August 24, 2025 • 25 mins
Eddie Palmieri’s genius couldn’t be categorized. His music was a mix of salsa, rumba, guaguanco, and jazz, and made anyone who listened to it get on the dance floor. Eddie was the first Latino artist to win a Grammy award and is credited with being a major force behind the Latin jazz boom that hit New York in the 1970s.
Eddie passed away earlier this month at the age of 88. To celebrate his brilliant life and the endless creativity of this salsa legend, we want to share with you the last interview he had with Maria Hinojosa.
Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Dear leat you know USA listener.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Before we start, you should know that if you want
to listen to this episode ad free, just join and
you can join for as little as seven dollars a month.
Joining also gets you behind the scenes access and yes,
some cheese may so click the link in the episode
description and after you do that, then click play.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Let's go to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Dear leat you know USA listener. We are going to
start our show today by thinking about someone who recently
left us, and that is legendary Puerto Rican Latin musician
and piano genius Eddie Palmieri. And I want to share
some of my best memories of who Eddie was and
(01:01):
what he meant to me and to so many Latinos, Latinas,
Latines and LATINX people all across the country and frankly
anyone who loves music.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
It was New York City in the nineteen eighties. Puerto
Ricans ran the city.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Salsa was the music that was dominating, and then there
were some musicians who were pushing salsa to the next level.
One of the big pioneers was Eddie Palmieri. The thing
about Eddie Palmieri is that everybody knew that he could
play salsa Latin music as it was called, but everybody
(01:38):
then realized.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
He was a jazz aficionado.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
He was somebody who was prepared to break through, to
make a kind of music that really hadn't been heard before.
It wasn't just that Eddie Palmieri was a piano genius.
If you ever saw Eddie Palmieri play, you know what
I'm talking about, my own local monstro in a piano.
(02:04):
He was a crazy man. He was a monster on
the piano. So for me, Eddie Palmieri was about watching
him play live because he became one with the piano,
lifted himself, propelled himself off the piano bench, and there
was nothing like Eddie Palmiery playing live. I remember I
(02:30):
was a cub journalist and I got an interview with
Eddie Palmieri.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I was at the Blue Note.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
The Blue Note in the West Village is like one
of the old school jazz clubs in New York City
that is still standing. It was on the second floor
where the musicians would hang out and I got a
chance to meet him, and it was just one of
those huge moments in my life because by him saying
(02:57):
yes to me. It represent that I was really truly
beginning my career in journalism. And the thing about Eddie
Palmieri is that even though he was this huge music star,
he was really nice. And I'll never forget that Eddie
(03:18):
Palmieri's music it can't be categorized. He was a genre blender.
There was a mix of salsad, rumba, jazz, juah wan go,
you name it, and it made the people of New
York City get on the dance floor. It started in
the nineteen sixties and people across the country were jumping in.
Palmieri played with other Latin jazz greats like Tito Puente
(03:41):
and Machito. He was the first Latino artist to win
a Grammy Award, and he went on to earn seven
more in his career, during which he released nearly forty albums,
and many of those pieces that he composed became like
a soundtrack of my life. Like I have a visual
memory of Eddie Palmieri playing malanga at the Village Gate
(04:02):
Satsa meets jazz on a Monday night in.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
New York City. The place was popping.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I mean people were dancing, people were taking over the
dance floor and Eddie palmer was all over that piano.
So Eddie Palmery has been a part of my life
for many decades, and it broke my heart to hear
that he had passed to the other side. Eddie died
(04:32):
on August sixth of twenty twenty five at his home
in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
He was eighty eight years old.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I mean, everybody knew that Eddie Palmery was getting older,
and some people knew that he was having some health issues. Nonetheless,
people were overwhelmingly shocked and they had a lot to
say about their love for Eddie Palmery.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Latinos, we lost a legend last night.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
You can't talk about music today without really understanding the
roots and the legacy that Eddie left behind.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
When I listened to Eddie Palmery, you automatically knew it
was Eddie because of his sound, his style.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Over the years, I interviewed Eddie Palmery more than once,
and the last time it was, oh my god, so special,
because he came to our studio to sit down to
have a conversation in Harlem about his life at that moment,
and I truly never expected him. The great Eddie Palmery
(05:33):
to get so emotional, but he did so to celebrate
Eddie's brilliant life, his endless creativity, and his extraordinary positivity.
