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ORESTES VILATO: From Charanga to Cachao
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All photos courtesy of Rita |
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Orestes Vilato has been playing timbales in clubs, concert halls and recording studios for over 50 years. His music encompasses Cuban charanga music of the 1960s, salsa in the 1970, 1980s with Santana’s Latin rock band and since 1990 Latin Jazz with the Bay Area’s Machete ensemble and now the John Santos Quintet. Featured on over 400 recordings, Vilato has been sampled, imitated, googled and you-tubed more other living timbales player.
Vilató infuses his profound Afro-Cuban rhythmic sensibility effortlessly into the diverse musical landscapes of folkloric and popular Afro-Caribbean music, Latin Rock and Latin JazzOver the years he has teamed up a stellar array of Latin music artists including Celia Cruz, Ruben Blades, Cal Tjader, Eddie Palmieri, Israel “Cachao” Lopez and Carlos Santana. Vilato has also appeared with many contemporary jazz artists including Aretha Franklin, Bradford Marsallis, Paco De Lucia and Lionel Hampton. His unique sound is another reason for his popularity as a sideman. At a recent interview in his He said
“My musical background comes from the danzón and the charanga. The solos in the charangas are very simple but they come out of authentic Cuban musical and rhythmic phrases. I try to play tipica style but I add more notes when I play. It is kind of like writing a letter where I might add more words to my sentences. I try to create a message in the solo while I am playing...“I try to get phrases from all kinds of music not only Cuban music. There are a lot of different drums in the world.—You have tabla drums, Indian drums and djembe drums (from West Africa)..” ”
With his crisply pressed guayabera, meticulously trimmed mustache and sparkling eyes, Vilato is a diminutive, unassuming presence. Most of the time he looks more like a successful accountant than a musical titan. With a career spanning 40 years and including 400 recordings, Orestes always delivers a supercharged polyrhythmic adventure to his devoted audiences of dancers and listeners.
“My sound is the sound of descarga(jam session. In my sound there is more space in the music and the pitch is higher. The sticks that I use are thinner--like the original sticks used in danzón, very thin and made of Cuban or criollized types of wood. The sticks were hand made and sounded like a gunshot—POW! That sound is part of my approach to the music.”
Born in May 1944 in Camagüey, Cuba, Vilato inherited a rich musical tradition from his family. Growing up in a home filled music, musicians and instruments, Vilato absorbed a wide variety of musical genres. At 12, Orestes and his family came to New York and settled in the New York City in a basement apartment on West 69th and Central Park but moved into the Hotel Alamac. Orestes’s first timbales were a gift from his father, won in a neighborhood poker game. Primarily self taught, at age 15, Vilato started playing with Oriental Cubana, a 12 piece big band. A year later, Vilato hooked up with the Belisario Lopez Orchestra, immersing himself the tipica tradition of danzones, boleros and cha cha chas. He went on to play with most influential Latin music ensembles including Charanga 76, Ray Barretto, Típica 73 (considered by many to be the greatest Salsa band) and Santana. From 1975-1979 Orestes lead his own band Vilato Y Los Kimbos produced four albums with Cotique Records, a subsidiary of Fania.
As mentor and icon to musicians all over the world, Orestes remains in high demand. On Thursday night he may play an danzon, with Cachao’s orchestra at San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall, on Friday record a cha cha cha at Fantasy Studios in Berkeleyand on Sunday belt out mambos at an Oakland house party. Even though he has done it all, Vilato's spontaneity and passionate solos, keep the dancers spinning around the floor. I’am sure his best work is just around the corner.
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