Mongo Santamaria

Percussionist who introduced the public to Cuban music

Ramon Santamaria (Mongo Santamaria), percussionist and bandleader: born Havana 7 April 1922; married (two sons, four daughters); died Miami, Florida 1 February 2003.

Long before the passion for World Music, the percussionist Mongo Santamaria introduced the public to Cuban music. At different times, he blended his Latin sounds with jazz, rhythm and blues, and soul. Despite a very productive career, he is best known for the cocktail jazz of his million-selling "Watermelon Man" (1963).

Ramon Santamaria was born in 1922 of African descent in Jesús María, Havana. His grandfather had been a tribal chieftain and had passed the name "Mongo" – which means "chief of the tribes" in Senegalese – on to him. As a child, he played the violin but then became interested in drums. He developed a passion for congas and dropped out of school to play in local bands. He took an interest in American jazz and would play records by Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman.

Santamaria played at the famed Tropicana Club in Havana and established himself with the bands Conjunto Matamoros and Conjunto Azul. He travelled with his cousin Armendo Peraza as part of a dance band to Mexico City in 1948. Two years later, he moved to New York City and saw many of his favourite jazz musicians in concert. He started working with the trumpeter Gilberto Valdés, forming the first charanga band in the city, the Black Cuban Diamonds. Unusually for Latin music, flutes and violins were in the front line.

For three years, Santamaria worked with the King of the Mambo, Perez Prado, and then switched to Tito Puente, where Santamaria and the timbales- playing bandleader created something new and explosive with their fierce percussion. He was part of a Latin jazz album, Changó (1955), which he ranked with his best work.

In 1957 he and another percussionist, Willie Bobo, played on the album Más Ritmo Caliente, by the vibes player Cal Tjader. Puente was angry at the way they had gone behind his back and, as a result, Santamaria and Bobo resigned and teamed up with Tjader, moving at the same time to San Francisco. Tjader was influenced by his new band members, as can be seen on the albums Latin Concert (1958) and Tjader Goes Latin (1960).

In 1958 Santamaria released Yambú, the first of several albums to develop the percussion he had witnessed in Afro-Cuban religious groups and ceremonies. His second album, Mongo (1959), also on the noted Fantasy label, included his composition "Afro-Blue", which became a Latin jazz standard and has been recorded by John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie. Our Man in Havana, also 1959, saw Santamaria investigating his roots back in Cuba, but, following the Cuban missile crisis, Santamaria was no longer able to visit the country.

One night in 1962, only a handful of people attended a badly advertised performance at a Cuban night-club in the Bronx. In order not to waste the opportunity, the guest pianist, Herbie Hancock, played his new composition, "Watermelon Man", and invited the band to join in. Santamaria immediately saw the potential of "Watermelon Man" and added it to the repertoire. It became a US Top Ten hit for Santamaria in 1963 and can now be found on many Lounge Jazz compilations. Although popular, it did not make the UK charts, having split sales with another version by Manfred Mann

Following the success of "Watermelon Man", Santamaria made a series of bright, very danceable albums, often recasting contemporary R&B hits with Latin rhythms. The albums included Watermelon Man (1963), La Bamba (1964), El Soul Bag (1968), Workin' on a Groovy Thing (1969) and Stone Soul (1969). Stevie Wonder's songs are strongly featured, and Santamaria had another US hit with another Motown song, the Temptations' "Cloud Nine" (1969). One of his best tracks from the period is an uninhibited version of "La Bamba" (1964).

Santamaria became a major concert attraction, making two live albums from the Yankee Stadium in New York, and he was constantly exploring Latin rhythms, including the salsa rhythms of the 1970s. He appeared in two documentary films, Our Latin Thing (1972) and Salsa (1976).

In 1975 Santamaria was nominated for a Grammy for the Best Latin Recording with Afro-Indio and in 1976 for Sofrito. He won in 1977 with his album, Amancer ("Dawn"), beating, as it happens, Tito Puente's La Leyenda. Puente was, however, to beat Santamaria in both 1978 and 1983, Santamaria's albums being Mongo à la Carte and Mongo Magic, respectively. Summertime, an album of Dizzy Gillespie and Mongo Santamaria in concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival, was nominated in 1980. However, a disco remake of "Watermelon Man" in 1979 smacked of desperation.

Realising his mistake, Santamaria returned to his Latin jazz roots in the 1980s and he rejoined the Fantasy label group with Mongo Returns (1995). He was still playing with vigour, but by then he had retired from concert performances. In 1999, a double-CD retrospective, The Mongo Santamaria Anthology, 1958-95, was issued.

Santamaria remained a modest man and very proud of his large family.

Spencer Leigh