I want to share with you the last interview that
I did with him back in twenty eighteen. So, dear listener,
here is my conversation with Edgeno, the genius Eddie Palmiery
(06:06):
from Vuduro Media. It's Latino USA. I'm Maria in Coosa today,
a conversation with sas a legend, Eddie PALMIRI. So, Eddie Palmirie,
(06:33):
it is so wonderful to have you in our studio
at Latino USA.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Welcome to our show.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Oh my pleasure, Maria. That's beautiful. I congratulate you and
look extremely proud of what you've done.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Oh my gosh, thank you, Eddie. I mean it's like,
I mean, I remember seeing you. I think the first
time that I saw you playing live was soon after
I moved from Chicago to New York, and it was
in the early nineteen eighties, and I remember being on
the street and you were playing the piano and your
band was out.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
But you got to remember, the street meant so much
to me because at the same time, in the seventies.
I played all the prisons that I could. I played
Attaka twice. I played Racas Island Records. Island is really
the best story because why Diyle becomes to be my EMC.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
So now we got on stage and they're bringing all
the inrates and here goes because before I bring on
my Latin sol brother, Eddie, have we ever seen such
a captive adius?
Speaker 5 (07:36):
And we almost got killed.
Speaker 6 (07:41):
You're like, don't say that, dizzy.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
So Eddie, you're eighty years old.
Speaker 7 (07:55):
You you've.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
You're thirty one.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
I'm thirty because at further Chocolate Minentero that played with
Benny More and Kula, he taught me that after fifty
you start counting by one again. So now I'm thirty
and I'll be thirty one seven fifteen.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I want to take you back to your childhood because
I didn't realize that there was this kind of amazing
detail about your mom.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
Oh your mom.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
So you were growing up in Spanish Harlem and in
the Bronx right.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
My mother arrived in nineteen twenty five from Puerto Rico
at seventeen, but he already had the preparation of being
a steamstress. She then landed up in the garment center
and she's the one that put us on the piano.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Well that's the point.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
So here's your mom who's a hard working woman. She
understands hard work.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
She's a seamstress. But your mom is like Kiro give
mesicos and musico. I want my kids to be musicians.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
So my brother was Charlie Palmier, and my brother, Charlie
was already playing professionally in fourteen years of age.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So you don't often hear that that a mom.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
It's like, I want my kids to be musicians.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
The only problem my brother.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Had when he was playing at fourteen in the Park Plaza,
which is right on one hundred and tenth Street and
now went to a church there where he was playing
there and at the end of the engagement, they would
tell him, Charlie, your mother's outside waiting for you.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
That didn't work too well for my brother.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Why did your mom want you guys to become musicians?
Speaker 5 (09:33):
She knew what it was to work so hard. You know.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
My father was an electrician. He worked on and he
kept studying it, became a radio and television repair man.
We also then eventually bought an old candy store and
then we turned that into a luncheon neet. My mother
and my grandmother cooked because my grandmother used to have
what they called phone does in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
They were restaurants.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
And then I named the place the luncheonet called it Mumbo.
And then I used to take care of the jukebox.
I was fourteen years of age, and I would take
the bottles down. Then I would make egg cream that
would like to throw a jerk.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
When we come back, I continue my conversation with Eddie
Palmery from a few years ago, as we remember his
life and his legacy, stay with us not there by. Yes, Hey,
(10:36):
we're back and we're going to pick up the last
conversation I had with musician Eddie Palmery on Latino USA
back in twenty eighteen, as we celebrate his legacy after
his recent passing.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Let's get back to my conversation.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So from that young age, your mom gets you on
the piano, you and your brother, Charlie Palmiery. It's the
nineteen sixties now, okay, and the place to play for
Latin band is the Palladium.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
In nineteen forty nine they opened up the Palladium. They
brought up promote to CoFe Nico Pagani. He convinced mister Hymen,
who was the owner, to bring in the Machio Orchestra
on a Sunday matinee.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
Okay, and the place gets packed, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And when you say it was packed a thousand people
so people of color were playing.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Who was packing it?
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Was it white folks, no Latino.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
And this was kind of scandalous to have Latinos in
the middle of a Sunday, in the middle of midtown.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
And now the owners too many. He was very nervous.
