that is the story of my grandmother

EG: and Rogelio chose El Tambor, this is Rogelio Páez, and that is before he went on tour with Ruben Blades and those guys.

PMO: (to another band member) have you been on the road? Really small, not the whole salsa stage, the most recent was with Adolecentes in Venezuela.

EG: if someone would offer you guys a tour, would you guys be ready to take it on?

PMO: yeah

EG: the road is tough

PMO: yeah, I toured a lot when I lived in Europe…

EG: leaving your women behind, kids…

PMO: yeah, I got burnt out, I would not do like a world tour, there are people that don’t have a home, I’m not that person, I would love to go for two weeks, three weeks, a couple of tours like Santana, he goes in the spring or in the fall and then he does spot gigs all over the country, that’s cool, he goes to Maui, HI and he plays a couple of gigs there, then he has a European tour in spring three four weeks, and the he comes back to chill…

EG: some markets you go into and the earning capacity of the average person is higher than other markets, so that means that one promoter can afford to pay you more than another, so what do you guys do on those cases?

PMO: negotiation, I think that’s what the solution is, negotiate, the way that I worked it out with my small band Montuno Swing, which is smaller and I did a little tour in Califonia, in San Diego, LA, Fresno so each promoter had different budgets and different ways of earning the money so for me was like putting all the pieces together like a chess board and say ok I’m going to move the band here, stay in this hotel…

EG: let me ask you another question, you got a house, a club, he charges $15 at the door, he brings in a thousand people, so he is taking in at the door $15,000 beside he is selling the licor, do you find that club owners have become more and more stingy as they go along

PMO: this is off the record (laughs)

EG: (laughs)

PMO: this is the way I think about it, its not club owners, there is a huge difference between the owner of Café Cocomo and the owner of Montero’s in the east bay, there is a huge difference, over there you enter the club and there is like ten people dancing to a band so I know for sure they need to make enough money to pay the band and I know they are loosing money to pay the band, $80-$90 a piece, when I enter a club like this, which are bigger I know they have different resources so of course you are going to earn more money so you can tell there is a huge difference, but the standards for money paid to the bands are already set…straight.

EG: yeah, they are already set, there are certain currents in the market, so how do those realistic currents compare to lets say union dues? Are they paying as much as union rates are?

PMO: no

EG: not even close?

PMO: I don’t know, I mean union scale is whatever union scale is, you know whatever they pay per show, if you have two instruments then they pay you double for the extra instrument or they pay you extra for the instrument, you know, we don’t have that, there is different levels of bands, you know the top bands they charge more and they get more because they draw more, you know there is the B level bands, they play at clubs, there is wedding bands, but I’ve heard that they charge $5,000 per gig for an eight piece wedding band and I have been offer to join one of those bands and I rejected that

EG: why?

PMO: Because I don’t want to be playing other people’s music, I want to be playing my music

EG: so you are in for your passion?

PMO: yeah and I think we want to have some…we want to transcend, that is the core mentality of this band and it’s a great phenomenon, and it’s a way for every musician in this band to do something, if it was for money I would be on a wedding band, I could just make a call and that would be fine, but I don’t want to do that because at the end of the day that’s it…

EG: by the way, I didn’t name any clubs…I just said you have a house that takes a thousand people (laughs)

PMO: I think the reality is that, like different promoters, they make it differently…I mean you ask any of the guys in the band and they all have their own set up, how they live their lives and how they choose what to play and how to make their money, I mean I have my own set up that works for me, I teach three days out of the week, that takes care of the bills and that frees me up to do what ever I want to do being in the streets financially, so I have my own set up, he has his own set ups which are different that mine, he has his own studios he makes money with the studio, I write and I produce at home, I have a little publishing deal with LA so I have some songs in the movies, so get royalties that way, which are not much but it’s a little bit so we all like to have our little niches that we like to work with, my friend here doesn’t teach at all, he is so busy that he chooses to live his own style of living and he does not need more money, you know, I guess I need more money so I (laughs) teach.

EG: So what is a surprise to you guys that what started out as an experiment has worked out for you?

PMO: well, it’s a very ambitious project to start and I think the healthiest way to start was from the lowest expectation, we had no expectations… I think we have both have our disappointments and I think this one, because it was really ambitious we just say hey this is a good opportunity, lets see what happens, and it kept rolling and rolling and rolling and still happening, for me this is the first time that I do something that I don’t have to push and promote.

