Tito Puente's Drumming with the Mambo King Paperback – November 1, 2000

Written as a three part compendium of knowledge, this volume starts with the history of Tito Puente, moves on to the history of Afro-Cuban music, and wraps it up with too-numerous-to-count examples of timbales rythms, clave & bell parts and more. The accompanying CD has over 50 tracks playing not only the examples of the book, but actual songs from the career of Tito -- some from groundbreaking albums like Puente in Percussion (all percussion band w/bass ala. avante garde Birth of the Cool in jazz), and the original and now world-known "Oye Coma Va" written by Tito & recorded well before Sanata. An extremely well put together package for the player or listener alike as well as the Afro-Cuban music historian and Tito afficionado. Sounds like a strage mix, but this has it all! You won;t be disappointed!

Tito Puente's Drumming with The Mambo King By Jim Payne & Tito Puente. Just as Latin music is just beginning to be felt in the mainstream landscape of music consumers, dancers, students, and aspiring musicians. Tito Puente left us library of music productions, some videos, scholarships, and now a new book/audio package that pulls together the multiple elements of Latin music tempos. This book is more like a dream come true. I remember going to music stores so many times looking for books on Latin music, and guest what; NADA! All that has changed, almost two years in the making, this project was developed with very close involvement from Tito. This book is a must-have for anyone interested in Latin music and its history. Additionally it gives a technical understanding of the rudiments of Latin percussion for the student and layman alike, in Tito's own voice (replete with New York City accent). Each Latin rhythm explained in the book and demonstrated on the CD is followed by a Tito classic which exemplifies the rhythm he is teaching. It is an incredible archive just to have a Tito Puente CD with many of his hits, but this one has the King's voice explaining his rhythms.  And, as always was so important to Tito, one of his last legacies was to provide us with an amazing educational tool that combines musical technique, arrangements and history, --the one lived by the King TITO PUENTE (TP).I can't say enough about the book specially when I see a picture of Arserio Rodriguez and another one of Tito Puente as a Sax-Alto player in the Navy. Then as I scroll through Chapter One the following quote reinforces everything I have been saying about clave in my writings "Every instrument has to abide by the Clave. Stay on the Clave and you'll make it." - TP. Chapter two starts with this quote, "You can even dance to the Timbales without anything else. That's how important they are in the rhythm section. The Timbale player keeps the band together with the Clave." - TP. Clave is so important both for the musician and dancer. Without Clave there's nothing regardless of how many solos or shines one can memorize. This book has thorough explanations and exercises both in writing and audio in the form of the included CD.If all musicians and dancers could digest this basic concept more people would switch to Latin music as the number one choice of musical entertainment; this book explains it very well.

This book along with "The Art of Playing Timbales" by Victor Rendon are the 2 best books a beginner will find on playing the Timbales for Latin music. It covers from the very basics(clave's relationship to the rhythms) to soloing. There are 3 transcribed Tito solos that are worth learning once you've mastered the basics. The biggest problem I've had with the book is the binding. It's very poorly bound and it's falling apart. I do use it a lot as I'm a beginner, but the pages should have been bound a lot better. Other than the poor quality of the binding, the content and CD are very, very good. So I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to master playing Latin music with Timbales. Of course, you should also listen to a lot of recordings. Training the ear is very important for improvisation on the Timbales.