Too many blacks, too many blacks. And the greatest saying
that with ever said's statement was said you like black
or green? And his wife said he's right. And they
opened up the Palladium in nineteen forty.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Nine, and this is where the appointe Machito were Pane
and you you actually at that point you were not
up there with Tito, but you did this thing where
you started playing in the spot in front of the police.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
Yeah, I rented the place on Wednesday. What were you doing?
Speaker 1 (12:15):
What do you mean you rented the place on What.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
Was your plan to be able to get into the palladium.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
You couldn't get in there, and I had the hottest
band up in the Bronx.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
You actually you you started renting this place in front.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
It was a river terrace and it was a beautiful
place for you, you know, and I rented it on Wednesdays.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
And you make such a ruckus.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
And then I would say not over there.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
And I finally got into the Palladium in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Wow, you were connecting with audiences that were like, you know,
the black psychedelic crowd from the Parliament Funkadelics.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
You were my concert, right, You were hanging.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Out with San Francisco hippies. You were, in essence, letting
your hair. Do you know your album Harlem river Drive,
you know, is a very big deal.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Calom River Drive brought the CIA in the FBI to
my to my company because and when I becalled Hall
of the Drive, I'm looking to crossover, you know, to crossover,
and I don't cross over. But I have my biggest fans,
and you know who my biggest fans were the anti
government movement called the Weathermen.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
People are calling themselves members of the weather Underground.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Last night plotted bombs and federal office buildings in Washington
and Oaklands, California.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
The Weathermen. They were this group of leftists, super leftist,
militant students, mostly college students.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
And they get raided and they find hanoverver Drive and
here come the CIA. That was the second time, because
the first time I bought the FBI, and that to
him was when I did Mambo concong Is Mosambique. At
that time, Alpha sixty six, that was the first Cubans
(14:12):
that were coming from Cuba accused me of being a communist.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Alpha sixty six in some ways was like the opposite
of the weathermen. I mean, they were doing this stuff
from the right. They were militants, they were putting bombs.
They were Cubans who had left Cuba and moved to Miami,
and they were super anti communist.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Okay, and Kuba was fighting an Angola.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Castro had sent his military, his soldiers to Angola in
order to back up the Socialist party.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
There, and the rhythm Mosambique came out. I carried Mosambique here.
Alpha sixty six threatened all the radio stations that you
play as We're going to blow up the stations.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
That's the first time.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Why are you so political?
Speaker 5 (14:51):
Because I know that every day, every day it's a struggle.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Remember when I was driving nineteen fifty six at the Palladium,
had a little Chevy, I just got married. I suppened
the flying a gas. I had a dollar around me.
They gave me almost four gulets because it was fourteen
cents a gallon. Then I would take to go over
the triborough Bridge at that time, which was a quarter
a quarter till we pay for everything. Now it's can
(15:16):
eventually be twenty five dollars. Okay, So every year things
get worse, it's told in hallow them the drive. All
that message then hallered in the driver every year in
idle hands, and the.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
Hands is really the ones that you know. Out of
my learnings.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
I have a book called The Wonderful Wealth Machine, and
that the gentleman called a goldsmith who said, the law
grinds the poor and the rich rule the law. We
have a problem that is constant. It's an upheaval. That's
why we see all these upheaval problems all over the world.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Hey, we're back, and we're listening to the last interview
I did with Eddie Palmieri in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Let's get back to my conversation.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Your new album is called Sabiduria, which means wisdom. It's
something that I love that word. I love sabi Urdia.
And I'm wondering now. I mean, it's twenty seventeen. You
are still pushing Afro Latin jazz and dance music. So
what is that like for you to be just like, no, no,
I'm still a key with these years, but I'm pushing
(16:58):
this kind of music.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Sally Duda is really an educational CD. It's the greatest
musicians we have in there. From a filidela Fair on
the violin. Then we have a gentleman called Donald Harrison.