EG: Do you guys look at some of the current big bands that tour world wide? Or look at what they are doing, what you are not doing or could be doing?

PMO: You know sometimes I go to youtube, we go to Yoshi’s we just like to see what’s going on out there and its funny because my mentality has been transforming from the first time I went to a club like Yoshi’s, coming from Mexico, not knowing that Elvin Jones was alive, he died, but for me seeing Elvin Jones right in front of me was like WOW, and that sensation transformed when I started to say ok I want to start doing music, I want to be on this side of the stage, and I see now this other artist, I appreciate their art, but I don’t see how this project should be in that place.

EG:I mean, you look at Los Hermanos Flores, you know, some of the big bands that are presently playing world wide how they are set up and what they are doing that you guys could be doing

PMO: I would like to know that actually, I would like to know what they are doing, they must be doing something we are not doing because they are travelling and we are not, they have management, they have financial, they have back up, they have a record label maybe, they have sponsoring, who knows, you must have a lot of money to put a big band on the road. PMO: But it starts from original music, it starts from that what is your talent, your contribution.

EG: why?

PMO: because that is what people want, they’ve heard Tito Puente, they’ve heard Machito, they’ve heard all those music, every body knows “Rancanca” so why play it again?

EG: ok, you take a band, a big band and all they are doing is nothing but Beatles, so what is it they call those bands “Tribute Bands”, and then you put them on the road and they get all the gigs

PMO: is a choice that we are making, I mean, who do we want to be in a year, I want to be in an original band with I’ve always written original music, I’ve been writing my whole life…

EG: so its you who wants your original material heard?

PMO: yeah, absolutely

EG: because the public doesn’t know it, you are going to introduce it to them

PMO: we have a couple of original tunes now and we have are playing them tonight and they sound great…and that idea, we have been molding that idea in the last month or two months, we started with the idea of putting some covers together, tributes but I think we are coming down and saying ok we just got to come out with something that is us and I think that is the core element that pins us down, like Hermanos Flores has their thing we have our thing. I think is going to happen, we have everything in place and we have feed back from all kinds of people and we are getting hired for next years festivals already, so people really want to hear the band, and this is what we are kind of banking on so that we can continue

EG: we go around and we see patterns and one of the patterns that I see is…I went to El Paso, TX, and I never thought El Paso had salsa, they have terrific Cuban salsa bands there

PMO: El Paso?

EG: yeah, out of all the places in the world, because the Cubans were playing in Juarez and with all the killings in Juarez, they came over and they got political asylum and they are great bands, salsa bands over there but again they are dead locked, they are playing in four or five different clubs who have salsa and out of that circle it doesn’t break, there is a group of doctors who organize a banquet and they do that once a year and they are going back and forth and they are locked into this pattern; Do you guys find yourselves in that?

PMO:I found myself in that, but I am trying to break that pattern

EG: you are reaching out to other cities and stuff like that

PMO: I mean we are in charge, every body is in charge of their own lives and make their own decisions, and what we decide is what will happen, I mean I am kind of spiritual in that way, I think that whatever I put out, whatever I think will manifest so I am careful with what I say…

EG: but there is twenty of you

PMO: yeah there is twenty of us and we’ll find our twenty people that will want to participate, I mean some will probably drop out and say I can’t do it and we’ll have somebody else fill the spot and that’s fine too, so if we have a touring band and we have a local band you know, I think its all going to work out in the Bay Area, that’s when it comes down to moving the pieces as I was mentioning to you, sometimes we can only bring the lead players and hire locally, it’s a chess game, that’s the way I see it, a lot of bands do that they bring the core people lead, trumpet, piano, like they travel a five piece band and then they hire locally, like in the USA for example, if we go to Germany I have a lot of connections I can hire a band there, so that’s how it can be done

EG: I mean I have seen an artist get off a plane at the airport drive him to the stage and put him on a stage with a band he has never rehearse with and what they are selling to the public is the name of the artist.

PMO: yeah when Tito Rojas comes to town he plays with a Bay Area band and we have one rehearsal and…I played with Tito Rojas but with another band, yeah so he comes to town he brings his musical director and his base player and the rest is hired locally and we have one rehearsal and we play the gig at night time and he flies back to LA or whatever you know, so that is economically sound

EG: ok. And before I conclude, anything you want the readers to know about Pacific Mambo?

