Music scholar: ‘Revolutionary’ Eddie Palmieri’s salsa/Afro-Caribbean sound is ‘greatest of all time’

By Alex Fischer

Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist and bandleader Eddie Palmieri will perform with his 13-piece Salsa Orchestra at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 23, in Eisenhower Auditorium.

Born in 1936 in the South Bronx to Puerto Rican immigrant parents, Palmieri grew up exposed to jazz music, taking piano lessons and performing with his older brother, Charlie Palmieri.

“My older brother, the great pianist-musician Charlie Palmieri, was my inspiration,” Eddie Palmieri said in a Center for the Performing Arts interview. “His dedication to his craft and discipline showed me that to be seriously considered, you must be a student of music.”

In 1961, Palmieri founded the band Conjunto La Perfecta, featuring lead singer Ismael Quintana. Palmieri was a pioneer in the development of modern salsa and Latin jazz music. He is most famous for creating “trombanga” by adding trombone players to the trumpet musicians, introducing a whole new sound to the music scene.

“To be honest, it was based on finances,” Palmieri said. “When I left the iconic orchestra of Tito Rodriguez to become my own bandleader, I wanted to emulate the … orchestras of Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez. Unfortunately, the top trumpet players were paid accordingly, and it was impossible, new on the scene, to match their financial demands. So, moving forward, I decided to change the instrumentation with the trombone, flute and percussion sections.”

Since then, Palmieri has recorded over 45 albums, won nine Grammy Awards, and was named the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2013, the highest honor a jazz musician can receive in the United States.

“Eddie Palmieri revolutionized salsa/Afro-Caribbean music,” said Ailish F. Quiñones Rivera. Rivera, a former Penn State piano and jazz studies student, is a doctoral student in ethnomusicology at the University of Texas at Austin.

“I remember the first time I heard [Palmieri] play piano,” Rivera said in a Center for Performing Arts interview. “It was in your face, aggressive, full of passion and meaning. His approach to music … completely shifted how I viewed performing in a positive way.”

Palmieri’s playing “skillfully fuses the rhythms of his Puerto Rican heritage with the complexity of his jazz influences,” drawing inspiration from famous jazz artists such as Thelonius Monk, McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock, as well as his older brother Charlie.

“Eddie Palmieri is the greatest of all time, and to really feel his music, you need to internalize it in your bodies,” Rivera said, “to have an open mind when coming into the concert, to get up and dance, to take risks and innovate genres—just like he did.”

Centre Dimensions, Penn State’s premier 20-piece jazz band directed by Dr. Joshua Davis, will open for the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra.

Visit Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra online for more information about the concert.

Alex Fischer is a communications intern for the Center for the Performing Arts.