Donald Harrison is the greatest alto player coming out of
(17:21):
New Orleans. We have a gentleman called Joe Locke on
vibes excellent place for mallets. And we have mister Bernard
Purdy the drama. They call him Bernard Hit Party. Marcus
Miller did the last album, the Miles Davis one after the.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Other, correct Wisdom over Wisdom.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Every cut has but be called tension and resistance. Tension
and resistance to reach a musical harmonic rhythmical musical climax,
you have to have tension and resistant in all the
competitions that took me years to study. When they I
was listening to the music that was coming out of Cuba,
(18:05):
you know how they excited me in less than three minutes.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
When people think of Latin music, when they think of
self se in fact, they think of it as not
as high brow as jazz. People have this notion that
jazz intellectual.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
So there's not a jazz player.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
All the jazz players put together cannot comprehend when we play, you.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Know, the premiere jazz player. Maybe they wouldn't be able
to play.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
They only want dig Lestice.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
He took channel Posto in nineteen forty seven and they
brought to conga. A lot of the jazz musicians they
want they want the conga. Some said they're taking us
back to the jungle.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
But the conga, the rhythm section that we play, that's
the most exciting rhythmical such and when you use it
with the jazz harmonics like I do, then you have
something unique, you know, something you need because you got
the greatest rhythmic rhythmical pattern and now you've got the
greatest harmonic structures of harmonic structures of jazz.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
So Anie, what what do you think of music today,
I mean, are you are you excited with what you hear?
Speaker 5 (19:14):
Very disappointed? Very sadden.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
You know, the commercial radio only plays from the majors.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
You know, see sad san. The word sad means absolutely
nothing to me. Okay.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
The one who said in the perspective was Tito Puente,
I put sas on my spaghetti.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
Baby. When you use those, all those have their own
proper names.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
It comes from the mad rumba.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
All of what we hear, you know, I damn sung aichangwi.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
All of those rhythms have their proper the name, and
they just put it under one name of Satsa and
then they did Satsa san soir and Satsa Romantica, which
is a disaster.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
It doesn't excite you. You.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
I recommend that if anybody dances that, take two little
pillows they go.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
You got a follow steep each. The couple's going to
fallow sleep while they're dancing. That's how boring the music is.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Give me.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
The only way we can get any music is community radio,
which is the sadness in my heart.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
It is though it is the way I met you
through WKCR, that listening to your music on WKCR so,
so your favorite track from Sabiluria.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
It's one of them, all of them, they all have
and the mess one is the one I wrote for
my wife which she was dying, which is piano solo
is called Life.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
And after I recording it, we both cried together.
Speaker 7 (20:55):
That's oh.
Speaker 5 (21:06):
And she was listening to her on the phone. My
son always called her if she heard it. It's called life.
Got a fool?
Speaker 8 (21:23):
What are you thinking about?
Speaker 7 (21:25):
Oh?
Speaker 9 (21:32):
That was my girlfriend for sixty two years. I'm thinking
back there, I'm thinking about it right there. She told
me it wasn't you have no idea how bless you are.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
People work very hard to buy it by save money
to buy a ticket to go see you play to
What you have to do is be on time always.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Punctuality is class.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Dress as best as you can, look, as best as
you can, do your trills so you can play better.
Unless you got closes it and start with the jokes.
You're a lot a fucking comedian.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Thank you for those words of wisdom and for leaving
that image in our mind.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
And I wish you the very best at what you're doing.
And I'm extremely proud of what you're doing. And whenever
you need me, I'll come back and say.
Speaker 8 (22:41):
Hello, thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
And you made me cry.
Speaker 8 (22:46):
I know you made me cry.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
That was the celebrated pianist and musician Eddie Palmieri. He
passed away earlier this month. He was eighty eight years
old and he rest in peace. But actually knowing Eddie,
he's jamming up there, he is jamming. This episode was
(23:39):
produced by Antonia Serejuido and Marlon Bishop, with help from
Jaquin Coddler. It was edited by Marlon Bishop and mixed
by Stephanie Lebau. The Latino USA team also includes Rosa
Na Guire, Julia Caruso, Renaldo Lanos Junior, Andrea Lopez Grusado,
Ruis Luna, Rodimr Marquez, Julieta Martinelli, Monica, Ralis Garcia, JJ
(24:01):
Krubin and Nancy Trujillo. Bennille Amidas and I are co
executive producers and I'm your host Mariano Hossa. Latino USA
is part of Iheart's Mike Urdura podcast Network. Executive producers
at iHeart are Leo Gomez and Arlene Santana. Join us
again on our next episode. In the meantime, I'll see
you on social media. Dear listener, come on now.