PMO: watch out! (everybody laughs) from my perspective would be that this project is happening because of them because of our audience so my advise is that do not take it for granted, because it is with their help that this is happening, its happening in the Bay Area now that its unspoiled because people say ok it is great music, but I would really encourage people to promote it even its not their job to do it, but they must understand that is (…) as well

EG: let me ask you something else, I know I said it was in conclusion but how do you feel at some of the houses that you’ve played, its not the same thing to play at Yoshi’s than it is to play here, the sound system

PMO: for example

EG: how do you deal with that?

PMO: well we have the guy who is doing the sound here who is practically rehearsing with us every Monday too, so he knows the band, he knows who is coming on which song and we bring him with us and he talks to the person in charge of the board and…we bring our own sound guy to the gig, if that answers the question.

EG: I remember one time I was working with a guy by the name of Henry Mora, I don’t know if you know him, he is an arranger also from LA, he has a PHD in music and the equipment that you guys work with, of the house, a lot of guys see a magazine and they think oh this is a hot board etc, they have no sound engineering sabe whatsoever

PMO: right here we are lucky because we got a great sound guy, here at Cocomo, at Yishi’s we had a great experience with sound, we’ve had some experiences, and its not that the sound guy is incompetent, is that they don’t really know the music and how its suppose to sound, its very different to sonorize a rock band than a salsa band, a five piece rock band and then you mix a nineteen piece salsa band its very different, and its not the same a jazz big band and a latin big band, its different levels

EG: a place like Yoshi’s is studio quality sound and then you play at somebody’s high school gymnasium.

PMO: you know what this is one of my biggest frustrations in this business, I’m playing like the best I can every night, I go out there and I just try to nail it with all my expertise and then there is a guy out there that’s twenty years old and has no experience and no matter how well I play he’s going to make me sound bad, and that is the frustration I have and I can barely handle it any more, I get angry these days (everybody laughs), because you are messing up my sound, you are messing up what I am trying to do because you did not study or you did not put the time in that’s require and needed and you just think you can do it, yeah from a horn player and a singer, it can be one of the most frustrating things, base you can always bump it up, but still is an issue that has always been and it going to be for centuries

EG: you know, for the dancers they say it’s the trilogy, the woman, the man and the music and I think for the person who is listening if the sound is not right then the experience…

PMO: I think this is something every musician deals with or has to deal with, unless you are top notch but even those guys deal with the same thing; In Monterey’s Jazz Festival, I saw Danilo Perez playing the piano and that made me realize Oh My God is at every level; when you have the infrastructure to have your own sound guy that is traveling with you with his own equipment at different levels I think that doesn’t happen, I think you go to an Eagles concert and the sound is always brilliant or Lady Gaga, is different because the sound guy is the best and this guy is on salary and he travels with them and its always the best sound, unless you have $100,000 you have to deal with other things and other people

EG: equipment that they have and stuff like that?

PMO: yes, that’s what makes a top notch act that always kills it

EG: I remember I heard one time Jimmy Hendrix blow up a speaker and he apologize to the audience he said “I apologize these people have crappy equipment” he blew out all speakers…so getting back to you guys, so you are serious about Pacific Mambo and you’ll be playing at Jazz Festival?

PMO: next we ek we have the San Francisco International Salsa Congress

EG: with Willie Colon, are you backing Willie Colon?

PMO: no, he is playing Saturday we are playing Friday, but it’s the congress, so we are part of the bill

EG: yeah Michelle Castro and Ricardo Sanchez

PMO: and then the following week we are playing at (…) bash in Rocapulco which is probably the biggest party they have in the year and we have next year the Salsa Festival, the San Jose Jazz Festival next year, we played this year and they said we want you back next year

EG: what about the San Francisco Jazz Festival?

PMO: that’s another window we want to approach

EG: have you had any success with them?

PMO: not yet

EG: because they seem to go and hire Delgado and bring him in and nobody else gets to play…

PMO: they are very picky as far as the local bands go, I mean they hire some, but they are very careful, but our Jeff (…) he’s been doing a lot of work with the San Francisco Jazz Festival and he knows (…) they are body body so we are hoping that maybe Jeff will recommend us or who knows, I mean we’ve work with other bands, I’ve worked in the San Francisco Jazz in other bands so they know us, they know of us by now and I think they’ll approach us…

EG: I remember the first time I really got impress with big band was San Francisco State, the music department, they do once a year the big band sound oh man incredible!

THANKS!