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Dear leat you know USA listener.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Before we start, you should know that if you want
to listen to this episode ad free, just join and
you can join for as little as seven dollars a month.
Joining also gets you behind the scenes access and yes,
some cheese may so click the link in the episode
description and after you do that, then click play.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Let's go to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Dear leat you know USA listener. We are going to
start our show today by thinking about someone who recently
left us, and that is legendary Puerto Rican Latin musician
and piano genius Eddie Palmieri. And I want to share
some of my best memories of who Eddie was and
(01:01):
what he meant to me and to so many Latinos, Latinas,
Latines and LATINX people all across the country and frankly
anyone who loves music.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
It was New York City in the nineteen eighties. Puerto
Ricans ran the city.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Salsa was the music that was dominating, and then there
were some musicians who were pushing salsa to the next level.
One of the big pioneers was Eddie Palmieri. The thing
about Eddie Palmieri is that everybody knew that he could
play salsa Latin music as it was called, but everybody
(01:38):
then realized.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
He was a jazz aficionado.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
He was somebody who was prepared to break through, to
make a kind of music that really hadn't been heard before.
It wasn't just that Eddie Palmieri was a piano genius.
If you ever saw Eddie Palmieri play, you know what
I'm talking about, my own local monstro in a piano.
(02:04):
He was a crazy man. He was a monster on
the piano. So for me, Eddie Palmieri was about watching
him play live because he became one with the piano,
lifted himself, propelled himself off the piano bench, and there
was nothing like Eddie Palmiery playing live. I remember I
(02:30):
was a cub journalist and I got an interview with
Eddie Palmieri.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I was at the Blue Note.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
The Blue Note in the West Village is like one
of the old school jazz clubs in New York City
that is still standing. It was on the second floor
where the musicians would hang out and I got a
chance to meet him, and it was just one of
those huge moments in my life because by him saying
(02:57):
yes to me. It represent that I was really truly
beginning my career in journalism. And the thing about Eddie
Palmieri is that even though he was this huge music star,
he was really nice. And I'll never forget that Eddie
(03:18):
Palmieri's music it can't be categorized. He was a genre blender.
There was a mix of salsad, rumba, jazz, juah wan go,
you name it, and it made the people of New
York City get on the dance floor. It started in
the nineteen sixties and people across the country were jumping in.
Palmieri played with other Latin jazz greats like Tito Puente
(03:41):
and Machito. He was the first Latino artist to win
a Grammy Award, and he went on to earn seven
more in his career, during which he released nearly forty albums,
and many of those pieces that he composed became like
a soundtrack of my life. Like I have a visual
memory of Eddie Palmieri playing malanga at the Village Gate
(04:02):
Satsa meets jazz on a Monday night in.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
New York City. The place was popping.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I mean people were dancing, people were taking over the
dance floor and Eddie palmer was all over that piano.
So Eddie Palmery has been a part of my life
for many decades, and it broke my heart to hear
that he had passed to the other side. Eddie died
(04:32):
on August sixth of twenty twenty five at his home
in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
He was eighty eight years old.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I mean, everybody knew that Eddie Palmery was getting older,
and some people knew that he was having some health issues. Nonetheless,
people were overwhelmingly shocked and they had a lot to
say about their love for Eddie Palmery.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Latinos, we lost a legend last night.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
You can't talk about music today without really understanding the
roots and the legacy that Eddie left behind.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
When I listened to Eddie Palmery, you automatically knew it
was Eddie because of his sound, his style.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Over the years, I interviewed Eddie Palmery more than once,
and the last time it was, oh my god, so special,
because he came to our studio to sit down to
have a conversation in Harlem about his life at that moment,
and I truly never expected him. The great Eddie Palmery
(05:33):
to get so emotional, but he did so to celebrate
Eddie's brilliant life, his endless creativity, and his extraordinary positivity.
I want to share with you the last interview that
I did with him back in twenty eighteen. So, dear listener,
here is my conversation with Edgeno, the genius Eddie Palmiery
(06:06):
from Vuduro Media. It's Latino USA. I'm Maria in Coosa today,
a conversation with sas a legend, Eddie PALMIRI. So, Eddie Palmirie,
(06:33):
it is so wonderful to have you in our studio
at Latino USA.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Welcome to our show.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Oh my pleasure, Maria. That's beautiful. I congratulate you and
look extremely proud of what you've done.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Oh my gosh, thank you, Eddie. I mean it's like,
I mean, I remember seeing you. I think the first
time that I saw you playing live was soon after
I moved from Chicago to New York, and it was
in the early nineteen eighties, and I remember being on
the street and you were playing the piano and your
band was out.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
But you got to remember, the street meant so much
to me because at the same time, in the seventies.
I played all the prisons that I could. I played
Attaka twice. I played Racas Island Records. Island is really
the best story because why Diyle becomes to be my EMC.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
So now we got on stage and they're bringing all
the inrates and here goes because before I bring on
my Latin sol brother, Eddie, have we ever seen such
a captive adius?
Speaker 5 (07:36):
And we almost got killed.
Speaker 6 (07:41):
You're like, don't say that, dizzy.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
So Eddie, you're eighty years old.
Speaker 7 (07:55):
You you've.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
You're thirty one.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
I'm thirty because at further Chocolate Minentero that played with
Benny More and Kula, he taught me that after fifty
you start counting by one again. So now I'm thirty
and I'll be thirty one seven fifteen.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I want to take you back to your childhood because
I didn't realize that there was this kind of amazing
detail about your mom.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
Oh your mom.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
So you were growing up in Spanish Harlem and in
the Bronx right.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
My mother arrived in nineteen twenty five from Puerto Rico
at seventeen, but he already had the preparation of being
a steamstress. She then landed up in the garment center
and she's the one that put us on the piano.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Well that's the point.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
So here's your mom who's a hard working woman. She
understands hard work.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
She's a seamstress. But your mom is like Kiro give
mesicos and musico. I want my kids to be musicians.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
So my brother was Charlie Palmier, and my brother, Charlie
was already playing professionally in fourteen years of age.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So you don't often hear that that a mom.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
It's like, I want my kids to be musicians.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
The only problem my brother.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Had when he was playing at fourteen in the Park Plaza,
which is right on one hundred and tenth Street and
now went to a church there where he was playing
there and at the end of the engagement, they would
tell him, Charlie, your mother's outside waiting for you.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
That didn't work too well for my brother.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Why did your mom want you guys to become musicians?
Speaker 5 (09:33):
She knew what it was to work so hard. You know.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
My father was an electrician. He worked on and he
kept studying it, became a radio and television repair man.
We also then eventually bought an old candy store and
then we turned that into a luncheon neet. My mother
and my grandmother cooked because my grandmother used to have
what they called phone does in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
They were restaurants.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
And then I named the place the luncheonet called it Mumbo.
And then I used to take care of the jukebox.
I was fourteen years of age, and I would take
the bottles down. Then I would make egg cream that
would like to throw a jerk.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
When we come back, I continue my conversation with Eddie
Palmery from a few years ago, as we remember his
life and his legacy, stay with us not there by. Yes, Hey,
(10:36):
we're back and we're going to pick up the last
conversation I had with musician Eddie Palmery on Latino USA
back in twenty eighteen, as we celebrate his legacy after
his recent passing.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Let's get back to my conversation.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So from that young age, your mom gets you on
the piano, you and your brother, Charlie Palmiery. It's the
nineteen sixties now, okay, and the place to play for
Latin band is the Palladium.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
In nineteen forty nine they opened up the Palladium. They
brought up promote to CoFe Nico Pagani. He convinced mister Hymen,
who was the owner, to bring in the Machio Orchestra
on a Sunday matinee.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
Okay, and the place gets packed, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And when you say it was packed a thousand people
so people of color were playing.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Who was packing it?
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Was it white folks, no Latino.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
And this was kind of scandalous to have Latinos in
the middle of a Sunday, in the middle of midtown.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
And now the owners too many. He was very nervous.
Too many blacks, too many blacks. And the greatest saying
that with ever said's statement was said you like black
or green? And his wife said he's right. And they
opened up the Palladium in nineteen forty.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Nine, and this is where the appointe Machito were Pane
and you you actually at that point you were not
up there with Tito, but you did this thing where
you started playing in the spot in front of the police.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
Yeah, I rented the place on Wednesday. What were you doing?
Speaker 1 (12:15):
What do you mean you rented the place on What.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
Was your plan to be able to get into the palladium.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
You couldn't get in there, and I had the hottest
band up in the Bronx.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
You actually you you started renting this place in front.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
It was a river terrace and it was a beautiful
place for you, you know, and I rented it on Wednesdays.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
And you make such a ruckus.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
And then I would say not over there.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
And I finally got into the Palladium in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Wow, you were connecting with audiences that were like, you know,
the black psychedelic crowd from the Parliament Funkadelics.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
You were my concert, right, You were hanging.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Out with San Francisco hippies. You were, in essence, letting
your hair. Do you know your album Harlem river Drive,
you know, is a very big deal.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Calom River Drive brought the CIA in the FBI to
my to my company because and when I becalled Hall
of the Drive, I'm looking to crossover, you know, to crossover,
and I don't cross over. But I have my biggest fans,
and you know who my biggest fans were the anti
government movement called the Weathermen.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
People are calling themselves members of the weather Underground.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Last night plotted bombs and federal office buildings in Washington
and Oaklands, California.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
The Weathermen. They were this group of leftists, super leftist,
militant students, mostly college students.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
And they get raided and they find hanoverver Drive and
here come the CIA. That was the second time, because
the first time I bought the FBI, and that to
him was when I did Mambo concong Is Mosambique. At
that time, Alpha sixty six, that was the first Cubans
(14:12):
that were coming from Cuba accused me of being a communist.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Alpha sixty six in some ways was like the opposite
of the weathermen. I mean, they were doing this stuff
from the right. They were militants, they were putting bombs.
They were Cubans who had left Cuba and moved to Miami,
and they were super anti communist.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Okay, and Kuba was fighting an Angola.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Castro had sent his military, his soldiers to Angola in
order to back up the Socialist party.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
There, and the rhythm Mosambique came out. I carried Mosambique here.
Alpha sixty six threatened all the radio stations that you
play as We're going to blow up the stations.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
That's the first time.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Why are you so political?
Speaker 5 (14:51):
Because I know that every day, every day it's a struggle.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Remember when I was driving nineteen fifty six at the Palladium,
had a little Chevy, I just got married. I suppened
the flying a gas. I had a dollar around me.
They gave me almost four gulets because it was fourteen
cents a gallon. Then I would take to go over
the triborough Bridge at that time, which was a quarter
a quarter till we pay for everything. Now it's can
(15:16):
eventually be twenty five dollars. Okay, So every year things
get worse, it's told in hallow them the drive. All
that message then hallered in the driver every year in
idle hands, and the.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
Hands is really the ones that you know. Out of
my learnings.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
I have a book called The Wonderful Wealth Machine, and
that the gentleman called a goldsmith who said, the law
grinds the poor and the rich rule the law. We
have a problem that is constant. It's an upheaval. That's
why we see all these upheaval problems all over the world.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Hey, we're back, and we're listening to the last interview
I did with Eddie Palmieri in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Let's get back to my conversation.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Your new album is called Sabiduria, which means wisdom. It's
something that I love that word. I love sabi Urdia.
And I'm wondering now. I mean, it's twenty seventeen. You
are still pushing Afro Latin jazz and dance music. So
what is that like for you to be just like, no, no,
I'm still a key with these years, but I'm pushing
(16:58):
this kind of music.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Sally Duda is really an educational CD. It's the greatest
musicians we have in there. From a filidela Fair on
the violin. Then we have a gentleman called Donald Harrison.
Donald Harrison is the greatest alto player coming out of
(17:21):
New Orleans. We have a gentleman called Joe Locke on
vibes excellent place for mallets. And we have mister Bernard
Purdy the drama. They call him Bernard Hit Party. Marcus
Miller did the last album, the Miles Davis one after the.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Other, correct Wisdom over Wisdom.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Every cut has but be called tension and resistance. Tension
and resistance to reach a musical harmonic rhythmical musical climax,
you have to have tension and resistant in all the
competitions that took me years to study. When they I
was listening to the music that was coming out of Cuba,
(18:05):
you know how they excited me in less than three minutes.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
When people think of Latin music, when they think of
self se in fact, they think of it as not
as high brow as jazz. People have this notion that
jazz intellectual.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
So there's not a jazz player.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
All the jazz players put together cannot comprehend when we play, you.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Know, the premiere jazz player. Maybe they wouldn't be able
to play.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
They only want dig Lestice.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
He took channel Posto in nineteen forty seven and they
brought to conga. A lot of the jazz musicians they
want they want the conga. Some said they're taking us
back to the jungle.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
But the conga, the rhythm section that we play, that's
the most exciting rhythmical such and when you use it
with the jazz harmonics like I do, then you have
something unique, you know, something you need because you got
the greatest rhythmic rhythmical pattern and now you've got the
greatest harmonic structures of harmonic structures of jazz.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
So Anie, what what do you think of music today,
I mean, are you are you excited with what you hear?
Speaker 5 (19:14):
Very disappointed? Very sadden.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
You know, the commercial radio only plays from the majors.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
You know, see sad san. The word sad means absolutely
nothing to me. Okay.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
The one who said in the perspective was Tito Puente,
I put sas on my spaghetti.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
Baby. When you use those, all those have their own
proper names.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
It comes from the mad rumba.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
All of what we hear, you know, I damn sung aichangwi.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
All of those rhythms have their proper the name, and
they just put it under one name of Satsa and
then they did Satsa san soir and Satsa Romantica, which
is a disaster.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
It doesn't excite you. You.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
I recommend that if anybody dances that, take two little
pillows they go.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
You got a follow steep each. The couple's going to
fallow sleep while they're dancing. That's how boring the music is.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Give me.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
The only way we can get any music is community radio,
which is the sadness in my heart.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
It is though it is the way I met you
through WKCR, that listening to your music on WKCR so,
so your favorite track from Sabiluria.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
It's one of them, all of them, they all have
and the mess one is the one I wrote for
my wife which she was dying, which is piano solo
is called Life.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
And after I recording it, we both cried together.
Speaker 7 (20:55):
That's oh.
Speaker 5 (21:06):
And she was listening to her on the phone. My
son always called her if she heard it. It's called life.
Got a fool?
Speaker 8 (21:23):
What are you thinking about?
Speaker 7 (21:25):
Oh?
Speaker 9 (21:32):
That was my girlfriend for sixty two years. I'm thinking
back there, I'm thinking about it right there. She told
me it wasn't you have no idea how bless you are.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
People work very hard to buy it by save money
to buy a ticket to go see you play to
What you have to do is be on time always.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Punctuality is class.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Dress as best as you can, look, as best as
you can, do your trills so you can play better.
Unless you got closes it and start with the jokes.
You're a lot a fucking comedian.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Thank you for those words of wisdom and for leaving
that image in our mind.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
And I wish you the very best at what you're doing.
And I'm extremely proud of what you're doing. And whenever
you need me, I'll come back and say.
Speaker 8 (22:41):
Hello, thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
And you made me cry.
Speaker 8 (22:46):
I know you made me cry.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
That was the celebrated pianist and musician Eddie Palmieri. He
passed away earlier this month. He was eighty eight years
old and he rest in peace. But actually knowing Eddie,
he's jamming up there, he is jamming. This episode was
(23:39):
produced by Antonia Serejuido and Marlon Bishop, with help from
Jaquin Coddler. It was edited by Marlon Bishop and mixed
by Stephanie Lebau. The Latino USA team also includes Rosa
Na Guire, Julia Caruso, Renaldo Lanos Junior, Andrea Lopez Grusado,
Ruis Luna, Rodimr Marquez, Julieta Martinelli, Monica, Ralis Garcia, JJ
(24:01):
Krubin and Nancy Trujillo. Bennille Amidas and I are co
executive producers and I'm your host Mariano Hossa. Latino USA
is part of Iheart's Mike Urdura podcast Network. Executive producers
at iHeart are Leo Gomez and Arlene Santana. Join us
again on our next episode. In the meantime, I'll see
you on social media. Dear listener, come on now.
Speaker 7 (24:22):
You know it.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
If you want to skip through the ads and get
to the need.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Of it all, just join fuduo Plus. It's so easy,
you'll be so happy, and you'll be supporting fuduo media
at a time when we really need it. You heard,
I Know's Ben moos Baye.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Latino USA is made possible in part by the John D.
And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Heising Simons Foundation, Unlocking Knowledge,
opportunity and possibilities more at hsfoundation dot org and Agnes
Gund
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